Archers thread #145: The glue that held the Aldridges together is gone. Will they fall apart? 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, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it.

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.)

Lillian and I both made the glue observation, so I thought that would be as good a way as any to kick off this new thread. We raced through the last one, for obvious reasons. This one may last until the funeral. Will Tamsin Greig find time to attend? I do hope so.

The poem Jennifer quoted in her journal is here: www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43775/rabbi-ben-ezra It's doubtful whether the last of Jennifer's life was the best, but she had plenty to contend with all the way through.

Over to you!

Having been away for several days I've just done a big catch-up. So much that doesn't ring true: Kate's sudden shift to re-wilding, though she did make that application for the job a while back, so that was the SWs at it. Ruairi. Never understood what his function as Julianne's escort could be, he could surely look no more than arm candy, after all how old is he? What figure could he cut in this world? As for his distraught state, unbelievable. Literally.

I don't think Kate is really getting back into re-wilding. I think she's going to jump ship again to go off on some 'crusade' or other.

I think Ruairi contacted Alice because he has no one else. No uni friends, no Mum. Alice knows about Julieanne, but also she bothered to come to find him before, she tried to communicate with him when he came back to Ambridge.

Another thing I found odd was Ruairi's eagerness to go to an event (was it the dinner?) where another guest grew up ten miles from Ambridge and is planning to return there. Suggesting ongoing contacts. Unless R actively wants everyone back home to know all about the Julianne set up, which is possible.

Not the first time the SWs have ignored the way rural information-exchange networks operate.

I'm so sick of the ruari julianne storyline. It's so absurd.

Absolutely agree that it’s a ridiculous storyline and I hope that was the end of it, but I suspect it wasn’t given that the two of them were being interviewed recently on Radio4 about the “exciting storyline” in store. Was that meant to refer to…gestures wildly..this?!

What I don’t get, is Rauri doing a university course. Is he really?

I keep asking that. I don’t think he is.

I don’t believe he’s still at university, if he ever was.

Something months back gave me the impression that maintaining decent grades was part of the deal with Julianne, but I could be imagining that. If she was presenting him as her PA, having an education might be desirable. Though she could always hire a graduate. Some of them are very young.

Back to Kate, I really enjoyed the way she was saying to Jakob how she was dealing with everything really well and grief wasn't effecting her like the others, then went straight into tearing apart all the things she's built up, trying to recapture the spirit of her youth from her mother's photo.

It's nice to see the family handling it in different ways. Like how Tony is appreciating being needed for his grandchildren.

I love watching them heal through time working the land, and time with the next generation (esp Lillian.) (And of course a hair cut! Which is always a great way to reset.)

I’d assumed she was introducing Ruairi as an intern rather than a PA? (Someone in a learning role rather than actually being permanently useful. But I have no idea.)

Quite happy to believe he is still enrolled at university - but, apart from Alice at Southampton on Ambridge Extra (and I remember nothing about that at all) the SWs have always shied away from verisimilitude regarding university life. They prefer people to do no actual studying / fail / creep back to Ambridge, tail between legs … It’s very strange; brief, relevant depictions of university life are hardly going to alienate a Radio 4 audience.

That’s a lovely observation, @suzyscat .

Given that Ruairi seems to need to be at Julianne’s beck and call at the drop of a hat, I’d sort of assumed that the university thing had now become a fiction. She doesn’t like any excuses for him being unavailable and ‘I have to finish a paper for my tutor because there’s a deadline on Tuesday’ wouldn’t cut it with her.

If they have an arrangement where his working hours are defined I can't see why it would be more of a problem that any other student job - maybe less so since a lot of his labours would be at meals or in bed, where he'd be at those hours anyway. He'll be missing out on the social mixing with people of his own age, but not necessarily on the basic academic stuff.

Totters, intern does make - of not more sense, then at least less nonsense than PA.

Didn't Julianne mention getting him a real internship with one of her v. v. important and influential contacts? This would have been a while back. I agree though - the arrangement as it stands (or stood) is quite ambiguous for public purposes. And all those corporate lunches/dinners are dull, dull, dull at any age.

Yes. Ruairi was very pleased he had sorted out his own internship and she told him off saying it wasn't prestigious enough blah blah blah and she could get him a much better one. Keeping him reliant on her.

The only way this makes any kind of sense* is if two things are true: 1) Julianne has a reputation for being an absolute man eater and that's part of her public image, that she always has a gorgeous younger guy running after her (maybe she used to have this for free but now pays for it) 2) Ruairi looks like Douglas Booth did at a similar age i.e. very handsome and could be anywhere from 18-26.

The arrangement would presumably be that he organises his work around his commitments to her. After all, a student with a bar job won't last long if he doesn't turn up whenever he has an essay deadline.

I would have thought the internship with friend is on the basis that he continues working for a degree. A non-graduate presumably wouldn't get a look-in.

*look you and I both know it doesn't make sense, but these two things would help.

I think R rang Alice as she thought Julianne was his girlfriend and (it turns out) so did he, so she'd treat it as a really harsh breakup. Ben knows the truth and would treat it as R losing a job.

R rang Alice because she's the only human who has consistently tried to show up for him now that his mother is dead. Adam may have done in the past but he's done nowhere near as much as Alice more recently. He could have rung Ben but they've been more distant recently and Ben's had more than enough on his plate, and he probably feared Ben would say I told you so.

I do believe he's still at uni, but has probably been doing the bare minimum including attendance. No friendship network, now no income or lodgings. For all that I think he's behaved awfully I do remember being a naive young adult his age and I feel for him, having put all his eggs in the Julianne basket.

I don't get why the SW did it as a woman taking advantage of a younger man. It seems like a misplaced flag for equality, but I don't genuinely believe it happens this way round, whereas I do believe older men like younger women arm candy and it's more convenient to pay than to woo and treat properly 🙄 an older man doing it to him would also have been more believable, but I guess the SW shied away for fear of homophobia accusations.

You're right that would have been a better story. I have also read of cases like this with a lesbian "sugar" situation. Never read a straight one this way round. Not least because it's probably not very hard for Julianne to get a young, ambitious, hot partner if she wanted one.

Good riddance to Julianne.

I thought the message was she didn’t do ‘emotional support’ (aka commitment/ long term relationships) so she just wanted a transactional relationship.

It’s true Ruairi’s naïveté is … probably realistic, but still, so frustrating. Lily is only 3 years older - why did he refuse to learn anything from her abortive first attempt at university, shackled to a needy, much older partner? I guess we do all think, when young, that our particular situation is different and special.

I don't think we've heard the last from Julianne. Maybe Ruairi will turn into a bunny boiler, not that I think Julianne is the type to have a pet rabbit.

Alice will not realise that Julianne isn't Ruairi's much older girlfriend, we'll need Ben to explain to her what's really going on. There's the possibilty of the vet nurse being Ruairi's knight in shining armour.

I don't think he ever thought Julianne was his girlfriend. It was purely a transactional relationship for him, too, but it gave him the lifestyle he wanted and he also probably wanted his normal routine to carry on after Jenny's death. Plus, of course, if he's spent all the money Brian gave him he's panicking at the thought of losing his source of income.