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

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

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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!

Are weddings etc supposed to rely on cold buffets, are or caterers supposed to being stuff with them in insulated containers and pray that they stay hot long enough?

That's a food hygiene nightmare waiting to happen. 'Hot holding' is something you learn about in catering training and being careless about it can mean your customers getting ill.

So it’s an unexplained mystery how they manage catering at the Barn if Jill's precious kitchen can’t be touched, there isn’t another kitchen, and they serve any hot or cooked food at all (certainly if it’s cooked on site). If Ruth et al are doing any part of that catering, they should have acquired at least the most basic level required of Food Hygiene certification, and the set-up would have been inspected by someone from the local authority, I'd imagine.

It’s never been easier to google (or indeed ask our own @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime ) if you want the backstory But you have to know there’s a still-relevant backstory that you need to google.

Why …? Hmm - my immediate thought is to prep us for an imminent transfer of licenceeship … Maybe? All I could think of was Jolene getting critical about an impending adultery scenario, and giving someone the opportunity to remind her of her own history.

There is a tiny kitchen attached to the barn. The impression I had was that it's not big enough for the initial preparation of the food but it would be OK for re-heating a few things at the last minute. I know nothing about professional catering so no idea if this is practical. Would professional caterers turn up with lots of cool boxes of ready-prepared food which they rapidly plate up and/or re-heat as required?

As many have already said, why on earth couldn't Fallon do the cooking in her own home? Or as I said when this first came up why not make an arrangement to use the village hall kitchen? Wouldn't the premises she used need to be approved by environmental health, or has that bit of red tape been chucked on the bonfire by one of our many previous Tory administrations?

Billy goats are properly stinky - I love the smell, it's earthy and farmy and reminds me of a gloriously happy childhood but its definitely pungent.

My son in law does pop up supper clubs. He does preliminary cooking in his own kitchen and then finishes things off on the day/evening in the kitchen of the venue he has hired (usually small restaurants). He has had to get food hygiene certificates for himself and his own kitchen. The venues he uses have their own certificates.

Fallon must have a hygiene certificate for her work at the tea room. I don't know whether her own kitchen has a certificate but I am pretty certain the Brookfield kitchen doesn't.

Thanks, @Godesstobe, that makes sense. Bit like the way a restaurant kitchen works (the ones that do make the food on the premises, rather than freezer-to-microwave places), doing lots of preparation before service and leaving just the absolute minimum to do very quickly at the last minute.

[Spot the Masterchef addict]

We are Home Counties and land here clocks up at about 50k an acre, more if it’s got any sort of building on it. Larger, farm sized field (say 20acres +) don’t get much of a discount on this, and a 1.3 acre paddock (about half a mile from the nearest house) sold for £120k about 5years ago. My (complete) guess would be that Brookfield would be circa 300acres but even if it’s just got 100 acres it’s got to be worth over £3mil with the houses, events barn and other farm units in the shires.

also don't forget that assets like stock, tractors, machines etc are included in the valuation. It's not just house and land. Tractors are really expensive!

Tractor should be leased?

Cantsleepdontsleep
My (complete) guess would be that Brookfield would be circa 300acres

The printed Who's Who earlier in the century listed Brookfield as being 469 acres, of which they have since sold 3.5 acres for a pony paddock/EV charging station.

All this talk of hygiene certificates has frightened the life out of me. I mentioned previously that I am catering for a 50 strong tea party for my mother's 95th birthday on Saturday (because the village pub where we normally do these things has sadly closed recently). I've done the lemon drizzle and sausages rolls and today I'm doing brownies. Now I'm suddenly terrified I am going to give 50 mostly elderly people food poisoning. Neither I or my kitchen have a certificate. Could I be sued?

PS Fortunately we are buying platters of sandwiches and rolls from Waitrose so I guess I could always blame them if 50 villagers are struck down with D&V.

I don't think it counts if you are catering for a family party.

Someone I know briefly had a cup cake business. She got a Food Hygiene certificate from the council but it was pretty easy, nothing that would trouble a person with basic knowledge and a clean kitchen.

I have catered for groups of elderly people, and in my experience they tend to be fairly hard to poison. Probably got tougher immunity to 'germs' ! As long as your sausage rolls are piping hot you'll be fine.

If it’s a private party and they aren’t paying for the food, you can poison them as much as you like.

(Hastily edited to add that I don’t for a moment imagine @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g is likely to do so)

😁 That's true my Dad used to leave chicken stew overnight in the slow cooker ( I did throw it away when I found it to his disgust) and things that had been in the fridge for months. He lived to be 92.

Thanks for the reassurance that I can poison away without fear of repercussions.
Apart from the grandchildren (and the baby great grandchildren) I have just realised that there will be no one there younger than 65. So I will rely on these strong constitutions of which you speak.

Topical insert!

BOOP!

Spotted! David's not gone with his NFU pals, then.

OMG a rent in the fabric of space-time-fictionality

my mind is bleuurn (as Steve Bell might say)

Anyone over 70 will have had friends or relatives that didn’t have a fridge (let alone a deep freeze). Many people relied on a larder, with cool stone shelves, or a meat safe - a metal cupboard with lots of ventilation holes. There were no “sell by” or “use by” dates, and we worked on the basis “if it smells ok and it looks ok, it is ok”. My mother gave me the “tip” that if meat smelt a bit off, washing it in vinegar usually set it right.

For anyone who catered during rationing, food was too precious to throw away.

I was born to British parents in another country in 1955. My mother said at first she used to sieve the weevils out of the flour but after a while she just baked them in. Didn't do me any harm.

MereDintofPandiculation
Anyone over 70 will have had friends or relatives that didn’t have a fridge (let alone a deep freeze).

My family had no fridge until I was six; milk and butter were kept cool in the larder in a bucket with a cloth draped over it whose ends rested in the trough of water the bucket sat in. Evaporation kept them from going sour. One of my jobs, as soon as I was old enough, was to refill the trough with water as needed.

The idea of throwing away a stew because it was not in the fridge overnight is horrendous: what a waste! Reheating is an entirely acceptable thing to do to a stew. And you shouldn't put warm food into the fridge until it is properly cool anyway.

Leonard (two syllables from whom at the best of times are enough to render me very stabby indeed) is clearly a government stooge. It was he who had to voice the saccharine pro-vaccine propaganda (which also helped inspire Fragile Ben to infest the nursing profession - cheers for that, Len) and tonight he got to bleat platitudinously about needing IHT to pay for the NHS.

And as if that wasn’t enough, it turns out the old bugger is a bloody cyclist.

But not one in lycra, it seems.

The idea of throwing away a stew because it was not in the fridge overnight is horrendous: is that about my post? The stew I threw away was left in the warm slow cooker for for more than 12 hours not just out of the fridge.