Archers thread #140: Changing rooms at Brookfield with Leonard Llewellyn-Bowen, or saving souls with St Smugula in the heathen wastelands of the North? Discuss The Archers here!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you think a stained glass window marking the birth of newborn twins is just what Ambridge needs, or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Title composed in haste, making use of @Octothorpe's lovely coinage of Leonard Llewellyn-Bowen and @TheLassWiADelicateAir's terrific description of St. Smugula's mission to the heathen wasteland of far flung Sunderland, both from the last thread

I've abandoned the use of an emoji in the title, having been alerted by another thread recently to the fact that it makes it difficult for people with visual problems to use assistive software.

I won't say much more about The Archers, as I'm still feeling extremely jaundiced about the programme at the moment. Fingers crossed it takes a turn for the better over the next few days. It was good to hear Helen, Lee and Joy again tonight. Less delighted to hear the loathsome George. What a numpty not to recognise pheasant chicks! His Dad would be far from impressed.

Over to you!

I would prefer that Mick isn't bad, but if he is would it be too much to hope that Helen would recognise warning signs?

I quite like the notion that Rochelle died tragically at a young age and Joy has kept a shrine to her ever since, and believes she lives on but far away with her imaginary children, kept apart by a cruel misunderstanding.

I enjoyed that, it was reminiscent of Martin Crieff asking someone on a date to Duxford Air Museum.

You have to be in education or training, and George was proposing to do neither. I know the chances are no-one will ever do anything about it if he packs it in, but someone should at least be able to point out that what he's proposing isn't legal.

HRH Princess Theresa of Liechtenstein?

But Education and Skills Act 2008:

1. This Part applies to any person who is resident in England and who—

(a) has ceased to be of compulsory school age, (b) has not reached the age of 18, and (c) has not attained a level 3 qualification (see section 3).

1. (1) A person to whom this Part applies must—

(a) be participating in appropriate full-time education or training (see section 4), (b) be participating in training in accordance with a contract of apprenticeship, or (c) both— (i) be in full-time occupation (see section 5), and (ii) participate in sufficient relevant training or education in each relevant period (see sections 6 to 8).

(2) For the purposes of this Part, a person who is in full-time occupation is to be taken to be participating in sufficient relevant training or education at any particular time if—
(a) arrangements have been made (whether by means of enrolment on a course or courses, or otherwise) for the person to receive sufficient relevant training or education during the current relevant period, and
(b) where the arrangements call for the person to be participating in training or education at the time, the person is so participating.

It's true that there are no legal penalties for non-compliance, but it's still the law.

I did enjoy Mia laughing at what a loser George would be if he proposed to go through life lurching from scam to scam like his most useless relatives.

He sounds like he’d be cruel to animals, somehow!

@Novum but how is it enforced? If there's no enforcement then realistically what's the point of it? In my experience, nobody checks or cares.

Do you really think telling a 16/17 year old George that they're breaking the law would or should make any difference?

Sorry!!! I realise that I feel a little over sensitive about school leavers!! I left school and home when I was 16 and I was ok. It was right for me as I was sick of it all.

The idea I realise was to make sure 16-18 year olds get training. But they way it was presented and to say to a child it's against the law, puts it on the child. Which makes me sad.

Clearly college isn't for George so some kind of apprenticeship is an option. But what if there aren't any decent ones (so many are bullshit and borderline scams). What if he can't get accepted onto an apprenticeship. To make that all the child's fault, to say they are breaking the law feels pretty low to me.

I realise I'm probably over sensitive about that.

I agree I don't think it is like 'breaking the law'. The LA might try to assist, but the only 'penalty' that I can see is loss of child benefit.

The 'problem' with vocational courses is there is still fair bit of writing, at whatever level of course (do we know whether George is doing a L3 or a L2?). If even more could be assessed verbally George might get on better.

One of the problems my DD has is remembering what to write about. If her knowledge could be extracted by question and answer sessions with them prompting 'why' or 'what else' she would get on much better.

There are no GCSEs left any more for pupils who are weak at writing, even drama, food tech, PE, art have large written content and for various reasons schools offer fewer BTECs than in the past.

By the way, the government's new T Levels won't make this any better, only worse.

Who on earth would want to employ George?

George could get a job at the indoor pig place whose name I forget.
Or maybe Rex has spare work for an apprentice.
Or Home Farm?

There may well be loads of farms around who'd happily have a 16yo on minimum wage to do basic work than pay full rates to Ed or Eddie.

Kept busy enough he might turn into a sound worker.

I have also wondered this.

@TeenDivided , Berrow Farm.
I think he'd be too difficult to manage.

Maybe Rochelle is imaginary.

I would wonder that too about Rochelle but don’t think the SWs will resist landing her on us as a Steph Casey type character at some point.

I have a feeling that a lot of the writing team probably watched Clarkson's Farm on Prime Video. Maybe they have in mind that he will become Ambridge's answer to Caleb (except Caleb wasn't completely obnoxious). It would have worked well if the Gills had bought some farmland with their house.

If dyslexic Johnnie hadn't moved into the cereal cupboard I think he would have been helping George.

There was something very ominous about Mick‘s interaction with Lee. First I thought he was going to get Lee to cough up for a new pump, then it felt like he was going to steal some of his tools. I do hope he’s not going to turn out to be an off-line version of the Tinder Swindler though that would actually be quite an interesting SL, so bound to be sidestepped by the SWs in favour of something much less likely but hilarious. Joy’s not silly so hopefully she will just have a near miss and almost lose her house/savings rather than actually lose everything and end up like Auntie Cardboard on her uppers in the cereal cupboard.

Is George handsome? I don’t imagine him to be but now he’s telling us he’s a smash with the girls so have I got that wrong?

Brad is definitely not good-looking. Nice, kind, quirky etc, but definitely not a looker.

But then Mere isn’t either at the moment- too thin and drippy though she might grow into her looks eventually.

In practice you dont though
If you have an income then there is no system to make you be doing training.

I thought his comment about the tools was because ALL Lee's tools were in one bag whereas Mick expected a (real) man to have a whole shed full. Luckily Lee's one bag contained just the tool he needed.

I'll reserve judgement on whether he's a bad 'un. Perhaps his purpose in the plot is to elicit the truth about Rochelle.

Maybe they’d just got all the “fun” they could put of Joy popping in on people.

I was imagining Brad a bit like my first sixth form crush - incredibly skinny and tall with blue eyes, terrible clothes and no clue about anything other than physics. But dorkier (punching a gate!).

Is George handsome? I don’t imagine him to be but now he’s telling us he’s a smash with the girls so have I got that wrong?

Not in my head, though his mother is meant to be.

He was hardly going to say, "I don't know anything about girls, they all give me a big swerve," especially not to Brad. Him saying he's a hit with the girls tells us nothing about the reality of it.

I hated last night's episode - it didn't sound like TA at all - not a single animal sound, burst of birdsong, tractor revving, click of change counting, hum of the tearoom or indeed anything to indicate the action was taking place in Ambridge. To a random listener who chanced upon it while turning the dial on their radio (do such radios even still exist?) it could have been any old radio drama (a slight boop here for Brad's performance) and a tedious one at that. Repairing a hot tub and the ins-and-outs of teenage dating do not an everyday story of country folk make - and yes I know TA is no longer using that tag, but I think it would be better if they were.

Every single thing that’s revealed about a new facet of George’s personality is like another tick on the checklist of 'people you most want to avoid'. The latest being my suspicion that he’s already a creepy sex-pest with all the girls.

Brad, OTOH, seems sweet and funny and gives me strong 'Gregory's Girl' vibes.