Archers thread #189: Brian reaps what he sows, in spite of himself. 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 want to hear more from Markey, 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.)

Over to you!

Funny but also terrifying, poor pony.

🐎

I get a sense of SWs who have no idea how seriously real life competitors in shows take the whole thing.

DeanElderberry
I get a sense of SWs who have no idea how seriously real life competitors in shows take the whole thing.

I went to an F&P show once.

There is no way on God's Green Earth that anyone apart from the judges would have had access to the exhibits between the competitors being asked to leave so the judges could do their work without fear or favour and the public being allowed back in to see the results. And before the judging, God help anyone trying to take and eat any exhibit: the competitors would have had their guts for garters on the spot.

In any case, anyone trying to get access to the exhibits would have been suspected of trying to tamper with the opposition, and removed very rapidly indeed.

That is what happened in Ambridge last year, and the year before and the year before and.... There have been storylines about Joe Grundy trying to nobble Bert Fry's marrow or other similar skulduggery and it being foiled by the villain having no access to the exhibits. There was all the fun of Jazzer trying to smuggle in Rosie's sunflower, last year, for instance; he had trouble doing it because the venue was sealed against interference of that sort.

I'm sure we can all agree that it was rib-ticklingly hilarious, though, can't we? Yes, we can't!

mirth provoking

Hilarious. I don't know how we get through the year. I'm on pins here wondering what jolly japes they'll give us next year.
Still, we have the wonderful Geowurgenamber wedding, Krismurze komedy kapers and the Easter Bunny before then.

Who knows, maybe we'll have the ever present now never present J&M to entertain us.

Do we think the George'n'Amber nuptials will go actually take place? They barely know each other.

Well, if Amber survives her trip to Turkey (with or without teeth), and George survives Mickey retribution, I would hope the wedding does go ahead. The Grundy clan needs replenishing and it will be a while before Keira and Poppy start procreating. (Mia’s a bit too semi-detached to properly count.)

I know it might all seem far fetched - but I’m finding it an entertaining window onto contemporary relationship forging.

Keira is 14. She's probably not getting much attention at home. She might have a baby in her teens.

I thought George was not very successful with women, and Amber's more of a penpal at the moment.

My money is on Amber ditching George for Brad.

Brad isn't that stupid, is he?

I sincerely hope not.

Myson will fall out with Alice and Adam over running Home Farm.

That would be interesting, @TheCrasher, because Adam'n'Chuckles were great pals with him back in the day - I assumed on the sole basis that he's not 100% heterosexual, because I couldn't think of any other reason they'd show an interest in him. And falling out with Ruairi would be problematic for Alice's "recovery" as she seems to think (I use that word loosely) that they need to be besties.

When it was decided that Alice needed a room in her parents' cottage more than a chap taking his A-levels did, Adam and Ian had Ruairi to live with them for quite a while. I'm not sure how much they were his chums as opposed to his unpaid landlords, though: I remember Adam being flabbergasted by how much Stuff he brought with him and expected them to house.

I thought it was Kate that Rhuari fought with over a bedroom. I remember him calling her 'Clown trousers' which tickled me as it gave me such a clear mental picture of her with colourful baggy trousers, dreadlocks etc.

Alice was the one who, because she was a not-really-recovering alcoholic, needed to have Ruairi's bedroom given to her while he was taking his A-levels. And there was no fight: Ruairi very generously offered to give up his room to Alice, because he had some idea of somewhere else he wanted to stay (but was not allowed to and had to go and lodge with his very-much-older no-relation "brother"). Alice repaid his good behaviour with an absolutely vile verbal attack on him which drove him away from home altogether.

He may at some other time have been rude about Kate's trousers, but I don't think it can have been about her bedroom in Willow Cottage, because she didn't ever have a bedroom in Willow Cottage.

I"m pretty sure they were arguing about a bedroom and it was definitely Kate but probably a different occasion.

I still can't think why those two would have needed to argue about a bedroom, though; Home Farmhouse had bedrooms for each child (and Kate was not living at home or even in the country for almost all Ruairi's childhood), and, having forced her parents to sell their house, Kate was never offered the option of living with them in the two-bedroomed cottage they moved to. They needed the second room there for the only one of their children who was still at school, so there would have been no discussion about the matter.

Can you remember how old the two were at the time? Ruairi was mostly silent from 2010 or so until 2018, and the move to Willow Cottage happened at the end of 2018.

At the end of 2018 Kate was 41 and Ruairi was 16.

It wasn't at Home Farm it was the cottage. If it isn't a correct memory it was a very vivid dream which would have been weird.

You're right, you're right: Kate had absolutely no right to what was quite certainly Ruairi's room at Willow Cottage but demanded it anyway. She came back from RSA on 12th February 2019, and

"Kate wastes no time in voicing her feelings about the lack of space, the lack of furniture, the lack of her clothes and much else. Brian informs her that she can stay until Friday when Ruairi will be home. ... Kate launches into an ‘it’s not fair’ rant, demanding to know when her parents are going to buy somewhere bigger. Brian responds by telling Kate that if she thinks she can live with them she’s got another think coming, and for the first time ever, Jennifer backs him up, saying it’s time Kate stood on her own two feet." (Lowfield).

So Kate stayed "till the end of the week"; and when Ruairi got home early on Friday morning, drunk and having had a horrible evening and night, and wanted the use of his own room,

"Nursing a crashing hangover and a broken heart, Ruairi goes to his room to sleep it off, but there is little chance of that as Kate screams abuse at him. Brian comes up to see what is going on, and points out to Kate that the room was hers only until today; Ruairi has possession now. In high dudgeon Kate slams off to one of her yurts."

I was intrigued enough to go and have a listen to the episode, and when he arrived at his room and walked into it Ruairi (who clearly had no idea Kate had decided it was her room now, and said he had forgotten she was there) did indeed tell Kate he didn't want to see her in her bra and clown trousers, to which she angrily responded they were not clown trousers, they were Thai fisherman's pants and if he didn't like it he could turn the light off and get out of her room. He pointed out that it wasn't her room, and she told him she didn't care about his woes and he was to go and sleep it off on the sofa, which he refused to do, saying that it wasn't even her home and she should go and find somebody else's house to doss in. Brian then intervened, having been woken by the raised voices, and Kate became extremely shrill and vituperative about Ruairi being drunk when he was sixteen. (Goodness what a hypocrite that woman is!) She was then given her marching orders and went off to whinge to Roy about it. He arranged for Lilian to ring her and offer her a room pro tem.

Thank you for making me find and listen to that again: it was a splendid example of Kate at her entitled, whinging worst.

Thank you @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime I'm glad I'm not losing my marbles.

I do love Kate, especially when she's being particularly awful.