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 find the way she died very odd in lockdown I think it’s vanishingly unlikely the SW have even realised she died in lockdown - in much the same way they couldn’t be bothered to remember whether Adil was married or engaged. The plotting is so sloppy it’s hard to engage.

Given that no-one realised the previous kitchen was crap till Ian eventually got around to looking at it, why on earth would they not take him to see the one they're proposing to buy before throwing more money at it?

And why do they need an entire new kitchen? I thought the problem with what they had before was more the layout than the equipment. Can't they reuse all that and just reconfigure it?

None of it makes sense!!

it would have been nice if azra was happily married and we had a whole new family. It seems very singles heavy in ambridge

Sabha died on 11th May, 2020, which was the last day of the first lockdown. Or at least, that was the date in 2023 on which Adil told Lilian that his wife had died three years before to the day.

OMG - the SWs have been reading some of my diatribes on the Grundy heritage and the mythological meaning of Land.

Magnificent!

Pig tripped over the upturned motor-car.
Pig tripped over the upturned motor-car.
Drunk, said pig. Drunk.

Ed was well-oiled.

has Helen really been that bad? I do feel a lot of you judge her very harshly! Henry is a very odd child - how old is he? Is that what they learn in PSHE at his age? Isn’t it a bit sad that he’s got over his father figure leaving so quickly? I wonder if a psychologist would think he has an overly strong attachment to his mother in a feeling overly responsible way?

how much land does grange farm have and how much are they losing and how much does Ed need? I could feel Ian and Adam squirming and desperate for Stella to interrupt!! What a chip he has - he sounded nuts when he was talking about it being Grundy land!!

ian thinks adil is very convincing - are we listening to a different person? He just sounds incompetent and out of his depth to me. Asking your head of food to design kitchen number 2 because who exactly designed kitchen number 1?

Bruisername
has Helen really been that bad? I do feel a lot of you judge her very harshly! Henry is a very odd child - how old is he? Is that what they learn in PSHE at his age? Isn’t it a bit sad that he’s got over his father figure leaving so quickly? I wonder if a psychologist would think he has an overly strong attachment to his mother in a feeling overly responsible way?

Yes, Helen really has been that bad. Even ignoring things like her hit-and-run driving and her appalling bullying of her parents, her brother and her dead brother's girlfriend, her stated reason for having Henry by AI was that she was no good at relationships but a baby would always have to love her. She used the child as a weapon against her parents, uprooted him from his home at three days' notice when he was six and took him to live elsewhere with a man she had known for about six months (and who, with his mother, abused him when she was not there), and expects him to be utterly subservient to her unspoken wishes.

The poor child (he is now 12, will be 13 on 2nd January) has had a very messed-up childhood indeed, what with being there when his mother repeatedly knifed his stepfather and then having to live in the house where it happened while his mother was remanded in prison, for which trauma he was never given any counselling at all.

Bruisername
how much land does grange farm have and how much are they losing and how much does Ed need? I could feel Ian and Adam squirming and desperate for Stella to interrupt!! What a chip he has - he sounded nuts when he was talking about it being Grundy land!!

Grange Farm, which (in case anyone like Ed has forgotten) has belonged to Oliver for the past twenty-plus years, has fifty acres, of which its owner plans to sell ten. Ed doesn't need them; he wants to continue to rent the whole fifty acres so he can not only run a large flock of sheep but also set some land aside for hay which he can sell. If he sold off his lambs instead of hoarding them (what he said he has, a flock of thirty ewes and fifty-two lambs, in November is absurd) it would not be a problem; he might have only an acre per sheep but I think they would get by with that. (Before Brookfield sent them off to live at Home Farm, there were 250 sheep on Lakey Hill, which can't be more than ninety acres.) Oh, oops, forgot that Ed also has rams (plural) which would need to be kept apart from the rest and from each other. But even so, he is being a land-hog, or trying to be.

When I said earlier that perhaps it was time to lose an episode, having heard the last episode it may be time to lose three episodes. Perhaps then they may be able to get down to some proper storyline. At the moment it feels like it is written about 20 minutes before it is recorded. It us just rubbish and I can't believe I am still listening.

I meant has Helen really been so bad in the last few episodes. I’m not a big believer in damning someone forever more and for whatever they now do. For some it seems like she will always have ill intent.

ok so Ed doesn’t need the extra it’s just a want. It seems they are moulding him to fill eddies shoes in the future or to make him and Eddie the new Eddie and Joe

What if Oliver died and left the farm to Ed? I can imagine that happening as Oliver doesn’t seem to be close to his own family. Ed would then be “landed” and able to improve the Grundy fortunes. He’d have to stop blaming everybody else for his misfortune though. Tim Oatey, Evil rich landowners etc. I would quite like to see that happen.

