Archers thread #198: Josh sent to Patagonia, Pip stays put. Wrong way round! Discuss The Archers here.

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Not feeling greatly enthused about what's going on in Ambridge at the moment, tbh. I'm annoyed at Brian's hypocrisy about Ruairi given the furore over George's attempt to frame Alice as the cause of the accident. I do hope we don't have a slow drip drip drip now as one after another the members of the Aldridge/Archer clan find out what really happened and endlessly agonise over what to do. Frankly I don't care. There! I've said it.

Pip's OK. Well, good, but what was the point of that story, I wonder?

I suspect I'm in a minority of one in rather enjoying hearing (a) from Bert Horobin and (b) about Fletcher. I surmise Bert is here to stay for a while because the BBC has (amazingly) updated his character page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/1wQP3mKR6yr9LVs05jddxcY/bert-horrobin (prominent actor photo warning). Given how out of date a lot of the other character pages are, this seems odd, but there we are.

That's all I can be bothered to say! Over to you.

6th of March

It's so ridiculous. Brad was always a bit odd, but he still managed to be able to have a relationship with a normal girl. At one point didn't he meet up with a girl he met on an app?
He can therefore form relationships so it's absolutely crazy to think that in 2 years of university he hasn't met a single person of either sex he could hang out or be friendly with.

May not March. Sorry.

"Brad was always a bit odd, but he still managed to be able to have a relationship with a normal girl."

I'm not sure that the daughter of a woman daft enough to marry Will Grundy would be 100% normal, whatever normal means.

Brad didn't sound like Brad tonight. Is it the same actor?

I can totally relate to eating pickled gherkins out of the jar. Though I'd be more likely to do that as a substitute for pudding. Or in a late-night snack craze. I've been known to eat a substantial quantity of pickles in one go.

Akram sounded totally off his rocker tonight. What does he think farms do, if not produce food? It sounds like he has a very strange image of idealised farm life in his head. We've also not been told, to my knowledge, what this therapy farm thing would involve, but tbh, I can see both why Tom would dismiss it out of hand (sounds like a H&S/liability nightmare, without knowing any details!), and why he'd avoid telling Akram (it would be like kicking a puppy).

I like pickles myself and often a fridge-raiding way.
Is Alice's pickle-eating the SWs' way of telling us she's pregnant?

Akram is as thick as thick thing about the care farm. Another wasted character doing bizarre things.

I too like pickles.

At least gherkins don't have you wondering if you're dieing, unlike pickled beetroot, which I can eat by the jar.

To be fair, it is quite difficult making friends at university if you don't live in or share a flat with other students. It doesn't sound as if Brad's had time to go to clubs or other activities at university, either, given his work commitments, plus he lost some potential friend-making time visiting George in prison, trying to keep his business going, mooning after Amber etc.

Am I right in thinking Akram was a bit of a disaster area when he tried working in the dairy before? Why on earth is Helen offering him work there now?

Hilarious though, that having kicked out Clarrie, Helen is now having to run round the village begging people to do some extra hours in the dairy - and no one’s interested!

he's commuting to uni though.

that takes the young person out of socialising. especially if they have to rely on public transport.

Well, this should have offered Ruth and Pip some distraction yesterday (though they’d know it already)!

Déjà moo: cows can recognise the faces of people they know

https://www.thetimes.com/article/290574ff-7890-48d6-8597-177994120d98?shareToken=dd8161aecd2e28039c5b2acbda550fa8

Pa Malik needs to get back to plumbing, get an allotment to fulfill his need to work with The Land. He can set up a community scheme where patients can come and dig with him and feed the chickens rather than mither the Bridge Farm lot. That's the problem with many Do Gooders, they demand a lot from other people who are usually very busy.

I enjoyed Helen telling Akram they were far too busy for his ill-thought out idea. It was very typical of Tom not to have addressed it. He is quite spineless whereas Helen has the hide of a rhino. She omitted to say stay in your lane and stick to picking veg although that was the basic subtext. I was surprised she asked him into the dairy but her options are narrowing on that front.

