Archers thread #175: Crime, punishment and kittens. 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 your current highlight is the kitten naming, 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.)

As I am posting this on Sunday morning at a point where some omnibus listeners won't have caught up with this week's events, I've kept the title less spoilerish than I might have done. Below this point, everything broadcast to date is of course fair game, so be warned!

Of course the main interest for most us at the moment is indeed the kitten naming competition. Isn't it? No?

Oh well, since you insist ...

How do we think George is going to cope now? Whither the Grundy and Horrobin clan? Will Lilian choke on her G&T (please)? Will Kenton get septicaemia from a kitten scratch? Will Alice die of sanctimoniousness? Will Fallon spend the rest of her life with the appalling Harrison and his unfulfulled longing for a behbeh? Will Adam and Will come to blows in the Bridge Farm packing shed?

Over to you!

I hope Sybil Ruscoe (agricultural adviser to TA) is paying close attention to the Budget. I gather that there is going to be a very significant change in tax reliefs for farms (inheritance tax, I think, rather than capital gains tax) bringing virtually every farm into the scope of IHT where currently they fall outside it. I can't claim to have grasped the details but it would be something of enormous significance for Brookfield, Home Farm, Bridge Farm and Grange Farm, in the real world at least.

Yes, I heard that too while listening to the Budget and I am afraid my first thought was also, "What does this mean for Brookfield?"

Yes this is massive for the farming community so should definitely get a mention at some point

I checked too! I couldn’t believe it was the same actor!

There's an ice-cream place in Ramsgate that consists of two old red phone boxes (one converted to a freezer) and a couple of deckchairs. I think it's called Ring Ring.

Isn’t Brookfield held in shares?

I completely agree of course that Lillian and Justin are vile people but surely they weren't always like that - or am I looking back with rose-coloured spectacles?
I remember Justin being a proper businessman, not some ludicrous figure trying to get one over on the less intelligent inhabitants of Ambridge for the sake of a few pounds. And I also remember being quite moved by Justin and Lillian's wedding day when they decided not to get married.
They seem to be yet another example of the SWs taking more complex, nuanced characters and gradually turning them into caricatures for the sake of - what? "comedy"?
Justin in particular has become such a pantomime character that I half expect to hear boos and hisses whenever he appears and I want to warn Brad that Justin is behind him.

And I also remember being quite moved by Justin and Lillian's wedding day when they decided not to get married.

You and I have different recollections of that then. I remember being scandalised that Justin was such a bastard and Lilian so foolish as to believe his crap 'I love you too much to marry you' line. She should have seen through him right then and saved us all years of his presence (I think that without Lilian to anchor him to the village & family he would be a peripheral character like Martyn Gibson or Annabelle Schrivener).

ISTR Charles Collingwood saying many years ago that unsympathetic Archers characters tended to mellow as they aged, as SWs grew fonder of them. He was talking about Brian and cited Jack Woolley as another example. It may have been a much smaller team back then (and better for it). They seem keen not to do that to Justin, only to turn him into a stupid pantomime villain instead.

And I wish they had a business adviser as well as an agricultural one, to avoid some of the sillier plot holes.

I am very close to giving up on TA again but hanging on for the Harrison Burns Out ep.

Yes. David and Ruth own the A shares and Kenton, Elizabeth and Shula own the B shares, which are worthless unless Brookfield is sold. Not sure what happens when David and Ruth die. I suppose they have to decide who to leave their shares to - majority to Pip, as she works on the farm, or some device where they leave shares to Josh and Ben that have to turn into B shares?

That ridiculous ' my darling ' nonsense on last night's episode literally had me muting the radio. So lame , makes me shudder.

Justin always had the morals of Joe Grundy but a smarter suit and no ferrets.

The my darling thing I find doubly ridiculous because on top of everything else, surely it's fine to use it for one's own husband and child. Even if Jolene had agreed to pay up when using it as a verbal tic for random customers, what was Kenton thinking of charging her £1 for calling him darling?!

I agree with a pp that they act so stupidly competitive with each other over small things. It reminds me of my ex-h who challenges dc to various tests of strength and gloats when he wins. Well done, ex-h, you (an obsessive sportsman) can beat a 12 year old girl at weightlifting or cycling up a steep hill.

I may well be misremembering Justin and Lillian's wedding day @Fink - it feels like a long time ago - but wasn't it Lillian who didn't want to get married?
And, yes, Justin was always something of a moral vacuum but it seemed a lot more realistic when he was operating in a semi-believable business setting rather than, as now, trying to get one over on a few hapless yokels.

Sorry, I hope this isn't insensitive, but I was irresistibly reminded of this.

Sorry, I hope this isn't insensitive, but I was irresistibly reminded of this.

After she broke up with Wayne when Fallon was three or four, Jolene moved away to live with a bass player in Huddersfield and didn't come back to the Ambridge area until 1996, when Fallon would have been eleven. So the only outside-Borsetshire influence on Fallon's accent would presumably have been Huddersfield, not Birmingham

Accents are odd. Within my own family:
Mum and Dad: moved to Leeds in their late 30s, moved back to Scotland in their mid 60s. Their accents had not changed one iota in the intervening period.
Me: moved to Leeds from central Scotland aged 9. Did not pick up a Leeds accent at all. Moved to London aged 18. 45 years on some people pick up immediately that I'm Scottish, some people are amazed to learn this, others pick up that I don't have a London accent but aren't quite sure what I do have.
Brother: moved to Leeds as above aged 6. Picked up Leeds accent overnight. Moved back to Scotland in his mid 20s. Resumed Scottish accent immediately. Periodically goes back to Leeds for football matches. Immediately resumes Leeds accent.

One reason for above differences - brother is a chameleon, always keen to fit in. The rest of us aren't.

I agree with you.

I wonder if they’ll cover the inheritance tax issue now

That would rely on them understanding it! No, what am I thinking? Of course it wouldn't. 😂

and who doesn’t love a vegan sausage roll Me. They're vile.

@AlanFranksDiary take that back! My dp used to make excellent ones. You need decent sausages and pastry. But then it's all in the glaze. They were delicious.

Have I mentioned that I loathe Justin?

@stilldumdedumming , no sausage roll could be described as excellent.