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!

@Choccyp1g , that was kind of you. I suspect I would have entered anyway but insisted the runner-up got the prize, so you are a better person than I am.

Reading all this discussion is making me think how much I would love to go to an actual flower and produce show - as a very junior reporter on a local paper many moons ago we would all moan about having to cover these events, but I am overcome with huge a nostalgia now the possibility of having to do so is long behind me. I agree that sunflowers would not be brought to the show, but would either be measured in situ or supplied in photo form with the entrant holding a tape measure. As with so many of The Archer's 'comic' storylines, this one feels incredibly laboured - no sooner had Jazzer spotted the bloom than a poster on here predicted it would be Rosie's sunflower. It's like the tedious hilarious fancy dress mixup all over again.

This is beginning to sound like Stone Soup! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup

Did we know Bert Horrobin was in a wheelchair, by the way? Is his bedroom on the ground floor? Is there a bathroom on the ground floor? Is there a chance they actually meant mobility scooter?

(Yes, too many questions.)

Well done, @Choccyp1g. That was a lovely thing to do. I hope the 5yo was not passing off his parent's or grandparent's work as his own, however.

Is his bedroom on the ground floor? Is there a bathroom on the ground floor? Yes, Neil installed the bathroom.

I hope the 5yo was not passing off his parent's or grandparent's work as his own, however. Hmm! DM would enter things in my name, which I wouldn't be aware of until someone asked me how I'd made it.

surely the best way to enter a giant sunflower in the modern age is with a photo with some sort of measure in it. That would also highlight that it’s the same sunflower Yeah, but the point of a show is that it's show - something worth going to look at, not a set of photos of giant marrows on scales (I skipped to marrows when I realised "tallest sunflowers" probably never have been physically carted to shows)

@EBearhug and @KeepBritainTidy have summed it up well.

Ben Pentreath occasionally has photos of flower and produce shows on his inspiration blog - most evocative, and I popped over to see has there been one recently. There hasn't; and he's going to move house! Away from Dorset.

will be weird

Thanks @MereDintofPandiculation , the account is true.
The only good bit from is the farmers who kept the lad's job open. The lad wasn't the best worker or anything (probably a bit 'Benny from Crossroads').
His employers were extremely nice and quite well-off.
I'm almost in tears thinking of the unfairness of the system.

Eddie does have a point.

you had me at Yotam...

Tinned fish can be good. although Chez Bref you may be likely to hear "i've got us a nice tin of salmon for us tea" in abroad Yorkshire accent. Sardines, good, pilchards, good, mackerel also good. Tinned smoked oystrs or mussels: fantastic. Tuna - only ok if cold with mayo & capers & Hendo's on a sandwich.

Not sure if it's connected but i listened to Friday's ep in the car on the way to the garden centre to pick up a new strimmer. And came out with a strimmer and a chainsaw. Had a lot of fun with that in the garden.

Is there a chance Emma hasn't got the same letter? poor Ed.

Eddie absolutely has a point about the advantages money can buy in terms of legal advice, barristers, presentation in Court (of both Defendant and case) but the WHINING just grinds my gears!! I think it was widely predicted that he would make this all about how the world is out to get the Grundys and lo and behold, you were all right. He was also absolutely vile to Susan who I have always had a soft spot for.

So listening to the catch up (forgot they had it on Saturday now)

Ed is a right negative nelly. Nice of him to want to make Emma feel a little bit better about her impending prison time 🙄. I kind of wish it had hit him. But why on earth had they left any of their stuff in the drop zone?

the whole auntie Rosie sl is a load of old nonsense

it does feel a bit like Eddie is being written to give a certain narrative. He does have a point that the lawyer should be trying to get in mitigations to try and reduce the sentence

and the jazzer sunflower thing is also bizarre. And didn’t need the Jolene chuckle

on whether or not Emma gets the same letter - if she really blabbed everything then Will would be equally implicated surely?

I get that it can buy you a better barrister but I don’t think that’s what Eddie is havering about. Just that Something Should Be Done because George didn’t deserve to go to prison - it doesn’t seem to occur to him that George actually deserves punishment after deliberately and calculatingly framed someone else for a serious crime.

What’s the betting Emma has counted her correspondence chickens before they’re hatched? I wouldn’t be assuming the letter was the same as Will’s…

But the only difference between her and Will is that she called the police and he didn’t.

Eddie and Clive made what was essentially the same speech about it always being the rich what gets the pleasure and the poor what gets the blame and Alice wouldn't go to prison because she had money, except Clive made it ingratiatingly to George and Eddie made it incandescently at Will.

Neither of them was in the least bothered by the fact that George was the one who had committed a crime, whereas Alice was innocent.

George was the one who had committed a crime, whereas Alice was innocent.

Sitting around in a lay-by, drunk as a skunk and putting temptation in a young lad’s way, and being Middle-Class in Charge? It’s a travesty…

Innocent of the crime she was charged with. I shall never understand why they didn't throw in "drunk in charge" while they were at it, since she will certainly have confessed to that in her ignorance of the illegality of driving out to a quiet place, then necking a bottle of vodka and sitting in the car with the keys and waiting to sober up, but apparently they didn't.

Eddie has no moral compass so he is not actually upset that wealthy people can buy themselves out of prison, he is just aggrieved that George cannot do the same.

They had already charged her for a different offence, of which she was innocent.

I don't think they can drop that charge then charge her for a different separate offence.

I've not been in such a position, but that's how I understood it.

Spot on!

Maybe cos she knew for longer or something? Was the trying to frame Harry her idea - can’t remember if Will was aware at that point?

It was George’s idea and both She and Will drove him to the police station. She knew a couple of days longer. And if she really did tell them everything will has done the same without the dobbing in

the only difference is that she is the mother…

Didn't suggest that they could. They could have charged her in the first place with all three offences of which they had reason to believe she was guilty, instead of only two of them. And I don't see why they wouldn't have done so, especially since one was absolutely open-and-shut with Alice's own statement of it as having happened. Alice could have pleaded not guilty to two of the charges and guilty to the third, still being liable for the crime that she had actually committed but not for the two that she didn't.

However, if the police could only charge someone with one thing and then not with another, different thing, anyone who wanted to murder Auntie Mabel in order to inherit her crystal candlesticks would be well advised to go out and do a little light shoplifting first!

That argument doesn't hold.

Framing Harry was George's idea, and by the time Will and Emma drove George to lie to the police about it, Will knew that George had framed Alice. George told Emma on 2nd August, Emma told Will on 7th August, and George tried and failed to frame Harry on 11th August.

What, that you can be charged for more than one crime at a time, and can subsequently be charged with another, different crime? I am reasonably sure that both those things are true and hold good.