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!

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g followed by a massive flounce when the responses are a resounding "WTF, you absolute CF!"

Oh, and the further drip feed would include a) a decades long rift between the brothers; b) her husband being an ex-junkie; and c) her husband recently having lost them their house and him his job by his involvement with a dodgy chemical dealer.

Honestly, sticking £50 on a blind 3-legged donkey in the 2.30 at Chepstow would be a better bet!

Surely they would expect to have work outside Ambridge though. The trees I saw being worked on were in someone's garden overhanging the path which is often the case. The trees along the canal side are also cut back from.time to time. My area is semi-rural there are a lot of trees not just in parks. I'm sure Ed'n'Em's business plan was pants though.

Does the tree surgery plan mean that Ed is acknowledging the Texel business plan hasn't worked? Is he intending to keep the Texels as a side hustle to the tree surgery? Or is he going to sell the Texels?

Didn't Ed buy a tractor at one point so that he could become a self-employed contractor? What happened to the tractor?

Didn't he do some form of training to become a self employed sheep shearer? Though I realise that is seasonal.

How many failed businesses has Ed had?

Dunno about Borsetshire but in Ireland ash dieback means there are lots of moribund trees that need taking down. Jolly expensive it is, too. Tree surgery will also provide ample scope for sudden and devastating injury and death, both to the tree surgeons and to innocent passers-by.

Bring It On.

Westwindworries
How many failed businesses has Ed had?

I think it's only been three:

His first cattle business, the Guernseys Oliver gave him (and Vicky insisted on giving him some more and then insisted on having her money for); Ed went bust.
His second cattle business failed because his uninsured cattle were stolen one night: Ed went bust.
His contractor hedging and ditching, involving the tractor he got on the never-never using the money from the sale of cows; that never seems to have made enough for them to live on.

(Nobody seems to know what he did with the tractor.)

The sheep shearing with Jazzer hasn't failed, just fallen into abeyance.
The Texels haven't failed, just been more work than he expected and for less money so he has decided he doesn't want to do that any more.

@CaptainMyCaptain , I looked up a local tree surgeon business and they cover quite a large area - probably over 12 miles radius. There's a forest and part of an AONB in that area, and some fairly leafy towns and villages.
It's not leafy where I am, and the gardens tend to be too small to have big trees but that's just my neck of the woods. The other areas are much nicer.

Ed didn't seem to sell lambs to make any money from them.

He said he had thirty sheep and fifty-two lambs in November when he and Eddie were ranting at Oliver for daring to sell some of Oliver's own land. My first thought was "that's very early for lambing!" and then I realised the only way he would have them around at that time of year was if they were from Spring 2023 and he hadn't sold any.

When I was checking out tree surgeons I was looking at firms based up to 30 miles away.There were quite a few of them - all would be known to, if not directly in partnership with, farm relief service companies. That other ubiquitous rural business that seems to be unknown in Ambridge. I do realise farming works differently in the UK, but some of the stuff I hear seems a bit improbable.

An awful lot I hear on TA at the moment seems to be vaguely implausible or highly improbable or downright impossible, so you are not alone in thinking this!

Thank God there has been no sign of the pirate and Markie this week. That was a real low-point.

I just want to say 2DCx2DB is a troll…

I believe she's been mentioned before.

Is George an arse because of nature or nurture? What will Keira be like?

We have a tree in our garden which gets pollarded every five years or so. It's not a big tree, but if we didn't keep it cut back it would overhang the pavement. Last time we got it done we got a written quote e-mailed to us and attached to the quote was a copy of their Public Liability Insurance.

It was all very professional. I can't imagine that level of professionalism from Ed and Emma, unless Emma takes over the paperwork and keeps Ed well away from it.

I'm in Australia where tree surgeons are called arborists, though some tree cutters aren't, but they always have safety and skills as well as insurance certs. As much to the point, while some send a single person out to assess a job, I've never seen fewer than three to carry it out: always one chap whose sole job is looking on for safety while others are cutting or roped up a tree. And they have their own chipper, it's not hired.

It's hard to see how Ed'n'Emmur will be able to do this, though obviously it can be a two-person operation, which would take longer to complete a job.

Business name idea: Ménage a Tree

Or: Tree’s Company

But as usual, the Grundys are barking up the wrong tree.

Sorry

Business name idea: Ménage a Tree

Particularly fitting in the circs!

Thought George might approve 😂

As I recall @LikeTalkingToLassie @BrightYellowDaffodil , @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g is not a fan of AIBU based on Archers storylines - as illustrated by their prompt debunking of my mock AIBU around Pip introducing Fat Rosie to Stella, which then led to my temporary ban from Mumsnet until my pleas for mercy and a second chance bore fruit! Whilst I would encourage it wholeheartedly, because the frothing from the uninitiated was VERY satisfying, you may suffer the same fate...

DH is self employed in a industry not a million miles away from tree surgery.

The point about advertising was interesting, DH spends quite a lot on advertising (he particularly gets lots of work from those free village magazine things) and I've a feeling that Ed and Emma's idea of advertising was a few posts on Facebook.
Digital advertising has its place but there is a large part of their target market who will respond to traditional forms.

I work in school finance and the idea that they'll be able to get commercial work by just phoning around is ridiculous. There are frameworks for procurement, they'd have to bid for the job and in a school they'll need DBS (does Ed have a criminal record?) unless they work weekends or school holidays.

DH has several commercial contracts which are lucrative but it's taken years to build his reputation to the point that he can bid for them.

It's almost like this ill thought out storyline is just a vehicle for some future Grundy disaster......

It's almost like this ill thought out storyline is just a vehicle for some future Grundy disaster......

As EM Forster says in Howard’s End, there will always be rich and poor. This is even more true in Ambridge. The business is doomed to fail. I think Ed or Emma will need to lose an arm at the very least.

@harriethoyle Yes, I remember the bun fight that caused. I shall restrict my Archers AIBUs to here!

BOOP for Jakob giving Paul some really lovely praise during his apology. He’s good at recognising the different things they all bring to the practice. If he’s supposed to be autistic which IIRC he is, it’s very nice to see this - I have a close relative who’s autistic and he is as often, in fact more often, incredibly kind as he is infuriating. Also BOOP for Paul reflecting on how he might change his behaviour rather than it being a lesson about how Jakob is wrong and NT people (I’m assuming re Paul) are right. Lovely scene all round. Further BOOPs for Kate and Paul bitching about the “cow rugs” 😂

I don’t think it’s fair to blame @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g for that @harriethoyle It’s generally against Mn rules to make up fake threads/troll threads so you’d have been banned regardless of what anyone here thought of you for doing it.

And for certain issues, I don’t think it’s fair to waste the time and emotional energy of posters who take a fake AIBU thread as genuine and spend time replying, particularly if they are sharing their own experiences. I don’t care if you think that’s a boring take or a killjoy thing to say. Yes there’s plenty of trolls making things up on MN anyway, I don’t see why we should be ok with doing more of it…. its not such a hilarious or interesting thing to be worth the fall out, surely.

Thank you, @ToasterChic. As far as I can recall the incident mentioned, I didn't report anything, just said something on the AIBU thread that made it clear to the initiated that it was Archers-related, for exactly the reasons you've set out. I think myself it's a pity people get so cross about fake threads, given there are so many of them, but they do, and the longer they run without detection the crosser they get. I assume one of the offended reported it.