Archers thread #173: The Fall of the House of Grundy? 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 wish we were hearing more of Pip, 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 https://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.)

I chose the thread title to echo one I used three years ago, which is here if anyone fancies a trip down Memory Lane: www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4320618--Archers-thread-130-The-Fall-of-the-House-of-Aldridge-Discuss-The-Archers-here. That was the thread where I caused all sorts of confusion at the start by not starting it before the old thread filled up, but others stepped in, fortunately.

At that point I see Ruairi was heading off to London to start his degree, which he has now finished, with none of us any the wiser about what he studied or where. Perhaps this will finally be mentioned now he's graduating.

And now, over to you!

Does Helen do anything?

when Susan said to Will about people with kids understanding why he and Emma didn’t dob him in immediately - I did think it would be delicious for someone to say to Harrison ‘you wouldn’t understand, you’re not a parent’ and then watch him descend into a career and marriage ending tantrum

and how the hell do Adam and Ian afford their lives as a farm hand and sometime pizza man?
I have wondered this out loud (on these threads) several times. It was confirmed on air relatively recently that Ian is still at Grey Gables, having stepped in to manage the transition to reopening on a fixed-term basis. It hasn't been explained what his current job is. I would assume maybe something like executive head chef, which doesn't require him to be on site every day. We last heard of the pizza van as being run by two women whose names I can't remember (they are non-speaking characters, otherwise unknown). Ian still owns it but they staff it. So it sounds like Ian is bringing in a proper income. Adam clearly isn't, unless Cousin Tom has cut him some kind of dodgy deal.

And where the hell is Helen in all this, because I haven't heard her helping at all.
She was at the litter picking crisis team meeting. We can only presume she is now a full-time counsellor for Jack, following the tragic second best litter picker in Ambridge scandal.

@Fink thank you for the reminders! Do Adam and Ian own the cottage outright as not having mortgage payments would also relieve the pressure…

I’d like it if Tom pissed Fallon off so much she handed in her notice then and there and picked up enough work in the pub to tide her over before taking over the charging station cafe.

baffled by people saying Tom was being nice - he’s just being selfish trying to manipulate everyone to come to work so his life isn’t made more difficult. If my employer tried to involve himself in something like this I would tell him it was none of his business.

I agree, @WitcheryDivine . Of all the people I'd want mediating on anything more important than what to have for supper, Tom would be last on the list. Remember the time he tried to "help" Helen about Rob when he and Lee decided to "have a word"? Maybe he does genuinely want to help, but the underlying motive is getting everyone back working to make his life easier.

I genuinely laughed out loud at Susan's suggestion of a nice day out for everyone at the village Flower & Produce show. Can you imagine? It would be the equivalent of someone walking into a pub and everything going silent except for the squeaking of a barman's cloth. The Grundy Sense of Being Hard Done By would get a jolly good airing but not before there'd been staring and tutting like never before.

And why do people keep talking about George going to a Young Offender institution? Surely as a 19 year old he'd go to the adult estate?

And why do people keep talking about George going to a Young Offender institution? Surely as a 19 year old he'd go to the adult estate?

Isn't YOI up to 21?

Ah, maybe that's it. I assumed it was 18.

There is discretion for males aged 18-20 at time of sentencing to be sent either to a YOI or an adult prison, they are automatically transferred when they reach 21. Women are sent to adult prison from 18.

YOI don't exist for girls. They move straight from STC to adult prison. Boys have YOI in between.

George might end up in Feltham. Which would not be nice.

In the late '80s when I worked as a Saturday girl in a Dorset library, sometimes had to sort out crates of books to go to Guy's Marsh YOI. I have absolutely no memory of which sorts of books they got, though.

Given Emma's recent interest in literature, what do you think she would suggest for George to read?
Not that there's much chance of him actually settling down to read it, however much time he has on his hands while locked in his cell.

Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky

I somehow feel that his reading level is more Dr Seuss than Dostoyevsky.

But Tom was being kind.

I’m always telling my kids that just because someone is being kind to you doesn’t mean they don’t have an ulterior motive or that they are being kind for kind reasons

I was going to say similar. George did not do well at GCSE and struggled with writing his work for college. I think he's probably just about functionally literate, not at a level where he could imagine reading for pleasure (however bored).

Heh. I was thinking of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, so he could appreciate there were people worse off than himself.
Or maybe The Count of Monte Cristo, which is at least as convoluted as a soap and has a nice escape in it as well as revenge.
Or even Paul Brickhill's The Great Escape.

ETA: of course he wouldn't read anything, let alone these.
So what would he do all day? Watch TV?

Well in ideal world he would learn a trade

Doesn't he already have one: farm worker? That's a pretty skilled job.

The more he can get the better! Perhaps he could become the village plumber

Perish forbid! I would not trust him with plumbing.

(Actually I think plumbing is a Black Art, probably involving the sacrifice of virgins at the full moon.) (Virgin earwigs.)

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime , A farm labourer is categorised as unskilled.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime How is the virginal status of earwigs determined (asking for a friend)? Is a village elder earwig asked to inspect the sheets? Personally, a guinea pig is the smallest thing I know how to sex, let alone ascertain the virginity of, so I'm clearly not cut out to be a plumber.

In that case, maybe the good Dr's 'I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew', which according to Wiki is 'a tale of a young person who discovers the "troubles" of life and wishes to escape them'?

Whoever decided that classifation hadn't been one more recently than about 1965, I suspect.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime , 'skilled' and having skills aren't synonymous.
It's a job you can get theoretically with no qualifications or previous experience.