Archers thread #183: The Scorekeeper's Apprentice. 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'd like to share a hot tub with Mucky Mick, 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.)

Credit for the title goes to @TottersBlankly who suggested it and @BeatriceBatchelor who coined this lovely phrase. (It's led me to take a look at the Wikipedia page for The Sorcerer's Apprentice. I had not known before that the animation in Fantasia that goes with the Dukas symphonic tone poem is more or less unadulterated Goethe, and the story goes back to ancient times. You learn something every day.)

At the end of the last thread, there was an apocalyptic tone as we were all bemoaning the lack of continuity and farming storylines (especially lambing, which used to be a big theme at this time of year). Are there any reasons to be cheerful? (Not just Part 3 - another reference for the older listeners here. ) Over to you!

Why did Mick not ask Rochelle about her children - why doesn't she have custody ?

Joy reacted in the same way she did when she found out Mick had gone to Rochelle’s address (did he meet Benny?)

I’ve always thought she has an act of how she thinks a nice person behaves but underneath it all she’s very controlling and will be very nasty if things go against her

The dairy’s cash-flow problem is essentially a short-term issue and yet making Clarrie redundant is an expensive measure. Wouldn’t BF be better off just paying Clarrie her (probably quite small) salary rather than having to dip into reserves and find a large chunk of cash in one go? This is not my area of expertise.

Would you ask a woman you don't know that well why her children don't live with her? The answer is very unlikely to be good.

Yes that’s what thought. So she will work 12 weeks at which point Helen should have improved the situation. If she doesn’t then the family need to be asking questions about her ability to run the business

Also, didn’t they say Natasha’s juice business lost business because of the sewage spill? I thought that was done elsewhere so why is it relevant?

I agree. It's a big act isn't it...? Including presenting Rochelle how she would like a daughter to be rather than the reality. Remember she even had Harper and Noah's names on the spare bedroom doors? All a fantasy given her daughter seems to have good reason to not like Joy and her children don't live with her.

It's potentially quite a complex storyline for TA.

The Elvis story is quite shocking really. More shocking than a paint by numbers 'sex for drugs' storyline.

I’m still confused by the age of everyone involved

the fact Joy doesn’t have her own relationship with her grandkids suggests benny is wary of her

I’m more interested in the possibilities of a robotvac that can also clean hard floors, than catching up with Bridge Farm madness but:

• 12 weeks’ notice unusual for a manual job, but reduced hours for both would be a much cheaper option (not least because redundancy would then be based on the “reduced wage” hours - quite a difference if 20years service plus 1.5 multiplier-and also solves issue of finding somebody when the remaining worker takes 5 weeks’ holiday or gets ill)
• Natasha has an office somewhere in Bridge Farm, but orchards and bottling etc are elsewhere. That said, an orchard did suddenly appear for the tearoom, but that wouldn’t be sufficient for more than a few dozen bottles (it was also presumably neglected for decades too, so unlikely to produce much fruit, even assuming it is apples)
• Helen has for form for bad business decisions. Remember the hugely expensive cookery school?

It is positively spring-like here; time to tackle the lawn! Have a good weekend all. I might return to rant about the omnibus.

I’m glad Clarrie is staying to work her notice. Helen only said she didn’t have to because she doesn’t want to see Clarrie every day as it will make her feel guilty. I loved Clarrie getting a bit of a backbone (though didn’t care for her saying she felt sorry for Helen 😏).

I don’t hate the Rochelle/Joy development. I think Rochelle is telling the truth and Joy has been showing a front since the day she arrived in Ambridge, there have been various nods to that. The details are grim but Joy being a big fat liar is interesting.

From time to time we speculate about the age of the Horvilles.

At some point, during the “Rochelle at Christmas” episodes, I think we heard that her kids were teenagers (so possibly 13 & 15 for them to be excited about Disneyland with their dad). So strapping great teens, rather than little bairns.

Youngest that Joy is likely to be (20+20+15) = 55 but more likely that both became parents in their mid-20’s (65).

I’ve always assumed that Joy was more likely to be closer to Susan’s age, than Helen’s.

Until we get an explanation as to why/how Joy materialised in an executive home in what we are told is an attractive village, with no obvious source of income, I don’t care.

Maybe she was an undercover cop/spy and retired on a pension at 55?!

She arrived in Ambridge in August 2019, to save others looking.

Neither.

I think both have a pretty significant mental health condition (bipolar?) that hasn't yet been mentioned but there have been clues.

