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!

@RuairiDonovan It's the caring PSA and the strange wish to farm that's annoying.
I think his family were farmers back in Pakistan, weren't they?

I'd rather work for Peter Mandelson than for Helen or Tom. Helen and Tom is just too awful to contemplate!

It was his sulky voice I didn't like and the fact he seemed to think that Bridge Farm should automatically fall in with his "care farm" wishes. Also, I thought if somebody is an employee, they do the tasks that the boss(es) ask them to do.
(The interactions with Zainab were pleasant though).

I like the Maliks and their gentle, teasing relationship to each other. But I still find Akram impossible to believe in. You can’t, within weeks of starting, take your new bosses to task for damaging the mental health of their other staff. Just seems weird.

And he’s a professional plumber. I don’t like seeing him downgraded to farmhand.

I think his family were farmers back in Pakistan, weren't they?
Farming in Pakistan is probably not the same as farming in Borsetshire.

I said 'Helen and Tom'.

It doesn't really matter who's at fault, does it - though it's obviously both Helen and Tom, because they are equally ghastly! They both expect the peasants to obey. Sadly for them, Akram is not a peasant.

His general moaning, and inflexibility about pitching in and his sulking because he wasn’t allowed to initiate a scheme that would result in having random visitors to a working farm on a regular basis is insufferable.

That’s the thing … Azra is ‘a catch’, and it’s impossible to believe that she wants to be married to a glorified farmhand who feels most farmwork is beneath him.

Surely 95% of women would have got the ick listening to his weedy poet in a field impression today? I don’t understand why the SWs are so keen to make me despise him.

I really loved this episode. I have worked as a farmworker and I feel the storyline is really insightful. Working on a farm can be very demeaning for farmhands and make them feel powerless, because you have so little agency - the farmers, usually family members, decide almost everything. So I can totally imagine why Akram feels like he is being shoved into a new role (milking cows is totally different from veg growing) with no consultation and that his idea about care farming was dismissed.

Usually, farmhands have to put up and shut up. But because Akram is old, for a farmhand, and knows that he can go back to a more lucrative career in plumbing if he wants, he feels able, maybe even entitled, to express his displeasure to Tom and Helen and even lecture them a bit on how they look after their staff. Maybe he overstepped but that is realistic too, given that he is new to British farming and will be used to being his own boss and for his ideas about running a business to matter. I found it really interesting to listen to and quite nuanced.

I also found the Akram storyline realistic in the sense that he is - I hope - beginning to realise that his dream is to have his own care farm, and not to work for someone else. I think that this is often how people's dreams and career interests develop.

I like Akram.

It pisses me off no end that Helen thinks everyone should be fighting to work for her in the dairy. It’s people like Susan and Carrie and Tracey that keep the wheels turning. And her mum and dad. But they’ll get no quarter from Helen when sacrifices need to be made.

Tom is a total pain but I felt for him. Helen buying 4 extra cows and taking Akram away from the veg because she’s short staffed… I’d be fuming. [then I remember how he treated Kirsty and reckon he deserves it].

I rather enjoyed the fact that he was the catalyst for Tom finding out that Helen's plan was for every single resource to go towards the dairy side of the business for the foreseeable future. I also enjoyed him telling Tom that working there isn't necessarily the unalloyed privilege they think it is, and being quite firm with Helen about her view that he should just do whatever he's told and everyone must love working in the dairy. They both need to remember that he has absolutely no need of that job, and treat him accordingly. Go Akram, I say.

Hasn't Clarrie already told Helen to fuck off with her job offer?

I don't think he did think that. What is pissing him off, not unreasonably, was the casual way they dealt with him - Tom couldn't be bothered to let him know their decision, and Helen only told him because he mentioned it and didn't really give him their reasons.

Although he is an employee, he is doing a lot more than his pay grade. When he mended the leaking pipe or whatever it was he repaired today, he saved them a lot of money in calling out a plumber. Also he's not exactly in the position of other employees inasmuch as he doesn't actually need the job: he could walk out tomorrow and earn much more as a plumber. Indeed, the chances are that Brine would welcome him with open arms if he prefers to do farming work.

"he (Akram) could walk out tomorrow and earn much more as a plumber."

That would make a lot more sense than staying at Bridge Farm, not liking it, moaning, and earning a pittance.

Good idea that there might be farming work more suited to him at Home Farm (although Brian does not have the best of records when it comes to employee relations, either).

I don’t know, he’s been kind of a pain since he arrived, trying to optimise processes he’s just learned and taking hours (veg boxes), pulling up the wrong plants, refusing the dairy work, upset when he can’t start a ‘care farm’ and complaining about mental health…

I’m all for Tom, Helen and Natasha getting some home truths but it weakens the impact when it comes from the farm Eeyore.

Akram has the thing that EVERYONE who comes from outside to work in a family business. Family are fine about rolling up sleeves and getting stuck in because it is their business. Wage slaves not so much.

I would last half a day working for Helen. Way less for Tom.

I agree. He had over-romanticised views though to begin with.

I'm trying to imagine Akram telling Brian of all people how to run his farm, and that he should be more concerned about his workers' mental health, and trying to get some hippy-dippy care farm nonsense started 😂

Oh wait, that might be right up Kate's street though 🤔

But Brian let's NOBODY tell him how to run his farm

Louiza Patikas is such a great actor. That little ‘oh’ she does when someone dares to say the dairy isn’t their dream job perfectly conveys her surprise and disbelief 😂. The Bridge Farm children really are awful people aren’t they?

Akram sulking and going around like a kicked puppy would annoy the hell out of me. And his conversation with Zainab was really odd- I cannot imagine a father and daughter having that sort of exchange. I don’t know how the SWs can serve up drivel like that while getting scenes with the Aldridges and Helen and Tom so right.

May be it does all hinge on the acting itself and not the strength of the lines. As @TherapistInATabardperfectly says, LP says so much even if saying very little

I guess she must be, @TherapistInATabard, because I never think of Helen as being ‘acted’ at all!

Tom always sounds quite stiff and artificial, but it’s part of his persona.

Alice invariably places stress on the wrong words, which flings me right into the Mailbox watching the actors recording. 😡

Akram was employed to do veg not dairy.

Akram is right the people management skills of Tom and Helen are very poor
.
Helen and Tom will pull the farm apart as they are not acting as a team with a common goal.

That said his care farm idea needs to be shelved or found a new home.

@MorningCoffeePlease And who was going to choose which 6 cows were sold?

oh oh oh

Brian sells his land to Akram (that'll teach his kids!)
and Akram can play farm