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!

Brian made such a song and dance about Adam coming back too, and Brian did say to Adam that he would leave him the farm. Good storyline though

Just caught up and really enjoyed last night's episode. I was a bit confused how there could even be a partnership meeting with only 3 out of 6 (?) present. Is that even quorate to make decisions? Was Adam expecting everyone to just believe him when he said Kate, Ruari and Debbie agree with me.

My aversion to Adam, leaving aside his "personality" (or absence thereof), is his awful voice. My reaction to it reminds me of my Kiwi niece who, at the age of about 3, said of my then boyfriend "I don't like That John!" When asked why, she said "I don't like the way he talks" ... in her defence, he was American. (In his, he isn't American any more!)

She forgave him everything when we explained that he was American, like Mickey Mouse. He subsequently sent her a signed photo of himself with Mickey, arms around each other's shoulders, both of them holding a placard reading "Hello Jane! Love from Mickey and John!" He had been invited to some sort of potential-investors freebie before Eurodisney (or whatever it's called) opened. And from then on she thought he was wonderful!

Unfortunately I am not 3 years old, so nothing Adam does (apart from die on air in a fit of terminal rage) will win me over.

Harsh, perhaps. But fair.

Very good point @tourdefrance - he really doesn't come out of this well. Is he going nuts? Poor Ian still seems to be in stand by your man mode, but it can't be easy.

I wish Ian would just leave Adam, and take that poor child with him. He (Ian) seems to be stuck with all the parenting.

Just checking in

Even though Brian is a dreadful power broking man, it is a simple truth that Adam and Debbie are not actually his children. How and why do they not have some self awareness in this regard?

Their brazenness is breath taking.

Adam's greed/ambition is so naked he is trying to grab it all without a care for Alice who might get the stable.

Is there a (biological) class difference being played up here? Brian's progeny are less rapacious, more concerned for him and his wellbeing. His step children are looking for revenge and concerned with gaining control of millions of pounds worth of land?

Making a difference between Adam, Debbie and his ‘biological’ children is wrong. He has raised them as his own, and asked Jenny, and them to welcome Ruari as a full sibling despite the betrayal. Further, they have both been central to the success of the farm and the partnership over decades, helping to develop it as a profitable business and providing a good income for everyone.

Brian doesn’t strike me as a particularly good farmer. And he couldn’t work with Stella.

Totally agree. Brian has shown what he thinks of his step children. I love the idea that they both clear off and leave the others to sort out the mess.
I hope Brian can't find a farm manager, ( perhaps he should ask Mr Malick), and it crumbles like a deck of cards and he has to sell at a loss to of all people Justin.
I found Alice very annoying, she changes like the wind, you could never rely on her.
She deserves that wimp Rex.

Oh and thanks for the new thread Gasp.❤️.

Here’s my unpopular opinion, fwiw: I can't stand the odious, blustering Brian and I hope he gets everything that’s coming to him. I can’t be doing with any of his children either (whether biological or step) but I've had it up to here with his histrionic angsting about Ruairi, who's committed a crime - but apparently it’s just fine and dandy to cover it up because MySon is speshul and his crime couldn’t possibly equate to anything committed by the unspeakably common George Grundy.

100% agree. The hypocrisy!

I have been idly wondering why I am so strongly on Team Brian here. Basically, what it boils down to is that I can't stand Adam. He reminds me of my younger stepson - roughly the same age as Adam - who rang up at the beginning of the year (having not been in touch for a very long time) asking for money to buy the house he rents. We don't even have his address! When asked how much he wanted, he replied "How much have you got?" and I hung up. The self-entitlement is strong there.

Maybe Adam could flounce off to Perthshire to work with Charlie Thomas!
(Had the SWs forgotten that Damara owned a fair bit of Scotland when they sent a few of them up to Blackpool and the not a castle?)

Well it is very King Lear and I’m always on Cordelia/Alice’s side. Except for Kate Brian has at some point offered the farm to all of the children,
But it is a fabulous “ Downfall of the House of Aldridge” and not finished yet!

I went looking for Debbie's birth date in the 2001 Archers Encyclopedia (December 1970) and was bemused by the information that by that stage, aged 30, she had gone by the surnames: Travers-Macy, Macy, Aldridge and Gerrard. afaik she is now back to Macy (why not Archer pray tell) but could be something quite different, she's fairly private about her life in Hungary. That suggests a lot about the sws attitude to women's identities, also peripherally to her family's ditto.

lotsa deadnames

Adam just had Archer (never Redmond), Travers-Macy (by adoption) and Macy.

For Adam- wash your hands of Brine and Home Farm, leave them all to it and find a good farm manager job elsewhere.

Didn't he try that before without success? I can't remember why, something about having rows with the owner?

I think he was expected to turn up for work on time and do the job he was being paid for, which is pretty unreasonable, if not actually outrageous.

I'm disliking Adam in this scenario, because he reminds me too much of my brother, who has always been a bit of a bully and who has only bothered to make contact over the last 18 months to whinge about when his share of my father's estate was coming through.

I’ll go back to what I said on the previous thread… the children are the product of their parents and the parenting they have had through their lives. Always being played off against each other, always watchful of Brian who must have felt like an unreliable dad due to his infidelities. Watching Jenny sticking with him despite the humiliations and the erratic behaviour.

I love Adam’s voice
sadly the picture of the actor doesn’t match up

I think it would be awesome for lily to come over all ambitious, 'team up'/marry with brine, produce more heirs, send freddie and the whole village/world into a flat spin!

Yes. Very inappropriate from an age point of view, but then so was her relationship with Russ, and it's been how the landowning class managed things for centuries.

Very odd - the Home Farm meeting is written as if Brian hadn’t previously promised Adam the land.

Another breakdown in continuity between writers?

I said at the end of the last thread that we know who owns The Stables house - Shula. And my expectation would be that she would leave it to her own son, Dan. But, given the writerly shenanigans over Glebe Cottage, I no longer have any faith that ownership of The Stables house won’t have been transferred without our having heard about it …

I was surprised to see the photo of the actor who plays Riuari. He's 10 years older than the character and looks very much like the detective he played in Gone rather than how I imagined Brian's son to look.