Archers thread #151: A Fête worse than death or a reverse ferret? Helen’s got the Borsetshire Blues, Tom’s talking shiitake, George is a rotten apple. 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 Helen and Tom would do well on Dragons' Den, 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.)

Thanks to @OverArmour for various title ideas! I would have liked to incorporate the suggestion from @Fleetress, which was

‘Do do one Ron, Ron, do do one Ron’

(Rob is Ron for many on this thread now)

Possibly a bit obscure for newer posters, though!

Anyway: we got through that last thread in no time at all. Combined effect of Rob and George, I suspect. I wonder if Rob will have made it to Ambridge by the time we need a new thread. I'm still waiting for Pat's shotgun to feature. That can't have been mentioned for the first time ever for no reason at all.

Over to you!

I'm happy to suspend economic belief to allow Ian his pizza place. But once he has it, I hope the new Business Realism which seems to be emerging in the scripts will apply there, as well as to Bridge Farm.

Plus he's married to a farmer, and the Ambridge climate seems not to be bucketing down like everywhere else, so Adam's busy harvesting. We never had summer holidays, because either you're harvesting, or waiting for the rain to clear for long enough to harvest, ideally without needing much drying, in between sorting out directions for grain lorries (at least there's satnav these days,) and anything like broken gear boxes, punctures, etc.

This is a terrible time for the restaurant business, isn't it? Who would choose now to open a new restaurant? I boggled at that.

Wow they're really laying it on thickly with George's psychopathy! He can't connect with anyone and is always acting a part- are we leading up to some kind of massacre from a tractor cab?

Yeah, I wonder where they are going with this. The revelation that Neil had always struggled to warm to him was interesting.

Ed also seemed dubious as well.

Ian can’t exactly have been a dazzling success as Head Chef given that he wasn’t even on the shortlist for Head of Food the first time round and has only been offered the gig now the original first choice is out of the picture. Maybe not applying had something to do with it

Neil has had the advantage of watching George manipulating his parents from about age three; it's easier to notice this behaviour from a slight remove than really close to.

Ed was one of those who was manipulated , and may have realised in the end that George kept his and Will's enmity well stirred up using for instance Holly as his tool.

(Whatever happened to Holly, the poor little child's Christmas present dog? She will be ten this year.)

Maybe not applying had something to do with it

If he was that great they would have headhunted him and invited him to apply.

So are we bracing ourselves for snide homophobic comments aimed at Stella?

Why?

It’s an unpopular opinion on MN but some children are unlikeable or at least very difficult to warm to. Neil is also very perceptive and obviously saw George’s true colours from a young age. Ed now sees it too.

Id like to know what George is up to. Also his mum is quick to forget he called her a slag or words to that affect.
Im sorry about Weaver but it seems the whole village is in morning.
Stella sounds like a hard woman but I would be pissed off if Alistair went on about Home Farm and the cherry orchard when he was suppose to be apologising.
Its nice to hear the rest of the cast instead of Helen and Tom for a change but I bet that wont last.

Neil is a very good judge of character. Ed and Emma are assessing their son's offer to help out without remuneration by normal people's standards, not realising they have a psychopath on their hands.

Even more important than money to George is the opportunity to wreak revenge on Stella. The female who humiliated him.

Having said that, am not sure what he thinks he's going to achieve with the offer to drive the tractor for harvest thus enabling Brian to insist she take some time off to grieve the dog.... he can't think he's going to end up with her job, can he?!

Yes it does seem like Weaver's death is all anyone talks about!

(Adam not Alistair, @Reggieismycat.)

Did Stella humiliate him? I thought that was Hannah - or did Stella do something too?

@CaptainMyCaptain that's what I was wondering too. Was it something I'd missed or forgotten about?

Agree that the Weaver thing is verging on being a bit OTT and I hope it's not dragged out for too long. He was an animal and a beloved pet. It was very sad. Been there myself from time to time. But you get on with life. I'd think people working in a farming community especially would be pragmatic about this. Maybe the SWs are just looking for a way to put George (literally) in the driving seat to be horrible to Stella and wreak more havoc?

Yeah I found it odd. Farmers love their dogs but they are often pragmatic about the death o lf animals.

Oh apologies I've done the thing I often do and mixed up Hannah and Stella in my head!!!

So what IS George up to, then???

Ive just done the same with Alistair and Adam @ JanglyBeads.🤷‍♀️

@WitcheryDivine because Stella is a woman and I think we know she is gay, and if we are going down the incel route with George, who can't help but make snide comments, I can see her being a target.

Also it's an opportunity for Ed to see more of his true colours in that regard. That's what I was thinking (I am frequently wrong).

Maybe his plan is to try and force Stella out of her job.

I agree. Our neighbour’s dog was sadly run over by one of our contractors and neither of them told us for weeks, it was just one of those things.

I lost you all!
weaver :(

@Ginmonkeyagain I can't help thinking this might be a long term plan George has in his head. Make himself somehow indispensable, work his way into being some kind of asset for Home Farm, begin to put Stella down and tell everyone he could do the job as Farm Manager better than she can. I don't think he will succeed, not in the short term anyway, but that's (to my mind) the coldly, arrogant thinking he may have in mind.

It could run and run....

George also has a wildly over-inflated view of his own capabilities and ideas of grandiosity which will surely come back to bite him. Big time.

I wouldn’t go so far as to borrow the 🔮 but I’ll make a modest prediction that he’ll do something foolhardy that will leave nobody in any doubt as to his badness (and hopefully vindicate Neil, one of the few characters I consistently like).

I find it astonishing that two large functioning farms now seem to be reliant on the labour/goodwill of a psychopathic teen. Both should have a network of casual labourers who they call upon when they need to.