Both believe their version of events but the truth is somewhere in between.

They were both shakey and inconsistent on how long Rochelle was alone for. Rochelle more so, going from months to six weeks to "most" of the summer holidays. But Joy's "couple of days" didn't seem particularly concrete either.

Perhaps there were other factors influencing this too, perhaps Joy only intended Rochelle to be alone for a short time but something went wrong or maybe there were multiple shorter absences with little practical involvement in between. Maybe someone was supposed to be looking after Rochelle but they were part of the problem, or arrangements didn't work out.

So Rochelle said she was 15 in the mid 90s so would make her late 40’s so Joy is mid to late 60s? I thought Rex was mid 30s?

didn’t realise we knew the kids ages. The fact that Joy still calls them bairns suggests a loose grasp of reality or the sw being intent to ham up the geordie

I find the idea of a confused 15 year old girl left on her own, without knowing for how long and unable to contact her mother, being manipulated into having sex with a "good Samaritan" more believable, moving and disturbing than Cancer Boy and Lynda bonding over the drama llama.

I'm amazed Joy has been around for 5 or 6 years without developing any really character or credible backstory. I have no idea what her interests are, what her field of work was, what she cooks, what she plants in her garden. I don't know when she's lying or when she's being truthful and I don't care. She's a vacuum. With less personality than the Home Farm robovac.

The Ben incident was her finest hour, and it wasn't very fine.

She seems to pop up as a support character a lot - like when Helen was seeing Rob when he was dying

Dear God. I actually feel sorry for Mick now. Run for the hills man!
I think Rochelle sounds credible. Let's face it, Joy has been covering up the truth about Rochelle for years.

Joy sounds like she’s in denial. ‘I’m sorry you had to do the housework’ - that’s the least of the issues. Sounds like Rochelle took on a carer role and was abandoned by both parents. That’s going to mess you up.

perhaps she seeks love and can get overly serious and obsessive and that’s why Joy warned Rex off. Or maybe she just didn’t want Rex to find out about her. Maybe Joy has a history of running away from the truth

still want to know where her money comes from!!

I think we can let R off being a bit fuzzy about the time scale, she was only 15. She probably did feel like it was longer than it was and maybe there were other times as well.

Joy has always come across as very strange. Friendly and kind on the surface but always an undercurrent of living a double life with how she used to gush about Rochelle all the time. She has been a liar from the start and lied about R visiting her in hospital as well. She flipped like a switch when she found out Mick had tried to contact Rochelle.

I now think she warned Rex off purely because she didn't want Rochelle to settle in Ambridge because then the truth would start to come out. She certainly wasn't happy at first to see Rochelle back again, it felt like she had thought she'd got rid of her and could go back to living her pretend life as Joy, the nice lady next door.

I've never 'believed' in Joy, partly because of her uber-fake, gushy speech patterns, which make her feel like a cardboard character to me. Maybe I’m wrong and her sugary facade is all part of a carefully-constructed fake persona - there was certainly a heck of a reveal when she rounded on Mick after he took her address-book to try and find Rochelle: she fairly snarled at him then.

I just can’t conceive of her having any inner life or understand what she does all day in her pristine executive home after she was parachuted into Ambridge with no backstory and no visible means of support

Maybe Peter was a big hotshot and she got a big payout in the divorce

Strange not to have anyone live-commenting from the Academic Archers conference currently taking place on Zoom.

https://www.academicarchers.net/

I assume some posters are virtually attending / presenting? (I’m not; too mean and too lazy and planning a gentle stroll in the sunshine.) Still want to know what’s occurring, though!

I really don't like Joy and Rochelle or Mick but I have to say that was quite a good episode. I'm glad there's a dark past to Joy, it does make her more interesting.

I feel sorry for Rochelle (I know what’s it like to have a parent in complete denial over the past).

I feel for Carrie too. I think this the second time she’s lost her job at the Diary. I still can’t work out how Susan is going to manage on her own when Helen does so little to help day to day.

Not looking forward to Eddie’s reaction and the self-pitying wailing “it’s always us Grundys what end up being treated unfairly”. He’ll now have another reason to hold a grudge against Susan🙄

I fell off the last thread so this may have been asked already - why couldn't the dairy offer Susan and Clarrie a job share until the books get healthier at least as a voluntary option? It seems as though they are spending a fortune on Clarrie's redundancy and then to offer her to come back again in future - it's a bit mad.

Because you are a sensible person who lives in the real word; Helen and the SWs on the other hand....