Archers thread #157: How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless clan! Discuss The Grundys here. Bicker about The Archers as well if you like.

[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, 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 the idea of making it clear in the title many of us are inveterate bickerers!

Now over to you, as we are about to eat and I won't hear tonight's offering till later ....

I really liked the bit where Helen said that the room he was in reminded her of her prison cell.

No Jangly, what I'm saying is, WE know R was still alive when H left, but when the body is found (with or without fishfingers) others may assume that H was involved as the nurse left the two of them alone together and no one else saw him alive again.

This is my theory. That Robs last gift to Helen is a fight to clear her name for a second time.
Accused of murder of the man she tried and failed to kill before whilst he was vulnerable and alone.

I think that would be way over the top

But he is expected to die soon anyway so why would anyone question it?

Yes, this.

Unless he somehow fatally stabs himself. That would be poetic.

Off topic. The other day Ben referred to “Aunty Lillian”. I’ve always found the two branches of the Archers a bit confusing. Is she his Aunt? Or his dad’s cousin?

I really want a fish finger sandwich having caught up...

David is the son of Phil Archer, Dan Archer's son.
Lilian is the daughter of Jack Archer, who was Phil's brother.
Lilian is thus David's first cousin, and Ben's first cousin once removed.

Ah, sorry, Bore.

Auntie used to be an all purpose honorific for female adult relatives and close friends of parents. Rather useful when your uncle is married to your cousin. Didn’t know it was still used that way.

Earlier on in the week, she should really have called a care agency and asked for 2 emergency carers (so days and nights would be covered). Would have cost a bit but after some phoning round, they could have probably got someone there the next day. Not necessarily carer-of-the-year standard at such short notice but certainly people who could do the basics. I’m sure she could afford that for a few days or P and T would help if it meant H was not doing the care herself. She could have requested male carers if she wanted revenge as Ron would probably hate that.

Say what now??? why would Helen be doing any of that?In what world would Pat or Tony helped look after the man who raped and abused their daughter?

Helen has zero responsibility for robs care. She was there as a visitor only and in the second case she had only meant to deliver the card.

just because his own family are crap it doesn’t mean Helen is required to fill in the gap

Absolutely this! Not her circus, not her monkeys, no matter how much Miles tried to foist it onto her.

And why should she or any of her family pay for carers for a man to whom they are not related and whom they heartily dislike?

While I probably would have been scathing if there had been melodrama with Rob, part of me is let down that there wasn't, as it had been so hyped. For instance I thought he might kill himself and somehow frame Helen for it, but I think Pat not finding out the flat number and Helen asking for food were definitely meant to symbolise closure. He did come across as pitiable as well as unpleasant to the last.

Since Helen's eating disorder predated Rob by at least a decade, I don't see why his carking it should cure her of something that was not caused by his being in her life.

I hope very much never to meet anyone who would deliberately torment someone who was dying in the way Helen did Rob: however nasty he had been in the past, the person she damaged most by being so despicable was her. That sort of triumph is not a win for her; it's an admission of how small and petty she has become.

I really do hope that Miles didn't turn up and smother his brother after Helen left. She would get the blame as the last person known to have been with him. That storyline could drag on for weeks and I couldn't bear it.

Well I might be the only one but I'll give that episode a BOOP. It was good to hear Helen not being as weak as I thought she would be.

I don't mind it not being terribly realistic. It's a radio drama after all.

Squishy hugs for all who have found the glioblastoma too close to home as a story line.

I'm not convinced this is properly the end - feels too mild for that.

I reckon Ron's got a nasty SheDunnit handwritten note left in him.

and Miles. Miles will either take his grief out on the Archers, or have a conveniently timed awakening that his brother really was a monster. That's already been foreshadowed.

Oh and one more thing. Ron will have left his estate to his son, but with a series of Saw- or Hunger Games-esque style conditions for Helen & Jack. Much handwringing over whether she will play along or not.

While trying to find out whether it was ever explicitly stated that Miles had children before, I was reading synopses of old episodes during Helen's pregnancy with Jack. I encourage anyone who feels sorry for Rob now to do the same. It reminded me of all the myriad little ways he abused her day by day, as did Ursula. And she had no way out because her parents were being manipulated by Rob and Ursula too, and Ursula deliberately sabotaging her friendship with Kirsty. It certainly refreshed my memory of quite how insidious and never ending the attacks were, and with no respite or space to herself. He deserves no sympathy now.

That said, my own ex is not going to win any awards for World's Kindest Man, to put it mildly, and I would still sit with him if he were dying alone. So I can understand Helen staying by his side for a while when the nurse had left and Miles didn't appear. But a cautious hooray for her if she did indeed manage to walk away from that encounter unscathed.

What I understood @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime to be getting at is that treating a dying man well or badly isn’t a matter of whether he deserves sympathy, it’s a reflection of our own humanity. Cruelty diminishes ourselves. On reason why we no longer hang, draw and quarter or boil in oil.

Yes, that's it in a nutshell.

By lowering herself to his level, Helen has turned herself into the thing she hates Rob for having been: someone who will torment people who are helpless to defend themselves.

I've never had the least time for Rob, even before he left Jess; there was a time, when Jess was presented as successfully bullying him into doing things he didn't at all want to, when I thought it was great that he was married to someone as bad as he was, but that is the closest I ever came to thinking him anything other than abusive. (And slimy.)

I personally would be careful about enjoying it if I had an opportunity to torture anyone, no matter what evil they had committed nor how much I hated them, not because of what it might do to them (and there's not a lot Helen could do to Rob, really: he is probably dead by now) but because of what that enjoyment would force me to know and hate about myself.

I suppose it's possible Rob had refused all that. Encouraged by his horrible father, he would probably think it weak or unmanly or similar nonsense.