Archers thread #192: Village of the Dammed. Discuss the beavers here. Throw in the odd word about the Archers if you must.

[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 love to have Kate present as you give birth, 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.)

I'm more excited about the arrival of the beavers than anything else going on in Ambridge at the moment. I hope there will be a webcam.

Bets on how much of next week is set in the castle or on the way there/back? I'm bracing myself for at least 50%.

I’m finding George’s story (so beautifully encompassing Grundys, Carters, Horrobins and tangentially Bridge Farm and Home Farm) enthralling; the rest is just time filler. In a nutshell.

I enjoyed how the 3 housemates first panicked saying they needed to clean up etc, then almost in the next breath put it off ...

The Stables shambles was funny - but I can never feel any investment in the story because Lily has a trust fund, and (if she had not been offered a LL property) would have been bought a dinky little chocolate box cottage, or a swish Borchester flat, at any significant point after her 21st birthday. That’s assuming she really did stay in Ambridge. Which she wouldn’t have done. I can accept Josh moving into his aunt’s empty house. Undecided about Paul. I appreciate the SWs keeping the house in circulation, but …

Living in a house share is the reality for the vast majority of young people. I'm glad they show that - and the inevitable annoyances with house mates, and landlord worries.

Yeah, but no, but … Lily Pargetter, of Lower Loxley Hall?

And Josh Archer?

Their experience is nothing at all like that of most young people. I often wonder how Paul feels, living there.

(I’ve been the Pauletta borrowing a room from countless trust fund graduate peers. It was galling. And sometimes mortifying.)

But he did get a dog as a Christmas present for George, so that made everything all right. Or made it even more wrong, depending how one feels about dogs being given to small children at Christmas ...
I was angry enough about it to complain to the BBC. I was fobbed off.

Brefugee
useless IT/not hitting targets plus the boiler/piping issue: Ambridge surgery to close.

The Ambridge surgery closed in 2002 when Tim Hathaway left the village; Azra works in the Darrington surgery invented for her in 2023 or so. If it were closed everyone from Ambridge would have to go on going to the surgeries they have since 2002, in Hollerton and Borchester.

TottersBlankly
Lily has a trust fund

When did that happen, where did it come from and how much is it?

ThreshAcre
I was angry enough about it to complain to the BBC. I was fobbed off.

I think quite a lot of us did, and were.

Very good post upthread Partystress. It is well thought out and acted, I have a cousin who is a prison chaplain so the all encompassing family trauma when a loved one is sentenced, incarcerated and then has to try and rebuild a life in a hostile world “ outside “ feels authentic. I’m also a listener of about 40 years. I managed the Helen/ Rob coercive control , the Jim sexual abuse backstory but for some reason, for me this one is on a different level.

Lily has a trust fund
When did that happen, where did it come from and how much is it?

Didn’t Lily get a Gwen John and Freddie everything else (subject to the trustee’s approval)?

Lily got a Gwen John for her eighteenth birthday present from her prescient father who (a) couldn't have afforded one when she was nine (b) had no idea she would have the least interest in art, as well as (c) not actually expecting to fall fatally off a roof before she was eighteen. For his eighteenth birthday Freddie got his grandmother's emerald engagement ring, the sort of thing every boy that age longs for.

Freddie is supposed eventually to inherit the estate, if his trustees decide to stop making any money from it for themselves and hand it over to the person his father left it to. Lily has been said to be going to be "looked after" (like Nigel's sister Camilla) at the same time as this inheritance, but has more than once complained on air about getting nothing while Freddie gets the estate.

I just hope that Shula has all her paperwork in order:
HMO license?
Deposit lodged with a guarantee scheme?
Gas and electrical safety certs shared with her tenants along with Renters Rights handbook? etc etc.
Is she paying tax on the income?
If not she may find that Paul ends up with a lifetime right to remain!

It would be funny if she told them she was selling up … too much work required to meet the minimum EPC standards for rental property.

@Beentheredonethat98 , it's not an HMO, it's let to her nephew, niece and a colleague of her XH.

Pretty sure that three more unrelated people in a house constitutes an HMO even if one of them is related to the LL!

Or maybe not if two are cousins…

Two are - Shula is aunt to both Josh & Lily.

But there are three people who are “not from one household”.

Could be a grey area. Beginning to see why Rachel Reeves had problems.

https://www.gov.uk/private-renting/houses-in-multiple-occupation

HMOs are usually a room in a house where the kitchen and bathroom are shared.

Shula's tenants are not forming more than 1 household.

I think too they are only forming one household.

Clue - I bet they don't have locks on their bedrooms.

Only large HMOs of 5+ people normally need a licence.

Flu.

Gastric flu: their guts are shot.

I was interested to hear that Lily thinks you mustn't touch meat with your bare hands. Is that the latest food-scare-thing?

Two of them

Perhaps the Maliks could take Paul and J*y with them.