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!

I live in a village and no one does it. Well, not that I know of.

What is Susan's house called and how did she and Neal get the money to buy the land and build a house on it? Is it nice?

Neil was left the land in someone’s will (all I remember the character was played by Ted Moult) and I guess they had to sell their council house to pay for the self-build materials.

They owned the land: Neil was left a barn and eight acres of land by Bill Insley in 1986. As well as selling the house they lived in before (and moving into a caravan until thehouse was finished) they got a bank loan to pay for applying for planning permission, and getting a design sorted out, and the materials for the house, and surveyors or whatever you have to have to inspect a new build, and all of that.

It is a four-bedroomed house built by Neil and (mostly) Mike Tucker, plus a specialist electrician I think, to Neil and Susan's own specifications, so whatever anyone else might think of it I am sure they think it is nice.

BeatriceBatchelor

(no idea what happened then; sorry)

BeatriceBatchelor
What is Susan's house called

I forgot that bit: it is called Ambridge View, and it is more or less in the back garden of Willow Farm, because the land with barn that Neil inherited was part of Willow Farm.

Thank you both!

Who lives in willow farm?

There are a lot of Farmers in my family and we used to address christmas cards "to all at Brookfield" from "all at Grange Farm" .
Being Welsh, we would also refer to Jones Brookfield, Jones Bridge Farm etc. unless a more interesting nickname developed...Jones GrandFuneral, and Jones BloodBoil for example.

In Willow Farm proper, Roy, with Kirsty as a lodger.

The building was split between Roy and his dad, with Roy having the larger portion because at that point he had a wife and children while Mike was a widower. Mike sold his portion to a couple who subseuqently moved to Brussels and let Willow Cottage, the smaller part of the original house, to Brian and Jennifer for several years.

"Oh no, you want Jones the Spy: 147 down the road."

(It's the punch-line of a long and Goonesque joke.)

My family are farmers. There's more than one house on the same farm, all with the same surname so actually house names would be useful. As it is, they all get on and see each other regularly so they'd just hang on to each other's post and pass it on ASAP. It's in Ireland too, where postcodes are quite new and seem to have been randomly generated (the first three letters/ numbers refer to the area, but the last four are individual to the property and bear no relation to what's around it, e.g. our parish church and the presbytery which adjoins it have entirely different 4 digit Eircode endings).

I am having a (goodnatured) laugh about the fact there’s an argument about the spelling of names on a… radio show.

I know - it's bloody ridiculous!

Would Lily say ‘settee’? (Rage room.) And I’m sure I’ve heard a blood-born Archer say ‘couch’, too - when they would surely both have used ‘sofa’. (Ruth and Pat, etc, don’t count.)

Re Willow Farm/Cottage - I am still cross that Roy's sister Brenda got nothing out of that arrangement. I suppose Mike thought his will would rectify that, but given that Mike is now married to Vicky and they have a daughter with Down Syndrome who may need lifelong care, I imagine it will all go to Vicky and then in trust for Bethany. Brenda has done pretty well for herself in London by now, I hope.

For newer listeners, the Tuckers were a central family for many, many years. Roy's mum Betty ran the village shop and was postmistress before Susan. She also did cleaning for the Aldriges at one point. Mike was a union rep for a bit when first in Ambridge, I believe (before my time). He later had a smallholding, ran a chicken business (foundation of Josh's business now, IIRC) and did agricultural contracting. Betty died many years ago when the actress retired to New Zealand. Brenda was in a relationship with Tom Archer, poor kid, and worked for years for Matt and Lilian.

Mike's re-marriage was a good storyline for a bit, but then the SWs sent them off to Brum so that Bethany could be closer to the services she might need, and as Roy's ex-wife Hayley has also gone there with their daughter Abby, and Brenda hottailed it to London, poor old Roy* has been left as the sole representative of the family in Ambridge, and rarely heard. In recent months he should have been central to the Grey Gables re-launch storyline, given that he's Adil's right hand man, but we've been lucky if he's even been mentioned.

*Poor old Roy is possibly a generous description, given that he ruined his marriage by having a brief affair with Elizabeth Pargetter, who was was not just his boss but also Hayley's. Hayley had been the twins' nanny for years and years, so the betrayal was immense.

Aldridges! Aargh. (Yes, I do see the irony of this post given the posts above, which are of course correct.)

I hated the Roy affair sl. It didn’t make sense.

and I’m sad we lost Bethany and Mike (Vicky was a bit annoying) and Hayley. I’m guessing Abby will be back

She also did cleaning for the Aldridges at one point.

And Brian made a pass at her, IIRC.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
*Poor old Roy is possibly a generous description, given that he ruined his marriage by having a brief affair with Elizabeth Pargetter, who was was not just his boss but also Hayley's. Hayley had been the twins' nanny for years and years, so the betrayal was immense.

It was one of the few affairs of that sort in which I really did think the woman was very much to blame. Some years after Nigel's death Elizabeth wanted to find out whether it all still worked, so she crawled into Roy's tent when they were both drunk at a pop festival they had gone to in order to see what they needed to provide when they put on Loxfest. Roy ought to have kicked her straight back out, but she was his boss and the balance of power was all her way, so she get what she wanted. He would never have dared to initiate anything himself.

And he was the one who got all the bad consequences; the worst that happened to Elizabeth was that Jill was a little cross with her until she started to cry, whereupon Jill called her something like "my brave and beautiful daughter" and said no more about it.

the SWs sent them off to Brum so that Bethany could be closer to the services she might need there was no risk of having to deal with any of the negatives of having a child with Down syndrome.
FTFY.
For similar reasons, of course Martha Carter (what were they thinking with that name?) won’t have FASD.

Did Roy & Elizabeth just have a ONS? I think I'd just started listening and as, I remember it, Roy was so enamoured by E after their romp under the canvas that he wanted to leave Hayley. He made a right pest of himself with E and got the sack, begged Hayley to stay but she left for Brum.

@RegimentalSturgeon I had to Google FTFY and FASD. Something I've learned today. And yes, totally agree about Martha's name. Not thought of that one. But surely as her parents it should have occurred Chris and Alice? 🤔

I think Elizabeth also snuck out to have sex with him when he decided to stay at LL for the whole of Loxfest in the Dairy Annexe, rather than go the couple of miles home each night.

Which, again, she really didn't need to do. She just wanted a shag, and he was a convenient dildo who was prepared to worship her as she has always wanted to be worshipped.

I cannot stand the mention of charades every time Brookfield is mentioned now. Does any family actually do this IRL? We always play board games and cards every day in Christmas week, and over the years we have our favourite go-to games, but no one who comes here incessantly talks about one game as though it's the main event: turkey, Christmas pudding, and Articulate; sprouts, Yule log, and Trivial Pursuit. Why is every conversation about bloody charades?! Do they have a special Archer version of it? Do they secretly train in pairs all year? I guess part of it is to avoid using a brand name, but it wouldn't be hard to say 'board games' 🙄

I think it’s so they can fill 5 mins of xmas day episode with David being hilariously competitive and losing to Joy - who will be at Brookfield as per a pp who suggested Paul and Lily will mess up the food and they’ll decamp