Archers thread #181: Panto Week's behind you! Was that the nadir? Discuss The Archers here.

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Will it be onwards and upwards for TA now, or do we fear even more of these special weeks (Martin and a Christmas Carol, Scam Week, Panto Week) and sudden reinventions of long-established characters (Neil)? I for one have had enough of all that. I want a quiet period of change counting in the village shop, farming talk with suitable sound effects and village gossip over coffee at Terum or a pint in The Bull. Slowly developing storylines featuring the full cast, not a subset for a few weeks with no mention of the others, and all behaving in character. Not holding my breath we'll get any of that, though!

Over to you.

I had a friend who was given a budget in an emergency situation

i wonder if we will get an expensive guest star to play the borchester water representative

Helen was a right little bundle of calm and cheery helpfulness, wasn't she? It was almost as though she was enjoying the situation. Is it because this will screw up Tom'n'Tash's house purchase, or is she just insane?

Or both...

I think the scriptwriters are probably so young and inexperienced that they don't own property and probably have a minimal amount of contents insurance but know nothing at all about buildings insurance. I've never had a policy in 40 years which doesn't pay for alternative accomodation if the house is uninhabitable through fire, flood etc.

I've never had to use it myself but my insurers found accomodation for a tenant of mine last year when major bathroom repairs were needed. They refunded the air b'n'b I paid for for the first few days and then offered accomodation direct, which they paid direct.

The absence of any officialdom is also incredible. Much as we all hate water companies they would be all over this. The water company may well organise or pay for accomodation.

Then there's Environmental Health and whatever the English equivalent of SEPA is (Scottish Environment Protection Agency).

"Yes, Mrs Horville, we would usually cover emergency accommodation costs, but we do need confirmation from the water company about the situation, and they are entirely oblivious to any sewage event. Certainly no one appears to have contacted them about it..."

Ignoring the poonami at the moment, Fallon is acting like a spoilt brat . How long has her dad been making these pies and fish and chips without anyone saying " this is whiting not cod, this is not home made pastry, is that gravy granules in that meat pie?"
She is so jealous that people prefer frozen to her 5* pastry. Why can't she keep her big gob shut. Would the trading standards really jump in. She is only doing the job till her dad comes back. Don't fix what's not broken Fallon and sort your " I'm a much better cook" self out.

You'd think so, but my impression is that the great majority of them are over 50. Naylah Ahmed, this week's SW, has been writing for TA for something like 15 years and earlier worked as a radio producer. Keri Davies must be well up in his 60s. Jeremy Howe ditto. Nick Warburton who wrote some of the themed stuff recently is in his 70s. All very odd.

It would probably still qualify as home made if he put the pastry and filling together as long as the filling wasn't tinned beef stew.

I don't think wrongly describing the type of fish is acceptable although, given a choice, I'd probably try the whiting.

I think Fallon's got some fair points. If they're selling it as cod & chips rather than fish & chips, then not selling cod is wrong. And I would usually expect a homemade pie to be homemade, rather than home constructed.

I also don't think Jolene had been clear before that there would be no place for creativity and innovation - she must have known what Fallon would be interested in doing. She's her daughter, not an unknown chef from an agency.

But I also find it weird that Jolene had no idea of the fish in the freezer or that Wayne uses frozen pastry. It's good that she trusted him to get on with things, but I don't find it feasible that she had no idea of the food orders or his methods at all. She might not have known the details, but she would have probably seen him putting flour in a mixer or something, had he made his own pastry.

Home made might imply that it has been made from fresh ingredients or you could argue that assembling the pie at The Bull renders it home made. If Wayne cooks his own beef/chicken/insert filling of choice and then puts ready made pastry over the top I don't think people would make that much fuss especially if it tastes good.

I am not at all sure that anybody would always assume that puff pastry is made on the premises as I believe quite a lot of chefs would buy that in.

Mind you this attitude is coming from an old codger who doesn't spend their days worrying about UPF's. Probably should but I am too old now.

There are plenty of people who would see a pie made from a tin of pie filling with bought pastry on top as home-made, because of that final step of putting the two together, cutting the pastry to shape and knowing what temperature to bake it at.

I do find the whiting bit odd though. I don't see how anybody who eats fish and chips regularly could fail to spot the fish wasn't cod.

Yes, I am no fish expert but I think I would notice whiting wasn't cod, too.

Exactly. The cut of each fish is very different. Cod = big fillet, whiting thinner.

I'm in Melbourne and a neighbour will, in season bring me the King George whiting fillets he has caught. Superb, and like all fresh-caught fish, taste of the sea.

Quite! I hope they pay them extra. Doubt they will.

Can’t imagine they are going to have a lot of money spare tbh

i can imagine Susan and clarrie offering as they are invested in their jobs. However, shouldn’t the insurers/water company send specialist cleaners?

surely bridge farm can get compensation as well? And the insurance companies will be going after the water company. I wonder if any of that side will be touched by the sw or if it will just be the current nonsense

Well that makes it even more peculiar because writers of that age will know how the real world works.
It must be some kind of plot device so that Joy and Mick end up staying on the farm and Tony has an affair with Joy, or Pat with Mick or Mick with Helen...dear god please no.

We can only hope that Rochelle turns up ... perhaps with Johnnie?

Also, re the sewage thing, where are all the news reporters? This sort of thing often ends up on local news outlets, and sometimes (if it's bad enough 🤢) on the national news too.

That’s true! Pretty much compulsory to make the local news with that sort of devastating flood.

Often they drag someone from the responsible body in to be berated, too.

It occurred to yesterday that I’m not actually enjoying or feeling entertained by this story. Potentially interesting but they’ve written the aftermath so incredibly badly.

Helen's Panglossian calm and cheerfulness is amusing, though.

I'm a bit worried about who is going to be eating all that cheese that was put on the top shelf 'safely' out of the way. Surely being in the same room as all the poo does not fit with food standards regulations

Yes, some friends in N London were on the TV because their street had no gas for a few days

Absent any Environmental Health, councillors, Water board, journos, TV....

They could get that MP back on?

I'm still unsure quite what has happened. Is most of Bridge Farm land under a layer of sewage too, or is it just the yard and the Beechwood Estate in a distant corner of the farmland?

Madcats
I'm still unsure quite what has happened. Is most of Bridge Farm land under a layer of sewage too, or is it just the yard and the Beechwood Estate in a distant corner of the farmland?

According to the BBC's map on the wall of the recording studio, Heydon Brook is on the far side of a disused gravel pit from the Bridge Farm buildings, and at least two fields away. So in order for that overspill to reach Bridge Farmyard, it would have to have filled the old gravel pit and then flowed across several hundred yards of arable or grazing ground.

Sewage backing up through the lavatories (foul water) and showers (ordinary waste water) in some but not all of the Beechwood Estate houses is also remarkable: it's a new estate, and the foul water waste and the ordinary waste ought not to be being drained into the same pipes, so while sewage in the lavatories is possible, though unlikely with no warning leakage from manholes outside the buildings, it should be impossible for it to get into the drains from the showers.