Archers thread #176: In which Ian puts the I in PTA. Discuss The Archers here.

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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 to hear more from Wesley the ashtray collector, 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.)

Thanks to @DeanElderberry for the pithy phrase in the thread title and @CaptainMyCaptain for suggesting it should go in there. At least we've got the spooky disco out of the way for now. Plenty of wooden dialogue in the last few episodes that could go on the village bonfire next week. It's all been too dispiriting to discuss in greater depth. I'll just say that I don't hold out any great hopes that the production team will make a good job of reflecting concern in the farming community about the changes announced in the Budget to inheritance tax for farms. So often they get an expert to talk them through stuff like this but instead of ending up with a realistic storyline they pick out the bits they like the sound of and cobble them together in a totally unrealistic way. Maybe I'll be proved wrong this time. I hope so.

Over to you!

Ruth was off the scale objectionable.

To go back few episodes, I've little time for Tom, but really can't see a farm-raised man in a nice estate house, though would not be surprised to see him crushed to powder beneath the wheels of Juggernaut, i.e. Gnasher.

On the other hand the clash about who gets the Farm House will be epic.

All this PassiveHaus malarkey is just a way to bring the latter on.

I'm amazed that there are 20 people who would accept a last minute invitation issued on a Sunday to a bash in a barn on a Tuesday in winter.

No thank you!

@BeatriceBatchelor my thoughts exactly. And the way the kitchen situation is shaping up, it may well be a cold lunch

Well ruth was on her way to milk-kin so was very pressed for time.
No I couldnt understand why she was so stroppy with placid Fallon and why she would have to ask Jill's permission to use the farmhouse kitchen. That sounds really cosy "Farm House Kitchen", like when Emmerdale Farm started and they all used to come in and take their wellys off and have a big pot of tea and big loaf of bread and a big chunk of cheese and sit round the big wooden kitchen table saying ' 'appen as like" to every conversation. Sorry got carried away. Feeling really sorry for hard working farmers today.😒

Not sure about the food standards that kitchen

the lunch thing is bizarre - I sometimes wonder what world the sw live in

The wedding story is ludicrous. Danielle and Calvin would be on their knees with gratitude that they had found another venue at such extraordinarily short notice and would hardly start demanding another 20 guests. Even if they did, Fallon could just have said no.

And presumably they had booked the Apple Tree in the first place on the basis that they could only afford a small wedding with 30 guests, so where have they suddenly got the money for another 20?

And what sort of life do Danielle and Calvin lead that they know 20 people who can drop everything and attend a wedding on a WEEKDAY with two days' notice? (And who wouldn't be offended at not have been invited in the first place and who are now very obviously on the B Ark?)

And as a PP said, where is the cooking normally done for weddings in the Brookfield barn? I can see that caterers would do as much preparation as possible in their own kitchen before the event, but, unless weddings at Brookfield only consist of cold food, they must surely need an on-site kitchen to finish everything off on the day. Some of my relatives hired a barn for their wedding last year and that definitely had an on-site kitchen.

Not having an on-site kitchen would mean anyone hiring the Brookfield barn would be limited to cold cuts or caterers who have their own mobile kitchen facilities - surely a small subset which I guess would provide the kind of limited catering you get on film sets or at festivals. (Very possibly delicious but definitely limited in range.) Was Vince happy with that when his Stef got married there?

Also, who is doing all the cooking at the tea room in Fallon's absence? I can't begin to describe how much this is annoying me.

I hate the fact that these SLs are so badly thought through that I can't listen to TA now without wanting to scream irritable questions at the radio all the time. Do the SWs have no commonsense or experience of the real world?

I’m getting flashbacks to Masterchef challenges where they have to cook at places like the Tower of London and transport their finished dishes along miles of cobbled pavements and up and down perilous walkways and lifts on spindly wheeled trolleys. Or, in a recent programme, in the galley kitchen on board a very, very rattly train.

Ruth was bizarrely rude and grumpy (although, if any Taskmaster fans were listening, I did have to laugh at her first utterance - her exasperated 'NO WAY!' brought back memories of Chris Ramsay for me).

