Archers thread #162: ‘This is like talking to Lassie’ – how right you are, Fallon! 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 cowhide-covered walls are a great idea for a cafe with vegan and vegetarian customers, 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.)

Title comes from one of the better scripted conversations of recent weeks, when Fallon said ”Harrison, this is like talking to Lassie! Just TELL ME”. So true of so many conversations on TA where you just want to shake them and yell 'Just TELL US, and quickly, so you don't get interrupted before you can say the important bit', but of course they rarely do and days pass before the conversation resumes. @TheBell suggested putting it in the title, so thanks for that.

@OverArmour had a great if more obscure idea, paying tribute to a Peter Greenaway film: The Policeman, The Drunk, The Vet and his Lover. That will do very well as a starting point for the new thread. Will Alistair leave? Will Denise tell John she's leaving him? Will Paul learn to be less noisy? Do any of us care?

I do care a little about Harrison and Fallon. I want Harrison to get a grip and realise he needs a paying job more than the captaincy of the cricket team. I don't care at all about Harry but I think he's been brought in purely as a plot device so with any luck we can all forget about him very soon.

Over to you!

Have you actually got five Shelties?

@LillianGish no, my husband would divorce me! I have had five Shelties over my life but only one at a time. The fifth one is almost 12 and slowing down a little - a bit like me.😁

Whimper

Oh my - I want all of them! Gorgeous.😁

Whine
Sensitive as they are someone's 5 shelties.

@LikeTalkingToLassie I just need a bigger house or a different husband.😂

That last photo shows as sensitive content 😂

I haven’t clicked on it as I’m worried what I will see!!

Click away, it is a picture of five Shelties, they look like Lassie collies rather than Shelties but I could be wrong, usually am!

They are described as shelties. I could post the link but they seem to be someone's 5 pets.

sheltie and rough collie. Lassie is the big one.

What I just don't understand is why Ed'n'Emma are both jacking in their jobs at the same time. Surely it would make more sense for one of them to start the business and see if they can make a go of it before the other also spends money on training and equipment.

Neither of them have any experience of tree surgery - with the exception of Ed cutting up the tree that fell on Emma's car - and neither of them have any experience of running a business, as borne out by the poor business plan.

Why do Grundies always have to go off half-cocked at their latest "get rich quick" scheme? There'll be whinging within 6 months that the world is against them when they've done a bodge-it job with crap customer service skills, you mark my words.

And that's before the potential bin fire of money having been leant between brothers that have epically not got on before, never mind the fact that one is married to the other's ex-wife. It's an AIBU post waiting to happen:

My BIL is demanding the repayment of a loan - he lent me and my husband the money to start a business which has gone badly. It's not our fault, we just couldn't get the work we thought we'd get and lots of locals are against our family so they wouldn't book us. And my husband had a bit of a falling out with a few customers - they were rude and he gave as good as he got, plus he can be a bit unreliable. But now BIL says we have to repay the loan as we agreed and I don't think that's fair. We both jacked in our jobs to do this because it was our dream and what little income we have we need to keep for ourselves. AIBU to tell him we can't pay him back and he should write off the loan because we're family?

The tree surgery storyline is going to annoy me. It would make a good, different and inspiring story line if they could set up the business and make it work and make a success of it.

But because they are Grundys it has to fail. If their surname was Archer it would be a roaring success with no effort.
I know I sound like Joe Grundy but it's true. The rich man in his castle, the poor man at the gate. God (writers) made them high and lowly and ordered their estate...

Bark bark bark

Ed taking up tree surgery is just about believable, but Emma?? Tree surgery has featured before - Jamie Perks was a tree surgeon and I believe Mike Tucker also did some tree surgery. I can't picture Emma as a tree surgeon - not because she's a woman (I'm sure Ruth, Pip, Hannah, Stella would all make a decent fist of it), but when I think of Emma I think of cup cakes and English literature, riding in a hay cart with flowers in her hair...

But because they are Grundys it has to fail. If their surname was Archer it would be a roaring success with no effort. I know I sound like Joe Grundy but it's true.

I've met people like the Grundies and they are the authors of their own misfortunes. They don't play by the rules - not even vaguely - and cut corners, piss people off and always have a sob story as to how hard done by they are, and how others should make up for their perceived injustices.

I had a mate like that and he thinks it's very unfair that these days no-one will lend him anything/do him a favour/trust him etc. We've all had our fingers burned.