Helen should have mentioned Ian’s pizza van when she was talking about ordering pizza. She could have said what a pity it was that she couldn’t just call up her best friend to sort out supper. I had forgotten that Ian’s van must be off the road now he is H of F at GG.

I do feel sorry for Henry- Helen is very needy.

A, I and S handled a drunk Ed very well. I would have been inclined to be a bit snippy with him if I was them but I suppose if you live in a village you have to be nice to people who irritate you in case you run into them
in the village shop.

Didn’t Ed sound like Joe when he was drunkenly ranting? But what he said was absolutely true. And it’s the absolute crux of TA. There are those that own the land, those that marry those that own the land and then there are the Grundies - who’ve been farming the land for centuries (or so we’re led to believe) but have no security of tenure. Ed’s worked hard to build up his flock, but it will all be for nothing if he can’t find anywhere to graze them. This is the storyline I tune in for. BOOP.

Absolutely that, @LillianGish. I kept meaning to come back today and say just how much he sounded like Joe! Truly, it warmed the cockles …

On another note, it seems to me that GG is adrift in one crucial respect - it currently has scarcely even a tenuous connection to Archers. And the subtext of darling Ed’s drunken rant was that Ambridge (aka Life) is and always has been about proximity to Archers, through birth, marriage, business, or employment. I wonder if the sale of a pocket of Grange Farm to an Archer (or at least a clan member) might draw them back into the GG story too.

Doesn’t Ruairi graduate next year? Perhaps he might like ten acres to play with? (Thus potentially drawing Paul into the landed classes when they eventually …) I feel perfectly sure Brian might like it for him as a graduation gift. Stella would be apoplectic.

I do think Debbie might have put in an appearance for Brian’s 80th …

The thing with the grundys - I just think even if they owners the land they would have mucked up and had to sell off pieces to deal with their nonsense

Ian spoke about the van when deliberating whether to take up the GG job. He has staff to run it now so it is still a going business without him being hands on. I think there might have been mention of less trade over the off-season though. Does the van have regular bookings in the local towns, or is it just for events? This has been spoken of on-air but I can't remember the answer.

If it is running now, and not all the way over in Felpersham or similar, it's funny that Helen automatically went for what sounded like the more popular (& populist) American chain brand than her own friend's artisanal sourdough. Didn't give it a second thought. Unless Ian also does a sideline in chocolate puddings.

Does Ian deliver? I understood it to be a van that he cooks from at markets and festivals. I don’t think I would consider his pizza either if I was thinking of getting a delivery

I imagine it to be the sort of van that parks at events alongside prosecco bars in horseboxes and that kind of thing. I wouldn't expect him to deliver.

Well if he doesn’t deliver she is likely to have bemoaned that fact while putting on her coat to go and pick it up from a lay-by. I just don’t see Helen as a Papa Johns customer…

which they already did.
iirc grange farm belonged to them but they lost it and oliver/caroline bought it.

No they were tenant farmers

Here you go, @greenacrylicpaint. Bit of ancient history …

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thearchers/entries/d0a42a82-945e-46ea-a4d3-2e052b341900

I don’t think it’s a fair criticism of Helen that she didn’t get her children a pizza from her friend’s artisan pizza van business for booked events, which doesn’t seem to deliver, do pizza duties up in a lay bay, or even cook to order, especially when her kids seemed to have a clear idea of what type of business they wanted to order from (the kind that does brownies). I know my DC would be the same.

I thought she was lovely last night: reassuring Tom she enjoyed Brian’s party, joshing with Henry about pizza, and then having a warm and loving conversation with Henry about PSHE and psychology.

I don’t think it’s a fair criticism of Helen that she didn’t get her children a pizza from her friend’s artisan pizza van business for booked events, which doesn’t seem to deliver, do pizza duties up in a lay bay, or even cook to order, especially when her kids seemed to have a clear idea of what type of business they wanted to order from (the kind that does brownies). I know my DC would be the same.

Alright- I’ll stand down. I spose she has had quite a lot to deal with this week.

My DCs would definitely have preferred Dominoes to an artisan sourdough pizza any day. Helen wanted to give them a treat, not a gum lacerating gastronomic experience. I don’t recall what the toppings of Ian’s pizzas were but I don’t think they were designed for the average small child’s palate. I do think that she is coming in for a lot of really unwarranted criticism on here, soon she will be accused of breathing in an unnecessarily selfish way, using up oxygen that more deserving characters could use.