Archers thread #158: Te Rum? You numpty, numpty, Tom! Empty tearoom follows. Christmas coming, farmers’ stand up, will it make us LOL? No! 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 Tom Archer is a great businessman, 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 @LillianGish for the title idea, which may plant an earworm if my scansion just about holds up. @BeatriceBatchelor wanted 'plebby coffee' inserted in reference to my Bolivian coffee anecdote on the last thread, so I'll mention it here instead. Here's hoping Fallon and Emma decamp to the charging station or Grey Gables, or both, to run the type of coffee shop/tearoom people actually enjoy spending time in. Tom's cauliflower eclairs and kale criossants approach sounds more likely to drive the casual trade away from the farm shop and cheese window as well as the Google Translate-named Te Rum.

Feeling very uninspired by TA at the moment, so I have nothing more to say for now. Over to you!

does pip ever feed Rosie vegetables?
She didn't get to be Fat Rosie by eating vegetables

I should know this but why isn't Lily inheriting LL - is she not her father's child?

Yes, she is Nigel's daughter, her and Freddie are twins. I think he inherits to keep the stately pile passing down the male line and staying in 'Pargeter' hands.

There's probably some ancient unbreakable entail. Freddie will (or should) inherit the estate as his to live in and of and to manage, but he can't sell it and will have to pass it on to his son. Or maybe to Lily if he doesn't have one. But she will know all about it and it won't be a sudden revelation.

Oh sorry, duh, of course they are twins!

Can past generations really forbid future ones from selling?!

I mean, geez, that's a hell of a curse to endow people with if they fall on hard times!

It seems to me that the SWs over the last two episodes have been rather clumsily awakening issues in two characters that surely had long ago been settled satisfactorily in their own minds ie. this sudden anxiety of Iain about Xanda thinking he was "different" because he has two dads and Lily being made to consider the injustice of Freddie inheriting the whole of LL.

Of course so far Lily seems entirely chilled about it but is this going to open up a whole new storyline of embattled twins? Especially when she had been waxing lyrical to Paul about the mystical bonds that united her and Freddie?

There was so much lyricism about Freddie I began to worry about fatal illness. (Some rare abattoir-related disease that only affects male Pargetters.)

Though that won’t happen. So perhaps the ‘unbreakable bond’ song was simply to presage a coming decade of twin-ly acrimony and litigation …

Yes I loved this as well! “Oh no it would be FAR too soon…”

Interesting that the conversation about Xander’s family and him ‘knowing how he came into the world’ made no mention at all of Lexi…😡

Nigel left LL to Freddie, not to Lily.

I feel this is a big character flaw in Nigel BUT BUT BUT I was not a listener at the time of Nigel and I gather he was altogether a lovely character so I don’t want things thrown at me again for voicing this dons hard hat

Nigel was just doing what generations of Pargetters had done before him - passing LL down the male line. It feels like a bit of a non-story. Lily has always known about it and never protested. To be honest, inheriting a big house like that with the expectation you will keep it going is more a financial burden than a generous gift. With their unbreakable bond, I'm sure Lily will always have a home there if she wants it. There are plenty of stories to be had from this - will the trustees ever trust Freddie, when they eventually do then how is he planning to keep things afloat? But Lily's indignation feels rather manufactured.

Freddie inherits because that is what Nigel stipulated in his will. That really is all there is to it.

People are not obliged in law to split all their goods evenly among all their children; and in any case, how do you split a house in two (or four or more) in order to be fair?

Goodness that was annoying. How old is Paul? Such angst about Christmas day. I know I'm a different generation but I was living away from home far from family and happy doing my own thing each year.

Lower Loxley is a business. People leave businesses to multiple heirs all the time. Nigel could easily have set matters up so that Lily and Freddie inherited equal shares of the LL estate and shared the house between them. It's enormous, after all, and the family carved out a flat for themselves a long time ago. Probably not too much of a challenge to carve out a second one.

I always assumed there was an entail governing how the estate descended. I do find it odd that a man very little older than me would choose to make a will leaving a huge sum to his son and a much smaller sum to his daughter, purely on the basis of their sex. Incredibly old-fashioned.

Poultry based? Cock rot?

Yep. The talk of why people still expect a mother and father even in 2023… I mean, I don’t have any issue with it but let’s be honest, it’s because of biology people in general expect a mother and a father, not bigotry. Also, yes, Lexi

Indeed @OverArmour.

I have friends in a same sex relationship who have a nursery age child, and they have described the same ‘constant coming out’ as a bit wearing. Single parent friends describe something similar. A mum and a dad is the default though - as you say, because of biology rather than necessarily bigotry.

As for Lexi…I don’t have my feelings on surrogacy in this country totally sorted out, so I wouldn’t say I am ideologically for or against. But what I am firmly against is the way she was dropped like a stone and written out of the family history, having done an enormous…favour?…to Ian and Adam.

Male primogeniture. (sp?)

I'm her shoes? I'd take my money and put it somewhere I couldn't easily get at it in case of future "but it's our family home as well as a business" requests

Why is it that Paul always organises stuff thats not the norm. 1st it was that escape room with Alistair and jakob then this rage room or what ever. Whats wrong with just going down the pub.
I cant understand in this day and age why you should have to explain your same sex or single parent situation to anyone, you would think that Iain has just realised he is gay.
Freddie will have to prise LL out of his dying mothers hands, Elizabeth really dosnt want to give up running it and being Lady of the manner, thats why Im surprised she is in a relationship with that bit of rough Vince. It just seems unreal as she is such a snob.

Manor.

It was sad when Lily said she doesn’t really remember Nigel. How old were the twins when he died?

I suspect there’s going to be a bit of rewriting of his character

…Elizabeth really dosnt want to give up running it and being Lady of the manner, thats why Im surprised she is in a relationship with that bit of rough Vince. It just seems unreal as she is such a snob

Vince is rich and E is very avaricious. She disguises it as far as she can but she wouldn’t be with Vince if he was an abattoir worker rather than owner. She acts To the Manor Born but is nothing special. Nasty creature.

I'm not sure she said she didn't remember him, more that she didn't feel the strong connection with him that Elizabeth seemed to want the twins to maintain. They were 11 when he died. Old enough to remember him quite clearly, I'd have thought.

I remember at the time of Nigel's death it was discussed off air whether there was an entail forcing him to leave LL to Freddie, but it was never mentioned on air. There might be one, or it might just be the tradition to avoid breaking up the estate, as is common in old money families. It's not just the house but the whole estate. IIRC, Lily's inheritance was mainly tangible goods (artwork, jewellery) rather than cash. The implication was that she had been adequately compensated for not having a share in the estate.

Nigel's will was discussed on air. He set up a trust for Lizzie to be able to live at LL for the rest of her life, as well as (we presume not deliberately) to provide years of dramatic angst over when Freddie will be allowed to take over. I guess it would have been possible for him to also have given Lily a lifetime right to live there, but he didn't.

I didn’t realise they were 11. That’s really sad she doesn’t feel she had a connection with him.

I hope we’re not going to get a rewrite where he was a better dad to Freddy

I wouldn’t want to have the house - it’s a big job and I’m sure there must be something about not being able to sell. It’s in trust rather than given to him