If they wanted to do things properly, Ed would be doing this alone while Emma carried on with a stable income from the TeRum and Emma would only join if and when the business was up and running profitably. Both of them would be doing courses on how to run a business and they'd be taking on board comments about their business plan rather than bitching that they've been unfairly criticised. But noooo....

How much of a demand is there for tree surgeons? It sounds like a skill that is only needed occasionally not something that would keep 2 people busy for 40 hours a week.

Why haven't they spoken to Jamie Perks or Mike Tucker, or researched if it would be something that Home Farm, Borsetshire Land and Rewilding Ambridge might need?

T(r)opical insert: the foxes photo looks like it's been photoshopped

Maybe I live where there are a lot of trees but I see tree surgeons out and about quite often in a team of 4 or 5. The ones I saw yesterday had someone posted to keep people off that part of pavement and direct them to a diversion. One was up the tree with a climbing type harness, one was on the ground and one was operating the shredder.

@CaptainMyCaptain , I don't think that there are many pavements in Ambridge.
There's a huge park not far from me but I've not noticed tre surgeons at work there but I don't go there all that often these days. The part with most trees is the furthest from me. There are smaller, nearer, parks but only one of them has lots of mature trees. I expect the trees get pruned.
(Note to self: get off your fat arse and out into the fresh air)

The area around Ambridge seems agricultural and I'd expect the farmers would do their own tree surgery.

Just wondering if Emma will be tempted to get back with Will if they go into business together. There has been a bit lately where she has seen the two brothers together and Ed has clearly come out of the comparison as the weakest link.
I really think Emma and Will could run a successful business or, at least, Emma could. I agree she doesn't stand a chance with Gormless Ed though.
Feckless Kate launched her business with just as little preparation or thought but, of course, she has miraculously become a successful business woman because she is an Archer and not a Grundy.

It would make a great deal more sense for one of them (Emma, on the whole, because if Ed did it first she would start to whinge for Europe if not the Solar System) to take a (subsidised) course in a place where equipment is provided, and find out whether she is capable of doing this job she has suddenly decided she would love above all things, and whether she actually does enjoy it. That avoids the need to buy all this stuff she may find she doesn't want at all six months down the line. And then after she has done the course in her copious free time, Ed does one in his.

They are going into the whole thing arsy-versy.

And that last line of the AIBU is spot on!

But Kate has a different attitude to Emma.

AIBU to tell him we can't pay him back and he should write off the loan because we're family?
see Asking's post

In fairness to Emma, she told Ed that Will’s comments were correct. I’m assuming it was actually Brian who gave Will all that feedback about the business plan.

Emma can be a nightmare but I like the way she is always there for her brother.

She’ll never get back with Will. For reasons unknown to anyone, she is clearly in love with dimwit Ed. Plus I think Will is just destined to be a widower forever. Mourning Sainted Nic until the end of times.

That AIBU is spot on

tbf Emma isn’t afraid of a lot of hard work, think of all that cleaning she’s done and work in the factory and the tea room. Shinning up a few trees probably sounds like a complete doddle in comparison and much better paid. Come to think of it. Emma and Carrie should go into business together and the rest of them can fuck off.

That AIBU post is indeed spot on, and you just know that Emma would be incensed to hear others telling her that Will shouldn't write off the loan because they're family. She'd be goaded into a colossal dripfeed:

When I say we're family, we really are, even more than most families, because my BIL is also my EXDH and we have a DS together, as well as my DD whose DF is my DH who is BIL's DB, naturally, and in fact for a while we thought DS was DH's son, not EXDH's, but he got a DNA test done and he was so nasty when he found out DS was really his DS, not DH's. Fortunately, DFIL and DMIL have always had a really soft spot for my DH, even though EXDH is the one who really tried to make something of his life by getting a decent job. So when I decided I really preferred his brother after all and we tried eloping to France with DS and only stopped because EXDH got a court order, the rest of the family stood by us and let us put a mobile home in the garden next to the farmhouse they used to rent years ago and lost when they didn't pay the rent, but then they got it back again because the man that owns it now felt sorry for us all and so now he lives in a bedsit there and DFIL and DMIL rent the place for peanuts. We've all got our fingers crossed that he never dies, because I don't think he'll leave us the farm in his will, which is a bit of a bummer, because I don't know what we'll all do then, but that's a whole different AIBU, I suppose!

I dare you to post that @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g .
The username 2DCx2DB is available.