Archers thread #143: In the Bleak Midwinter, Ambridge Folk Make Moan. Best Christmas ever? Probably not! 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, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd love to be in Jolene's choir , 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.)

Well, we made it through Stir Up Sunday without bloodshed, but poor Ben is now in the grip of psychotic depression. Not going to be a happy Christmas at Brookfield, sadly. When will Jill swallow her pride and go and give him the abject apology he deserves? Would it be a good idea anyway for Ben to see his gran at the moment?

Will Jazzer say yes? I hope so. We could do with a Horrobin wedding to look forward to.

Will Emma and Ed end up in court if they go ahead with this idiotic scheme to nick the logs from Peggy's Folly?

Will the two choirs put on a joint concert at Christmas? I assume so, and also that the BBC will continue to fool nobody by using recordings of what is clearly a really good well-rehearsed established choir, not a scratch choir of half a dozen novices.

Over to you!

Oh Lily is an unpleasant entitled little madam isn’t she? Calling Adil arrogant - ha!

What Alice has is a one-thirteenth share in the profits; I don't think we were ever told that Brian had signed over the land to HFLtd or whatever this nebulous unspecified company with shareholders is.

In 2008 Adam and Debbie, with blackmailing assistance from Jennifer (who has never knowingly supported Brian against either of her children by other people) demanded and got one third of the Home Farm profits each, and were to run sections of the farm enterprise as they chose without reference to Brian, after Brian disgustingly wanted to leave some of his property to Ruairi as well as to Adam, Debbie, Kate and Alice. Jennifer was outraged by this: how dare he want to treat his child the same as her children? (At no time did either of them seem to feel that the children of both of them ought to get a share of the farm rather than a cottage each.) When he died he would leave the house to Jennifer until her death, and the farm split three ways between Adam, Debbie and Ruairi.

When the profits from the farm were divided again in a different way, in 2017, for some reason neither Adam nor Debbie was in the least put out that their share of the profits was to be reduced from one-third each to two-thirteenths each (they got two shares because they were working on the farm; Kate, Alice and Ruairi got one each because they weren't, and Brian and Jennifer got three each). And Brian and his accountant seem not to have noticed that his wife (who never supported him before) would have to support him in any vote if he was to retain any control over his farm.

I have heard nothing about Debbie's shares being reduced to one instead of two when she gave up pretending to have anything to do with Home Farm except as an investment, nor Adam's being reduced to one when he was caught with his hand in the till and flounced off in a megasnit because he had been accused of the theft he had committed.

We did hear Kate worrying when she realised that her cottage (which had previously been given to her as a tax-dodge) was now part of Home Farm and if they got together, Adam and Debbie could have evicted her from it. Alice had no such qualms, and since she seems to have been given not only her own cottage but also Kate's was clearly right not to be worried.

In 2008 Adam and Debbie, with blackmailing assistance from Jennifer (who has never knowingly supported Brian against either of her children by other people)

Why on earth should Jenny undermine her own children with Brian?

Debbie is an Aldridge - can't recall if they went through formal adoption or not but Brian has always regarded Debbie as his daughter. Adam and Debbie have been the key staff developing Home farm and the Hungarian subsidiary. Both have stayed there when other opportunities were available just as David, Pip, John and Tom have all done on their family farms. Its in the expectation of eventually running the business.

Jenny is Brian's wife and business partner, not his housekeeper. She has run his home, family and significant parts of the business throughout their marriage, including running the whole business for the year when Brian was too ill to work. Of course she is entitled to a say in what happens to the estate.

Frankly I don't know many women who would have put up with Brian's philandering, let alone been willing to create a secure home for his son by one of those relationships. Jenny knew full well that a son from whatever source would threaten the girls' and Adam's position on the farm way more than just a fifth child who was female. Of course she was wanting to protect their interests.

Just caught up on last night - my heart!

So glad they have reunited.

About the philandering: the person who was happily having extra-marital affairs first was Jennifer, and I don't mean ones that produced the two children she brought into the marriage.