Chris Ramsay's 'No Ways'

@Godesstobe Also, who is doing all the cooking at the tea room in Fallon's absence?

Tom! It's all kale pie and custard these days.

Oh I don’t know, Jill wouldn’t be best pleased to find lowly Fallon using the kitchen without Permission I reckon.

Well done Fallon for not telling Ruth to piss off, in her place I’d have certainly told her to lose the business then if that’s what she wants. Especially in a competitive market where venues are closing.

Re guests it wasn’t very many before iirc so maybe extended family who live locally but couldn’t have fitted into the Apple thing

lowly Fallon

Her own step-granddaughter??

Not BLOOD though, you know how pompous Jill can be.

i don’t think Fallon is lowly obviously 😆

Well they should know that they need to be saving as much as they can to pay that inheritance tax bill…

@Godesstobe I couldn't agree more. Your post nails my thoughts about that episode!

Ruth was a class A bitch but I confess, I have no time for her even when she's being amiable.

Jill, former demonstrator of kitchen gadgets in Underwoods (or wherever it was), has nothing to be snobbish about.

It’s an excuse from Ruth because she doesn’t want to clean the kitchen

she often throws Jill under the bus

There’s no reason whatsoever why Ruth, or David should have to clean their own kitchen. I don’t think Emma is employed in that capacity any more but I would consider it very poor form if they were not spreading their wealth by paying someone in Ambridge to do the housework while they do the farming.

I am sure Fallon would clean up after herself anyway ... or do you mean it would need cleaning before Fallon got there?

Godesstobe
The wedding story is ludicrous.

Danielle and Calvin will be celebrating their silver wedding, not their wedding. I don't know whether that makes it better or worse, more or less realistic. It does make sense, though: 20th November, 1999, was a Saturday and thus a likely day for the original wedding.

The Brookfield kitchen won't have been assessed by environmental health so surely that's a non-starter. What about using the village hall kitchen? I can't understand why Fallon's own kitchen won't do unless all her cooking and baking for her outside catering work was done at Terum rather than at home. Very silly storyline.

I can't help feeling that the various mentions of Wayne in the last few days are leading up to his death, illness or retirement. One way or another he has to make way for Fallon to take over and turn The Bull into a gastropub with gazillions of Michelin stars.

(The problem, as I understand it, is that Fallon needs a lot of space to cook and store the food before the day. There is a rudimentary kitchen in the barn that can be used for re-heating and getting the food onto platters etc.)

turn The Bull into a gastropub with gazillions of Michelin stars
If only it were something that sensible. ‘A pint of Shires and a slice of the coffee & walnut’? Can’t see that being a roaring success. Keep cakes out of pubs.

I am sick of Fallon, of her stupid name, her stupid, slurry sing-song speech, and her stupid half-baked ideas.

Her own step-granddaughter
Not really a relationship at all, that. (I still think the Archers were weirdly unpeeved at Kenton marrying the frightful ‘Jolene’)

RegimentalSturgeon
(I still think the Archers were weirdly unpeeved at Kenton marrying the frightful ‘Jolene’)

They were all so profoundly relieved that he was now unlikely to return to sponging off them that they were not going to argue, nor yet to point out her folly to her.

I am sick of Fallon, of her stupid name, her stupid, slurry sing-song speech

Good description of how annoying Fallon's voice has become. Plus the stammering!

I think the Brookfield kitchen is a mess because Jill can’t do it anymore and Ruth doesn’t really care

are they that wealthy? According to the news farmers are all making less than minimum wage

They were onto something with the thing they did a year or two ago when they opened the pub during the day. Am I muddling real life and TA or did they decide that people could pay a flat fee for unlimited coffee and wifi plus a pub lunch and a warm environment to sit/work in? Here in London every time I go into a cafe on a weekday it's stuffed with people peering at laptops and conducting work meetings by phone/Zoom/Teams or even occasionally (brace yourselves) face to face. Increasingly I see notices sensibly putting time restrictions on this kind of thing in the interests of making space for the lunchtime trade and others who only want a fairly quick pitstop and will then be on their way.