Archers thread #155: Cold Comfort Farms! The rural sagas continue. Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

FILL THE OLD THREAD UP FIRST! https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4902507-archers-thread-154-cider-with-fat-rosie-meadow-rise-to-candleford-or-the-darling-horrobins-of-september-get-your-rural-saga-fix-discuss-the-archers-here?page=10

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'd like to hear more scenes in the abattoir, 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.)

Lots of lively discussion about Brad's university aspirations and the Open Day on the last thread. Do you want him to end up at Felpersham or do you want him to spread his wings and go further afield? Where will Mia go?

Will this thread see the end of Rob, or do we have many weeks more before his long overdue demise?

What's going on at Grey Gables? Are they running into financial trouble? Will we hear from Roy, who I had forgotten was working there until he was mentioned the other day? Who are the mysterious 'Owners'? Will the locum GP turn out to be Adil's sister, as we have been surmising since she first spoke? Why's she been conjured up?

Talking of the GP, I'm hoping against hope we're not in for bad news about Jim's mole.

Praying that we're going to get a long and much-needed break from hearing P*p. Not praying that we hear Rob being christened. Who would be his sponsor, as someone commented on the last thread? Harrison? Surely that would be a conflict of interest. Can't see who else would do it locally.

I wonder how Ben is getting on now he's back on his nursing degree? Will we ever hear anything about Lily's course, or how Freddie's getting on at the abattoir?

So many questions! Over to you for some answers and boundless speculation.

So true, re modern Christmas shopping, @MereDintofPandiculation !

I prefer real shops to online shopping too. I miss Underwoods.
People used to bump into each other a lot in Jaxx, now it's the Tea Room.

Oh yes, I used to cough for Walter Gabriel every time I heard him.

Exactly this!!!!
Adil was employed by the partners to do a job.
Adil has failed to do that job well.
Oliver has done what was required of him presumably?
The 'partners' need to be responsible for their representatives failures.
Unless the partners explicitly tasked Oliver with managing Adil and being accountable for all his work (unlikely?!) then this whole silly plot has got even sillier!
Surely Oliver would prefer to sell all or part of his stake in GG rather than sell the house?
Either way selling the house will take months and months.
Presumably he'll remortgage or get some kind of bridging loan.
Poor Oliver, he used to have a life of leisure in Italy, surely he's finding this all just too much work for what benefit?

Having calmed down a bit with some restorative outdoor garden work….OK, maybe Oliver was stupid/desperate enough to enter into a deal that made him jointly and severally liable for any and all failures yadda yadda yadda….but - really? He’s generally a sensible-ish sort of cove*. I know he was trying everything not to sell GG completely but would he really be daft enough to put himself on the hook for that sort of amount? I thought the whole point of the deal was that he could finally relax knowing that GG would at least continue in some form, though he'd no longer be the majority owner.

*Mind you, he's dim enough to believe that Adil had to leave for a 'family emergency' so 🤷‍♀️

I agree that the whole GG thing just became even more unlikely. I'm sure Oliver would have had legal advice on the sale agreement so it's nuts to suggest that he would be liable for the mysterious partners' choice of manager, to say nothing of their choice of architect, kitchen designer, interior designer and contractors - let alone their total failure to supervise their manager. He really needs to play hardball and tell them that it's entirely their mess to sort out.

Have just had a thought. As a sewist and an Archers listener i have just realised that there is a small company making patterns called Tilly and the Buttons. And that George was expecting a visit from Tilly Button.

Hmmm.

Ha! That’s very true, Brefugee. Never realised that, despite having made some of her patterns!

😄 The real Tilly (Tilly Walnes) was a competitor on (I think) the second GBSB. She didn't win but went on to run a successful business off the back of it. I don't think she'd be interested in George.
Tilly Walnes https://g.co/kgs/8muvXA

i don't remember her from the sewing bee. Must check!

Tilly Walnes got known in 2010; I wonder when Tilly Button was first mentioned in TA!

Having checked: she sat silently reading a book in the umpire's room at the cricket in May 2011.

Come to think of it, Tilly and the Buttons was Tilly Walnes's fairly well-known blog (among the, ahem, 'sewist community') before she appeared on the GBSB.

So, neither Lilian nor the dappy dipso has ever had to deal with horses + fireworks before? Pull the other one.

Her blog says that she started it in 2010.

Nobody in Ambridge ever sets off fireworks. Except for the massive bonfire and fireworks party on the green every year, which is rather closer to The Stables than Manorfield Close is. Incidentally, Manorfield Close is half-a-dozen dozen retirement bungalows; I wonder why someone there is holding a massive firework party.

If I had been them I would have risked the enormous charge for a telephone call to That Furrin and rung Shula in Sunderland to ask her what she has done in previous years.

That's what I thought. They were running round like headless chickens as if fireworks had just been invented. I would have expected them to know what precautions to take.

It's funny how it is always someone else's horse that is there at livery that gets injured/slashed/poorly looked after! If I had a pony or horse and lived near Ambridge I would look at The Stables' record and board my nag elsewhere.

As a sewist Is that how you avoid using the alternative term with an er on the end, like gardener, potter

Are you a regular TA listenist, @MereDintofPandiculation ?

Is it The Archists?

("sewer" looks like the pipes that take waste water away
I'm not a designer, a tailor or any of the sewing professions and nor am i a needlewooman. Sewist does just fine)

I loved the Lee Henry scene on Friday, and i just want to punch Helen tbh.
Oliver . meh. The scriptwriters have written an absolutely unbelievable, unrealistic GG story. It is hugely annoying.

Yep, pretty much 😅

Just checked back and T and the B's first blogpost was on 1st Jan 2010. She was in the first series of GBSB in 2013.

Back to TA…How utterly ridiculous to try and expect us to believe they’d never had to cope with fireworks every single year. And not just around Bonfire Night either - what about New Year? That sounds like the Somme round here.

I know she’s under pressure, but Helen was totally unlikable in today’s episode. And she’s committed a Mumsnet crime by moving her boyfriend in with her kids and then changing her mind about five minutes later, when they’re already going through trauma.

I’m also way over my acceptable quota of animals receiving traumatic injuries on the The Archers over the last couple of months.

Yeah the Stables story is ridiculous!!

Also, why did Ian or Adam stand around wondering what on earth was the matter with Helen, when they know what she's going through (altho presumably the church graffitist is not known outside the immediate family)?