Archers thread #166: Choppy waters in Ambridge! Look out for the red flags and 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'd love to be married to Harrison, 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.)

Another thread started in great haste, mid-packing! Over to you.

Agree floppy hair but brown! Tall and slight. Wearing whatever is the modern equivalent of chinos and blue shirt

That explains a few completion statements I've seen in my other life on the accounts side of some property transactions

Why do Harrison and Fallon speak to each other in such a weird way. And why is he so determined to be northern like it’s his personality. At least he’s back at work I suppose

I suppose we are meant to think they are feeling awkward with each other, but it just sounds weird.
Is Freddie going to have a crisis of conscience and resign from Casey Meats?

More likely Freddie's going to be beaten up by the Borsetshire Meat Boys, though I hope that doesn't happen. What was he thinking, though, saying if Wossname confessed all, he wouldn't be punished? Casey Meats is a business, not a primary school.

To be fair, he said he might not lose his job, not that he wouldn't be punished. There must be other disciplinary action that could be taken short of immediate dismissal, and maybe it would depend on what he actually confessed to as well. Sacking was always the most likely outcome, but I don't think Freddie was necessarily wrong in hoping for something else.

But it wasn't his place to tell Jason that.

I’m assuming Jason hasn’t been introduced to disappear so there will be more tugging on Freddie’s heartstrings

I am also assuming there must be more to come on the Meat Thief SL otherwise what was the point of it. Surely it wasn't just to show us that Freddie might be a toff but that he has a heart of gold? (I am looking forward to him turning LL into a cooperative when he finally inherits.) Is this where Mikey makes his return?

It might explain the whole so far pointless Marky thing.

I'd forgotten the Evil One's name. The whole SL made so little impression on me.

No, true. But the whole thing was odd.

Freddie is an odd character to suddenly realise that working class people can't afford everything he grew up taking for granted. He spent time in a young offender's institute, he must have met plenty of people who didn't have his life chances.

It's odd that he seems to be struggling with where to draw the boundaries between management and staff, given his prior experience at LL.

It's beyond odd that he thought that a stake out with his mates was a suitable way to handle the situation.

It's odd that, with his experience of drug dealing, it hasn't occured to him (or Vince) that there might be some kind of organised crime going on and that Jason is just the little guy at that end of the chain.

It's odd that he appears to think that letting a small-time thief get away with it is the solution to poor people being poor. Although that's perhaps the least odd part of it, knowing what a bubble some people live in.

And it's odd that there's a random, disjointed, backstory about Philipino food in the canteen (and still no Filipino workers have emerged), a staff gym etc. If all it's meant to show is that Freddie cares about other people enough to notice their working conditions, then there are surely less weird ways to signal that.

So after all that, the fact that Freddie maybe spoke out of turn didn't even register with me!

The whole thing is very odd and unlikely.

Should fit in well with most of the other story lines - sadly.

If Fallon and Harrison are sharing a bed again, I do hope she's sorted a new coil or something.

Yes! I've always pictured him a bit like Malfoy (Jr).

The Fallon/Harrison bit was very annoying. It's as if the SWs have pushed him so far out with the miscarriage SL, there's no way to wind him back in to relative normality, i.e. be a convincing partner for Fallon. All that fussing about the surprise and not shutting his gob about "Footloose". Where did that come from?

Is Freddie going to be Fairy Godfather and send the money for the ski trips?

My DH loves both Footloose films but there is no way i would sit through them with him birthday or no birthday. Harrison's Northern accent has got thicker, it was cocker the other week and lad and lass on sunday. Do people talk like that in RL.
Dont understand why hairy Vince brought Freddy in when he was going to Question the meat thief and I would have liked to have heard how and why and who he was selling the meat to. Why is Freddy feeling sorry for the bloke, his a thief, it wasnt as if he was stealing to put food on the table, just for a school sking trip. By the way all the posters who have a letter to say the school sking trip is £1000, do the teachers that go on these trips pay or do they get paid to go?.

Teachers get a free place on trips they're supervising. They usually have to cover everything that isn't included for children for themselves, e.g. insurance, whatever meals aren't included etc. Sometimes I've been expected to self-fund a risk assessment visit to the location, including foreign travel.

They do not get a free holiday: organising the trip in itself is a nightmare, and then supervising the kids is hard work on very little sleep. It's easier if you're just supporting the lead teacher, but if you are the lead teacher then you don't get to have a break at all. You run activities all day, with all the usual teacher duties around behaviour management. Plus you have to cope with who's not eating properly, many more arguments than usual, dozens of minor injuries. Then you spend hours at night trying to get everyone to settle down and making sure no one goes into anyone else's room. And if you're really unlucky (usually happens at least once every other trip), you get to spend the night in A&E with someone.

As an MFL teacher, the Head of Department would tell us when it was our turn to organise a trip, we didn't usually volunteer! The senior leadership team will also dictate how many teaching staff from which departments we're allowed to take, and we have to make up the rest of the ratio with non-teaching staff.

If I wanted a free skiing trip, going as a teacher is not the way I'd choose!

You say that but my friend went on her son’s ski trip a few years back - they had arranged it so a parent could go with siblings as well. There were as many parents as teachers and the kids were put in ski school for the day. On the last evening the teachers asked the parents if they would watch the kids and went out to the local bars. There were some very sore heads the next morning!!

however I have not been on or heard of a language trip that wasn’t extremely stressful for the supervising teachers!!! Runaways, hospital trips etc

My thoughts exactly! Kenton dog attack huge drama - then nothing, George frames Alice for road accident - then nothing - if/when we eventually return to these flashpoints we will all have forgotten the finer detail and will be calling on @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime for a recap. Maybe that's the idea - so that when/if we eventually get back to it, history can be rewritten to generate yet more drama. This is exactly what happened with The Flood - where Knob blocked the culvert and Stefan went missing generating huge speculation and debate which was never adequately resolved. It makes for very unsatisfactory listening. I much prefer the drip, drip, drip approach to storytelling - where the clues are there and gradually build up often over a very long time scale (Kate's alcoholism, Knob's abuse) - to the crash, bang wallop of a huge drama which then stops abruptly.

Vince would need a witness for the questioning and sacking. I've had to witness a few in the past. Obviously, it didn't have to be Freddy but it as he'd been investigating it probably made sense.

The teachers don't pay for the trip but don't get overtime pay for working 24hr days either. Its not a holiday.

Most of the above is very odd but I don't think it's unusual for someone in Freddie's position to have no real idea of what life is like for someone on a low income.

There is an open thread at the moment on the Money Matters board regarding the late Child Benefit payment fiasco that has impacted thousands of parents this week. Dozens of people on the thread commented that the missed payment means they do not have any money at all to buy food, top up electricity or pay for their child's bus fare to school. These comments were met with utter disbelief by a few people who replied that they cannot understand how anyone could possibly find themselves in that position, surely everyone has at least a spare £20 etc. Poverty is well hidden in this country and it's quite difficult for some people to understand just how prevalent and entrenched it has become.