Brian was made considerably unhappy by her carryings-on with John Tregorran, for instance. So was Carol, who removed him to Bristol to get him away from Jennifer. I don't know many men who would have been happy with their wife making herself the talk of the village and himself the object of pity from everyone who knew them. Even Adam aged thirteen noticed it during his holidays from Sherbourne and was made unhappy by that one.

I don't know whether spending afternoons in a hotel with her ex-husband (dumping her three-year-old on whoever would take her for an afternoon, so that even Peggy got fed up with it) counts as adultery, given that he had been a husband of hers at one point....

The Hungarian farm on which Debbie works is not a subsidiary of Home Farm and never was. It was invested in by a consortium in which Brian had a small share, put onto it by Oliver; he didn't ever own it. He got her a job there because she was, well, related to him; she wouldn't have got it otherwise, because she was completely unqualified for it.

What other opportunities did Adam and Debbie have? Neither of them had the qualifications to walk into a senior position in farming, had Brian not taken them on. I doubt that a 1990 2:1 in Agricultural Economics degree followed by twelve years herding goats in Africa would have got Adam a senior job on a farm in England in 2002, and the first year of a French and English Honours course at Exeter University certainly wouldn't have been viewed as a reason to employ Debbie as a farm manager. Nepotism rules ok. The first time Adam threw a strop and demanded that Brian did as Adam told him to, Bran would have politely given him his cards just as he would have done anyone not Jennifer's son who was such an unpleasant employee.

Yes, that was amazing entitlement wasn’t it ? “I can’t believe that I’m being asked to leave rather than a ….. who has been in Ambridge for only a year” (and isn’t even an Archer)

If they're not an item at some point next year, I'll eat my hat.

At which point we'll all be a bit disgusted by the size of the age-gap between them? She does have form for selecting older men, though.

DO we know how old Adil is?

I don’t think we do, no. We are supposed to think that Lily is mature and wise beyond her years, but that’s as convincing as Helen’s independence and David and Ruth’s apparently stellar parenting skills!

No. But I bet he is early- to mid-thirties not mid-twenties, given his job and the amount of responsibility he clearly has. Lily is now just twenty-three, going on twelve....

I may be unusual but I would have no problem with a 23yo woman having a relationship with a man in his early 30s or even mid 30s. Influenced, no doubt, by the fact that my husband is 6 years older than me and we met when I was 19.

Were we supposed to think anything of Adil’s phone conversation when he was with Lily?

Only that he has a hinterland that will no doubt jump up and bite them on the behind once they get together. Nothing sinister, I’d guess - just the usual family stuff, with perhaps added distance and language. Maybe.

Oddly enough I’d feel quite reassured if Lily goes for another older man. It would at least show consistency in the SWs and the character.

Dead-daddy issues or not, that’s her type. At least she’s an adult now.

Ronny Jhutti, who plays Adil, is 49 but sounds very much younger. In fact he sounds exactly like my lovely GP, who qualified in 2000 so must be around the same age. But based on voice, Adil could be any age. I'd assumed he was around 30.

It sounded almost as though he’s the owner rather than works for the owner but thought it might just have been badly worded.

Do you mean reverting to his mother tongue? I just assumed he was talking to his mother and didn't want anyone listening in. Fairly normal behaviour. Like walking into a shop in Wales in the 80s.

No, the bit where said ‘it keeps me in with the locals, or they’d all be out to get me after taking over the hotel’ and I thought he was just an employee vs the hotel owner. It’s probably just semantics but was curious that they’d include the conversation at all.

Oh - I see what you mean! I’d forgotten that aspect of the story, or at least, pretty much accepted that we will eventually find out he’s the new owner. So I only answered in the context of his potential relationship with Lily.

Don’t know …

Er did we know Lily was a concert standard soloist?

And Adil was lead soloist at school. Who knew?

It's Hazel, I tell you!

They're really laying it on thick about Jennifer.

😶

Goodness - who was it above worried about the amount of praise being heaped on Jenny?

Sounding positively like a memorial service now …