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 ....

Te Rumbling Tum

lightning bolt to the cabbage flower

That's more tempting than a cauliflower éclair, to be fair.

Indeed!

Forget Aydil, or Adil, or Arrrrdil, it should be pronounced Addle, because the poor guy's brain is definitely addled.

do they have a cafes worth of furniture in their living room? This all sounds like such a load of old shite. As if they would deck the high end hotel out with upcycled furniture. He screwed up so now he’s having to get everything on the cheap?

adil is so unprofessional - it’s like he’s running a church fete rather than a multi million pound business. He’s a terrible people manager. And his voice is just so annoying. He fits into the second category for me - badly written and badly acted.

the jokes are really painful - are we stuck with them until Jakob’s comedy show?

Did no one like my suggestion of Brine in Dave Allen style raconteur mode for the Festive Farmers Krissmerze Komedy Kapers?

Hmmpfff!

If they really wanted the cafe to sound Scandi they could have called it Fika or something (which also has the advantage of plausibly equating to something from the IKEA catalogue)

It may be that time of year when I switch off because the Christmas show annoys me so much. I thought we were safe without a pan to but alas…

Another ineffably silly episode. The chair numbers from the cafe don't add up to a restaurant's worth and Adil's mystery-making is daft. Ian has to be the cook so why the the ta-dah! aspect, or is Ian's having had sight of the list to make it plausible he'll be able to make a full menu just like that?

He mentioned cauliflower as being on the list so cauliflower eclairs may yet emerge

I think adil is doing the cooking- in a restaurant decked out in fallons furniture and Lynda’s festoon lights. She will probably offer the comedy entertainment.

Oliver will be blown away and the other shareholders will be none the wiser that adil has gone totally off piste nd has designed the hotel based on Lynda’s b&b

and sorry but if they didn’t have cupboards for the beddinge etc on each floor that would be very hard to retro fit.

That would be brilliant because there are already a few cafés called Fika in the UK (I don't know if any of them are chains or all unrelated), so one of them could get the hump that their carefully-curated brand was being damaged by association with the Tom Archer monstrosity and sue him. I'd love that. And he could go to Usha for some legal advice and she'd be like 'well, to be honest Tom, they've got a point: the tea room is really shit since you took over from Fallon. I'd advise you to pay up then cut your loses and sell up. Nobody wants your soggy brassica-based pastries and uncomfotable chairs.'

We can but dream!

I really dislike Tom and Natasha and cant wait for their downfall. If it ever comes

me, I liked it! but I saw it on my phone and I'm not logged in there as too much scope for time wasting

I thought that. But why would he want to buy Fallon's furniture for a one-off event, what would he do with it afterwards? I really hope it's not crossed wires on Lynda's part and Fallon gets her hopes up but is then landed with all the furniture still. It's not as though Adil has a home to store it in if he did buy it.

IKEA names are apparently very logical. Something like furniture named after towns, electrical goods named after rivers and so on. I don't remember the details.

Fika actually means something pertinent though doesn't it?- something like 'a quick break for a coffee and a cake'?
so not surprising if numerous places are called it

He probably knocked up a quick storage unit on his allotment to store it all in

I hope it doesn't damage the roots of the magic money tree he's apparently growing there.

Fika Stwo Short Planks

It does - it’s the Swedish custom of relaxing with coffee and cake. A mindset as much as anything, I believe, and very important to Swedes.

But Tom wouldn’t have bothered to find this out.

Are we supposed to believe that Tom and Gnasher are successful in their businesses? Because Gnasher had mounds of credit card debt and was more into beauty than business when she first arrived. It would be a shame if the SW had forgotten all that - I've been working on the assumption that it'll come back out again that she's terrible with money sooner or later - possibly with the tearoom doing shit.

mindyou I'm not sure how fallen ever made enough money with it, it has never seemed to have gotten the footfall a successful tearoom would need

Me! A very appealing combo

Aren't Tom and Natasha supposed to be terribly busy all the time? Where has Tom suddenly found the time to be faffing around poor Fallon? And why does he think he knows more about running a café than someone who, um, runs a café?

I vote for a title with "plebby coffee" cleverly inserted!

Ian is so foul tempered around Adil that he's sounding like a psycho.

I fell asleep listening last night but am sure Ian said something like "I may have resigned but I still work here."

Or did I dream that?