Archers thread #199: Kaboom! The Aldridges are self-destructing, and it's GLORIOUS. 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 drop everything to help Helen create a new cheese on national minimum wage, 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.)

If you haven't heard last night's episode (Friday 22nd May) you really must. It's episodes like that that keep me addicted. Funny how often they involve the Aldridges, the most dysfunctional and also by far the most interesting family in Ambridge. Also very well acted on the whole. How lovely to hear Tamsin Greig in TA, but I wonder if we ever will again.

Some cracking posts towards the end of the last thread, which is here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/5518503-archers-thread-198-josh-sent-to-patagonia-pip-stays-put-wrong-way-round-discuss-the-archers-here

Over to you!

Thank you @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g!

What a great moment for a new thread. I wonder if, contrary to expectation, the SWs will have Debbie around for the whole of this Anniversary Year, at the heart of the implosion of Home Farm?

That’d be wonderful Totters!
Brian is suffering from Jenny’s loss and concern for Ruari.
I came to these threads expecting someone with expert knowledge, or just a good memory, to be explaining to us why Brian can’t pull out of the partnership! Anyone?

So being fair it should be a Jenny/ Brian split
Each side has a 50% share which is split by their children
Jenny has Adam Debbie Kate and Alice who all get 25% of her half or 12.5% each
Brian has Alice Ruari Kate who each get 33.33% of his half or 16.5%

so
Adam 12.5%
Debbie 12.5%
ruari 16.65%
kate 29.15 %
Alice 29.15%

maths is rounded!

Kate and Alice have the majority and so get the farm between them

Thanks @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
Can't wait for the next episode!

My advice for Debbie- go back to Hungary, live your life and expect nothing by way of inheritance. Make your own money.
For Adam- wash your hands of Brine and Home Farm, leave them all to it and find a good farm manager job elsewhere.
i feel sorry for both of them. I never thought Brine would throw that in their faces. Jenny would be appalled. They should sell whatever stake they have in Home Farm and leave the rest of them to sort the mess out. They should definitely not expect anything from Brine in the way of inheritance.

I'm one of the weirdos who dislikes Debbie's voice, but I cheered when she walked into the meeting.

Excellent title - thanks Gasp

I do hope the SW don't let this blow over. I want this to run and run.

Thanks for the new thread @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Looking forward to the fireworks.

I'm not sure about that. It was Brian's parents' money that enabled him to buy the farm in the first place and the entire Aldridge fortune has been built on that. Jennifer would have had an excellent case for getting a substantial chunk of it - half? - if they'd divorced, which is what I hoped would happen after she found out about Siobhan and Ruairi. Her time spent bring up the children and running the house, her support behind the scenes and her contribution to the work of the farm and the shoot would all have been given credit, as I understand it.

However, she decided to stay and make a go of it, and (incredibly) brought Ruairi up after Siobhan died. I'm quite certain that if Jennifer had outlived Brian and inherited the whole shebang (which she very probably wouldn't have, as I can't see Brian having a will that left everything to her, thereby leaving Ruairi's inheritance to the goodwill of the rest of the family) she would have left a simple will dividing it all up in five equal shares - Adam, Debbie, Kate, Alice, Ruairi.

They've operated as one family for decades now, even though Adam and Debbie are not Brian's biological children and Ruairi was not Jennifer's biological child. It's legal but not very ethical or kind for Brian to go back on an understanding at this late stage.

Well said @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g and thank you for the new thread 😊

I'm just cut'n'pasting this from the previous thread:

@Madcats wrote Today 14:42
There are some hefty tax implications for taking the land out of a partnership (stamp duty land tax and capital gains to name but a few), so I am fairly confident that it won't happen.

I got the impression that the land doesn't belong to the partnership, but to Brian.

Those complaining about about TG's voice, it was her instantly recognisable tones that made her entry so dramatic last night. Listeners were in no doubt about who had just turned up, essential for good radio drama. I half wondered if this was TG being definitively written out with a dramatic exit. She's not available, so better just to definitively cancel her once and for all. I thought Brian's: "You're not even my children" was unforgivable, but entirely indicative of the utter shit he still is and always has been. If things had been different, could anyone imagine Jenny uttering these words to Ruairi? Adam is entitled, but he's entitled to be!. It's all well and good Brian saying he'll get someone in to manage the farm, but look how that worked out last time - and look who was there to pick up the pieces! Brian is deluded if he thinks Home Farm's success is entirely down to his own good management of he place. I feel Adam's knowledge about Ruairi and Brian's attack on George must yet come into play or what was the point of all that nonsense after Christmas. All in all a superb plot - a head and shoulders above anything else we's been forced to endure in recent months and one hundred times better than the Brookfield inheritance fudge.

Am I alone in feeling sorry for Brian in all this? And I utterly despise Adam - it's all self, self, self with him, as my dear old granny used to say.

I too want this s/l to run and run!

Brian's brought it all on himself, though.

I am with you @BoreOfWhabylon

I was horrified and disgusted by Adam and Debbie and while Brian denying them as his children was pretty cruel, he could have gone much further. It really was an ugly scene and cannot ever be forgotten by those who were there.

The problem is that Brian is not immortal although it is very typical of men like him to think they are. Alice will be straight on the phone to Kate who strangely may end up as a voice of reason in all this. Adam and Debbie staging a land grab in this way will be very poorly received.

I really don’t like TG’s halting delivery. I’m another who cannot understand the love for her on this thread.

Brian is a despicable shit. Yes Adam is deluded and stupid and Debbie sounded grabby. But Brian really takes the custard cream.

I'm actually a bit concerned that Charles Collingwood is sounding increasingly frail

Also, I'm predicting that Jill will end up in The Laurels with Auntie Cardboard and Leonard will move in with Carol as a companion.

Am I alone in feeling sorry for Brian in all this?

No! That's what so delicious about this SL, it's dividing us into Team Aldridge -v- Team Height of Entitlement (to use Brian's phrase).

I want Adam to get his just desserts. This is not a typo. I'm thinking a bowlful of rancid rice pudding in his face.

Asking might correct me, but the partnership was set up to pass a hefty chunk of the farm assets down to the kids, before Brian died. For this to work, the land title(s) had to get transferred into the partnership (Brian couldn’t just remain sole owner).

I can’t remember what the partnership shares were (but Debbie and Adam did receive some recognition for contributing their time compared to Kate and Alice and Ruth acted on behalf of Ruairi until he was 18).

What did surprise me in the middle of the family row, was the expectation that Alice would inherit The Stables. That is probably news to Shula and Daniel (or maybe James if I missed an episode where Shula sold up to Lilian)!

Don’t think it’s a particularly thought through expectation, it was just convenient to argue at that point?

It’s obviously up to Brian who he leaves the farm to (and as has been previously pointed out, whoever does inherit will face a massive IHT bill), but I don’t think it’s fair to expect Adam to run the farm for no reward. Alice, Kate, Ruairi and now even Debbie do nothing - Adam is entitled to feel a certain amount of entitlement. Unlike Debbie he doesn’t have another life, he has well and truly hitched his cart to Home Farm. Without Jenny there to stick up for him, no one seems to be acknowledging this. Brian so obviously wants to give everything to Ruairi, but he hasn’t bothered to train him up for anything and with Jenny gone R seems to have fallen to pieces.

Arthur Hughes seems to be all over the telly atm. No doubt his being in demand is part of the reason Ruairi is currently exiled from Ambridge?

I'm very glad to hear it!

<on edit> Not that he's exiled from Ambridge, but that he has "proper" work!