Archers thread #167: Welcome to Ambridge, the world capital of loose ends! 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 like The Archers to be wall to wall election conversations for the next month, 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.)

Over to you!

I'd agree if it had been set up by the university, but this seemed to be a very last minute arrangement set up directly between Oliver and Lily. I used to work in a university where we set up placements months in advance. Those were in healthcare, though, so there were extra considerations (DBS, occupational health checks, compulsory induction training etc).

I did similar as a trainee teacher, we had no say at all in our placements. The uni worked with certain schools and arranged it all well in advance.

However, I would assume that the main reason Lily dealt directly with Oliver was due to the SWs finding that an easier way to get her to GG than having a complex SL where the uni tutors spent ages sounding out the mystery owners and completing a paper trail, only to reveal that lo and behold, the placement student is none other than our beloved/behated Lily.

My cousin did a course (I think a T Level) to become a car mechanic. He had to find his own placement. I know nothing about placements in the hospitality industry in this country, it could work either way.

I thought Adil sorted it out

You may well be right but I thought it was more recent than that.

Lily arranged it with Oliver on 10th January; he encountered her on her way to the shop while he was out on his horse and, after she had mentioned the number of staff from Lower Loxley Hall who were moving to Grey Gables, jokingly suggested maybe they should recruit her too; later that day she went to see him and proposed herself for work-placement at Grey Gables for her course. He told her that he had to discuss it with Adil and Roy but saw no reason against in principle.

“I'd agree if it had been set up by the university, but this seemed to be a very last minute arrangement set up directly between Oliver and Lily. I used to work in a university where we set up placements months in advance. Those were in healthcare, though, so there were extra considerations (DBS, occupational health checks, compulsory induction training etc).”

“I did similar as a trainee teacher, we had no say at all in our placements. The uni worked with certain schools and arranged it all well in advance.”

I have worked in a school which took student teachers, and their institution paid the school to take the students, to reflect the work involved in having them there.

We stopped taking them as it was unhelpful for our pupils, although you might think it’s a public service to help with teacher training.

It’s the opposite with Lily, where GG is saving paying someone else to do what she is. She’s getting experience but not much training.

a Lot of jobs the training is the doing

The reason that schools get paid to take trainee teachers, though, is because they have to provide a mentor within the department who has to spend time supporting the student, and presumably (I've never been a mentor, only a mentee) gets a commensurate reduction in their timetable. So it does actually cost the school money to host students. Whereas I can't see that GG are incurring any costs by having Lily.

In the real world, of course, she wouldn't/shouldn't be thrown into a placement that was the equivalent of an actual job they should be paying someone to do. But in the real world they'd have more than 3 members of staff! So it's difficult to get worked up about it when I can only assume they have another half a dozen people silently doing what she's doing loudly, and supervising her work. Except that I do think she will be asked to step in to cover when Roy hands in his resignation, so maybe we have to assume that the whole place is staffed entirely by Brad, Mick, and a silent army of incomptent fools.

Just to add that I don't want to be flippant. Schools who participate in teacher training have to do a lot more than just nominate a mentor and let them get on with it. They do actually need the money that comes with the extra work.

The NHS gets a substantial chunk of the money from medical, nursing, physio, nutrition, pharmacy and similar courses because they provide so much of the education. Quite a complicated business negotiating the placement contracts, I believe. Various conditions about how much teaching had to be provided by staff on and off the wards/consulting rooms, and stipulating the range of experience and supervision required for students. The course I worked on arranged placements outside all of that and no money changed hands.

Pip making herself even less bearable.

didn’t need so much detail on the sustainability. Maybe it’s because I’m fed up of all the ESG at work

cyber attack 🙄

the conversations seem really unnatural atm

Alan dropping Harrison in it but I guess she wasn’t going to find out any other. She is right though - he is pathetic. So annoying too.

Is it just my slightly deaf, non-English, ear or do Harrison and Alan sound really similar?

It’s not just you, @DeanElderberry: they do sound similar.

If the vicar had anything about him, he’d have castigated Burns severely, as opposed to suggesting a prayerful tête à tête in a deserted St Stephen’s.

Fallon should castigate them both. With a rusty butter-knife.

The conversations have seemed very not in character as well as unnatural. The scene with Lily and Josh(?) about Paul was especially awful.

Finally some farm chat re harvests.

Or equally Lily and Paul do.

@IHaveNeverLivedintheCastle 🤣🙈

Real venom from Fallon there. Her actress is brilliant.

Stella sounds delighted by the prospect of a holiday with Fat Rosie (perhaps she's worried there won't be enough vittels to go round...).

Which was clunked into place by 2 actors who clearly hadn't the faintest idea what they were talking about.

Pip is actually being a rubbish mum not to notice her gf's lack of enthusiasm for her Dd. Imagine the MN thread.
Love the vittels comment below !

Yay for farming chat!

I do feel ever so slightly sorry for Harrison after all that. He should absolutely have told Fallon about the proposed service and he totally needs to recognise that Fallon a) didn’t want the baby, b) still doesn’t want children and c) doesn’t feel the need to grieve something she didn’t want in the first place.

But he clearly does need to deal with his grief. If that’s via a private prayer service then that’s got to be a good thing?

I love the idea of farming chat, but the reality of one farmer explaining to another than yields would be down because of the wet weather ... well, expectation did not meet reality, or rather the SWs did not meet the threshold of plausibility.

Also, why was Stella so clueless about the virus/malware/cyber attack? It's as bad as Jazzer being trained up by Hannah and barely able to click on a cell in a spreadsheet. I know she's older than Pip, but she's not 90!

But it wasn't enough for him, was it? He has no enthusiasm for it. He won't be happy until Fallon feels the same way.

His wife could have died. If he had any decency or consideration that's what he should focus on.

I don't feel in the slightest bit sorry for him. It's a huge ego trip.

One of whom is going to be involved in some farming awards programme or other, as if she actually were a farmer or knew about farming.

That first paragraph is spot on, and come to that so is the second. Oh, and the third too...

I thought he sounded like he was slowly coming round to the idea?

I also didn’t get from that conversation that he was expecting Fallon to feel the same way? He just isn’t acknowledging how she does feel.

The cyber attack was also so unrealistic. Did they script that in 2005?