Archers thread #148: Unseasonably, it's panto time in Ambridge. He's behind you, Pat! BANG. 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. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you think George Grundy isn't a psychopath, 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.)

Will Rob return, or are they playing with us? Will Pat run amok with her shotgun and wipe out half the village? (We can but hope ...) Will Oliver come to his senses and turf the Grundy clan out of Grange Farm? So many questions, so much time.

Over to you!

Isn't it? He thinks he looks the business is his outfit - which to be fair he does!

Freddie neatly demonstrating the Trustees pov there!

BOOP for Freddie. He so often seems mired in superficiality, but hearing him distressed is always surprisingly affecting.

I do wish he could get out and have some life. Time for him to join up with Noluthando for the grand adventure they never got to embark on.

I agree, a second BOOP from me. I have mixed feelings about him in general but I actually had to wipe away tears tonight at the end. He has been the one asking for experience so that he'll be ready to take over, and has done everything suggested, but it just isn't good enough for them. He wasn't always an immediate success (micromanagement at the Orangery, for example), but he's really trying his best. Maybe the trustees are right and he's not ready yet, but they should be suggesting a course he can do, or another similar set up he can shadow the owner in, not just making him wait until he's older. I note that, as per a pp's suggestion upthread, Elizabeth finally mentioned some training for him. A bit late.

How long can they withhold the inheritance from him, legally? I thought 25 was the maximum, that's why there's such a thing as an 18-25 trust. There must surely be some legal limit, they can't keep saying to a 40 year old 'you're not ready yet'. Any legal experts out there?

"broken his back"? It's been 2 or 3 tears. And most of that he's been whining.
I'd hope they could give it all to Lily instead

I haven't heard the recent episodes, but I want Freddie to be properly trained and given a chance.

As others have said above, he has suffered from being the 'thick' twin with ever so sensible and clever superior Lily outshining him / putting him down. No one seems to have bothered putting him onto a proper career direction. It isn't surprising he has poor judgement, no one seems to have bothered including him. OK maybe he could be self directed on this, but many young people need a steer to get them going.

Oh noes he has to work a bit longer before he gets his massively unearned wealth and job. Compared with people like Chelsea and Brad who are studying and working he sounds like an entitled little prick.

he has suffered from being the 'thick' twin with ever so sensible and clever superior Lily outshining him / putting him down it's even more than this though isn't it? (Though I'm sure @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime will be able to clarify this point). Lily did nothing to stop Freddy continuing to deal drugs because she didn't want him to reveal her affair with Russ. If Lily had spoken to Elizabeth straightaway there's a chance Freddy might have stopped sooner and never gone to prison. Yes, he ruined his own life, but she was quite happy for him to do so as long as she and Russ could continue their sordid affair. I don't understand why Freddy hasn't done a course in estate management, but the idea that Freddy has been breaking his back trying to prove himself is frankly rather laughable. He has a charmed life from where I'm listening.
Actually I just had a thought, could Lily have slashed the painting to try and further undermine Freddy in a bid to seize control?

Interesting idea! (Lily being the culprit)

Freddie just sounds like a spoiled whinging rich-boy to me.
He needed a much much firmer hand growing up.

I'm sure last time the spectre of the Trustees was raised Lizzy was implying they could stop him inheriting at all. Lord knows how that works.

I think they're preparing for him to do a Prince Harry and say fuck it, let Lily have it. As previously discussed on here isn't she doing the course he ought to be doing?

Funny to think of it but I don't ever recall any chat about Lily's career? She could be in the army or becoming a circus performer or anything but it seems to be assumed that her work will always be at LL.

Isn’t it quite bad that Lizzie is complicit in a lie being told to the trustees? It actually seemed as if Freddie is being sacrificed to cover up Lizzie’s negligence of failing to oversee removal of the painting.

if Freddie doesn’t inherit in 2 years then will things simply trundle on as before with her continuing at the helm? Presumably that would suit her very nicely, I’m sure.

They both sounded completely incompetent tbh.

I still think it's extremely unlikely that there'd be this kind of inquisition about damage to a painting which - realistically - no one thinks was anything other than an accident although I'm still sticking to my Neil psychotic alterego theory.

The question does indeed seem to me to be whether it was in fact not Elizabeth but Freddie who lied to Brandon, and he did it to cover up the fact that his mother had done nothing to oversee the removal of the painting but simply rung up their usual contractors (how often do they remove paintings to storage?) and told them to shift it. I have two reasons for thinking this: one, until she rang him and asked she didn't know whether Mr Larson and his lads might have damaged it, nor apparently how many of them there had been; two, she did not accuse Freddie of having made a mess of the oversight the moment she discovered the damage to the painting. The latter would surely have been her automatic reaction as part of her "when in doubt blame Freddie" habit.

but the whole thing is bonkers. They got their usual movers to do it. Elizabeth is the manager - nobody checked the painting being moved: it IS her fault, as manager. Not in a "covering up for Freddie" way, but as the one who is ultimately responsible for everything at LL.

How do they appoint trustees? Brandon really was rubbish at his job.

Totally agree. It has accident written all over it, I mean how often do the owners of big country houses really go around slashing their own paintings, even ones they hate? And it was her responsibility. Just because he was there, doesn't make him the legal owner/manager does it. IN fact the whole point of the chat was that he isn't, yet.

Love the idea that his views on the painting would have him watching the movers taking it, maybe shouting "go on drop it, no - drop it a bit more!"

That's not going to turn out to be an embarrassed wrong number, is it......

Well I’d like to boop rylan. I thought he was great! Infinitely less wooden than most celeb cameos. I thought he was great!

We'd already predicted the Rylan plot though.

And he sounded a lot more Sarf Lahndan in Ambridge than he has this week on the Eurovision semis.

(Yes, I've been watching)

I don’t really care if “we” predicted the plot. Plot twists and high drama really isn’t what is listen to TA for. I just want to enjoy it, see how he got on. I enjoyed it.

He sounded Essex to me. I’ve live there for 30 years(though not from there - closer to Abridge in fact). It was convincing to me. We all have versions of our accents don’t we?

Place marking as slightly behind.
I've just heard the start of Freddie and the painting.

@BitOutOfPractice so good you booped him twice!! Haven't listened yet. I'm saving it!

I've never heard Rylan other than YouTubing him last week, and agree he had good, natural delivery. Also agree the whole painting malarkey as handled by that trustee was silly - Elizabeth is responsible because she's the manager.

Nice cliff hanger.

No agenda for the trustee meeting?
Suddenly springing the stuff about doubting Freddy on the both of them at the meeting? Had Freddy not been there, would Elizabeth have had to break it to him afterwards?
Why shouldn't Freddy attend the meetings as a matter of course, even if he can't decide anything?

I hated the Rylan stuff.

Sorry, had a bad day

My point about Rylan's accent was that the accent he used in the Archers was more exaggerated than the one he is using as a Eurovision presenter. As if he was acting a caricature of himself.

I don't listen to him on the radio so don't know what his natural delivery is like.

He's an adult. He could have thought about getting some management training for himself, no-one would have stopped him. It's always been pretty ridiculous that he went from helping out in the kitchens at GG to management at LL - staff with infinitely more experience than him must have been rolling their eyes.