I agree that Adam has done much for Home Farm, however, anyone who starts putting pressure on someone to change their will goes instantly to the top of my people-I-have-no-sympathy-for list. He keeps saying to his siblings that he is thinking about the future of the farm but he really just wants to get his hands on the land for himself. He is realising that at 60 he has actually achieved very little in reality and is now making a land grab to shore himself up financially as he gets older. It’s all very very unattractive and I hope he is soon exposed. That is I hope the plot is exposed and that Adam keeps his clothes on at all times…

I enjoyed Helen telling Akram they were far too busy for his ill-thought out idea.

What I enjoyed was Akram telling Helen to stuff her job. She so obviously thinks people should regard it as a privilege to work on her wonderful new cheese, it's hilarious to hear her increasing bewilderment that they're all saying "No, ta".

There was an article in The Times not long ago about how pickled gherkins are trending among GenZ...

I've never known anyone who lived at home while attending university, but surely it doesn't stop people making friends, going for drinks, to parties etc.

Although Brad is so awkward it's not surprising that he doesn't have a social life.

Let's not forget the reason Brad chose to attend his home university was precisely because he didn't want to leave home, so I don't find it too surprising that he's keeping himself to himself and I imagine that is easier to do on a maths degree than if he were studying drama or journalism or something with lots of group projects. That said the SWs could have palled him up with a fellow maths nerd, but this clearly hasn't happened. I suspect he is much brighter than his cohort. Brad had stella A level grades and could have had his pick of unis - I'm not surprised he hasn't found his soulmate at Felpersham. I can't decide what is happening with Den - he seems to have been reinvented (a bit like Fallon's dad when he got a job as the pub chef). Is he just a better man for having met Soph and is she encouraging him to forge a relationship with his son or does he see Brad as a meal ticket which is why he wants him to apply for high paid jobs?

He is realising that at 60 he has actually achieved very little in reality and is now making a land grab to shore himself up financially as he gets older. I think there is definitely an element of this @JoelenesParrot, but I think it's also that he's starting to see he has devoted his life to something that could turn into a handful of dust and that his efforts have not been appreciated. I'm glad he at least has Xander and Ian because it is beginning to dawn on him that no one is irreplaceable in any job - and at the moment it is just a job. He is going to have to choose between walking away forever or continuing to step in because he can't bear to see Home Farm fail (as he did when Stella left, or when he agreed to prop up Ruairi). It is an impossible choice because Brian will always make him feel that if he hadn't walked away it could all have been his, but if he stays he will never be good enough. Painful to listen to, but quite brilliant in plot terms.

I didn't like Den trying to push Brad into an unsuitable job just so he could earn a lot of money in quick order. Den knows nothing about maths, nothing about academia and next to nothing about Brad. Brad's plan of staying on to do a Master's and a Ph.D. is perfectly sensible if he can get funding for it. A Ph.D. stipend is not huge but it would be enough to live on if he carries on living in Ambridge and he might be able to give up his Grey Gables job at last.

He'd then have to embark on the soul-destroying business of applying for a succession of postdoc jobs if he wanted to become an academic, and that would almost certainly mean he'd have to leave Ambridge at last. My best friend from school did all of this over 40 years ago and I don't think it's got any easier since - quite the reverse. She was a brilliant mathematician at school but chose to go into an allied subject. She did her first degree at university A, then spent four years at university B to get her Ph.D., 3-year postdoc in the US, another one somewhere else I forget, finally getting a lecturer post in the UK when she was in her early 30s. After all that she hated it and eventually left to do other things, but let's not dwell on that!

Alternatively Dr Brad would be in an excellent position to move into something else where his maths skills would be valued and could be applied. Not croupier work!

I think Brad getting a (part-time?) job in sports analytics isn't such a bad idea, but alongside his academic career. He could at least try to find a paid summer internship. At some point he'll surely take up Jim's role as the resident intellectual. But hopefully without Den's involvement and inevitable requests for money. Though I would welcome Tracy's Revenge.

Brad is seemingly so easily bought that he’ll be emptying the cash from fruit machines before we can say Quick, smart! Den is appalling.

Agree re Akram telling Helen basically to stuff the job - that was entertaining - what's she doing offering it to him anyway, when Tracey is yet to give her final answer?