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!

In other news, Lee's absence in LA is so he can't kung-fu Knob when the villain turns up on Helen's doorstep, isn't it?

I think it’s a bit different in farming to just a standard will. Your children have often already invested careers, time and effort into the family business. They have a need to know the future. It’s not something that being squeamish about is going to benefit the family or the future of the farm.

So helpful of Anna to update us on everything we were wondering about Carole.....

Didn't they say they were going at Christmas though. That's a long wait. I might have completely misheard especially if the air fryer was going.

Brian is not being squeamish: he has stated that he is sorting things out and will let them know when he is ready. He has a nasty decision to make: he might not want to leave his farm to someone he knows to be dishonest, but who else? Ruairi knows frod all about farming, Alice knows very little about farming, Kate is a flake he knows is unfit to look after his farm, and Debbie has stated that she has no interest and her life is in another country. Splitting it between them is not ideal, and anything less than a completely even split would be a seriously bad idea for all sorts of reasons. There is no good answer here. And he knows that whatever he does at least one of the parasitic hangers-on Jennifer's children will make his life hell for it; maybe his best option is to sell the land, take the money and go and live elsewhere leaving no address.

The only one who has invested some of (eighteen years from 2003 to 2021) his career in Home Farm is Adam, and he somewhat blew that by stealing money from the farm, which is why he had to leave. Oh, yes, he made that all Brian's fault for daring not to be happy about having caught him with his sticky little fingers in the till, and flounced because Brian said he didn't really trust him afterwards, but the reason he left was his having taken five thousand pounds to spend on his own house and not replaced it. He seems to have forgotten this awkward fact; it may be that Brian hasn't. (Brian had offered him a loan, which he turned down, preferring to steal instead. That probably makes it rather worse.)

Ok.

I agree @roundcork and @OverArmour.

So many farming wills end up in the courts; they are unusual because it involves land, valuable in itself, plus the business built up on the land, plus the likelihood some of the offspring but maybe not all will have worked the land, with equitable interests abounding.

I know a number of farmers and they’re all very upfront about the ‘next generation’ needing to be planned for. Farming isn’t a one generation type of endeavour, unless you’re talking maybe a little livestock-only smallholding.

Interesting that Adam ‘only’ worked on the farm for 18 years @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime. He does give the impression it is more.

Has the £5000 been returned, do we know for sure either way?

Adam returned the £5000 under duress and only after even Lee had been shocked by his having taken it. (I have a feeling he never got round to telling Ian what he had done, but I might be wrong about that. He certainly presented leaving Home Farm, when he finally got round to telling Ian that he had, as being because he'd had enough of Brian, nothing to do with money.) In order to pay the farm back the unauthorised "loan" he did what he should have done to begin with, took out a bank loan to pay for the rewiring he and Ian were having done for the second time in four years – the first time was after the house was flooded out by the Am rising for what felt at the time like several weeks but was in fact meant to be less than eight hours.

Yes, Adam didn't want to stay in Ambridge and went off to Canada before taking his degree, then to Africa after it. Kenya, I think. He only came back when he'd broken up with his boyfriend and wanted comfort from mummy, as far as I could ever tell, though he claimed it was to support her over Brian having had an affair which resulted in a baby. To be fair, he has lived in Ambridge for more than half his life, but only just and if we don't count having lived in Borchester for the first five years as being not-in-Ambridge.

Hmm there's quite a lot Iain doesn't know isn't there - the stealing and remember what's his face employed by Justin, who transferred to Scotland to get away from steaminess with Adam?

Charlie. I think Ian did find out about Pavel.

In order to distract him from having a go at her about something Helen told Rob about seeing Adam and Charlie having a snog, Jennifer got drunk and for some plot-driven reason felt that she had to tell Rob about Pavel; Rob then waited until Ian and Adam's stag night at The Bull to tell Ian about both under the pretext that he was admiring their "open relationship".

In that case, what was the point of making him a karate teacher? Or was Henwee starting karate the only device they could think of for getting Helen to meet a new man?

I seem to recall a job offer to Adam being rescinded due to his potential employer finding out about the 'unofficial loan' and Adam telling Ian about it (the "borrowing") around the same time? Or am I misremembering?!

Hmm that job he did for a week then left bc the owner was too controlling - or that was his excuse. Yes you might be right. But did he fess up to Iain at that point?

You are spot on! Adam had a job interview with someone and arranged to meet him at a posh pub without having told Ian about it at all; only Ian found out somehow and turned up under the impression that Adam was having an affair, and scuppered the interview good and proper by having a blazing row with Adam. And yes, I was wrong: Ian did find out about the theft!

Monday 26th July, 2021
Adam is trying to buy Ian a drink, while Ian demands the whole story and eventually gets it when Adam tells him he is leaving Home Farm: Ian promptly claims that he has been telling him he ought to leave for years now, while also managing to be angry with Brian that Adam is moving on and looking for a job elsewhere. Adam foolishly admits to Ian in front of Michael that it is not that Brian is sacking him, and explains that he has to leave over the money he borrowed from the farm account. Michael understandably retracts his offer to employ Adam, a self-confessed embezzler, as a farm manager, and leaves them to their quarrel. Adam is furious with Ian, who has caused him to lose his reputation and made it unlikely that anyone will employ him ever again; Ian says that anything Adam has lost today is down to Adam.

He got that job on Monday 16th August, 2021:

The job is at Danforth Barton Farm, 1600 hectares; that's 4000 acres, bigger than Home Farm and Berrow combined. Christian Lancer Boyd, the new owner, wants Adam to start as soon as possible and be a manager who can drive through radical change, as he has done at Home Farm. It sounds ideal. The drawback is that it's on the other side of Felpersham, and Adam is having doubts because of the time involved in the commute.

After taking the job he discovered that Christian Lancer Boyd was both ignorant about farming and didn't accept him as an equal, and walked out on Monday 18th October, 2021 when Christian told him to sack one of the workers and he refused to. I think we were supposed to sympathise with him, but he clearly thought he was the boss and failed to notice that the owner of the farm was; a mistake he had made before.

You're right. About the date, not the noisy air fryer.

What's happened to Adam? He sounds upbeat and happy!!

🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮
Doom
Doooom
Dooooooooooom
Doom stalks the House of Tichenor!
🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮

When Miles said Rob "Is not the man he was" he meant it. Rob is terminally ill.
The exact date of his demise has not yet been revealed.

This prognostication was brought to you by MysticBore™️

Nah mate - I prognosticated termination of Rob yonks ago! (Or at least when Miles brought the ‘changed man’ news.)

But I hope we’re right!

You must have been subconsciously channelling the 🔮!

I can't see them killing off Rob, he's too fruitful a source of future storylines. On the other hand, he might claim he is terminally ill to try to get the court's sympathy and hence access to MySon.

That’s what I was thinking above too - it’s the ‘but he’s dying’ storyline trope.