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!

I thought Akram had carried on with his plumbing work, taking on occasional jobs.

Didn’t Azra try and look after Adil’s allotment when she first appeared?

Yes.

I thought they were over at Lower Loxley (which appears to have disappeared off the face of Borsetshire, along with its inhabitants.)

I have to say I don't miss Elizabeth ... though I quite liked Vince the Mince!

I don't miss Elizabeth either, but I do feel we're overdue to sort out the SL about Freddy's inheritance.

Yeah I miss Vince. Goodness knows why.

I'm so sad about Anthony Head. What a lovely man and a beautiful voice.

I don't find Akram as annoying as some other posters, but I think it's a bit unfair to suggest he's upset at them not taking up his idea. What he was actually upset at was Tom deciding instantly they weren't going to do it but not telling him, and then Helen just casually telling him when he pressed her. Agree that he's got increasingly peevish from then on, but the original issue was the way Tom and Helen cavalierly ride roughshod over everyone, which seems very in character for them both.

I miss Elizabeth. The show is still called ‘The Archers’; she’s a member of the core family. The spineless cowardice of a creative team scared of being cancelled on SM if they admit the existence of a stately home in the story - well, frankly it puts up my blood pressure …

And whatever people feel about Elizabeth (I don’t mind her, can’t stand Vince though) Freddie is a strong character. He’s well written and acted.

It’s absurd that at 27 years old he’s working for Vince rather than learning to take over from Elizabeth with all the pressures of keeping LL going.

I had an allotment a few years ago. It needed a lot of work and the people next to it kept walking over it as a short cut. You weren't allowed a shed so had to carry our shovels etc up to it.
Now I think after covid when everyone wanted an allotment for some reason, they are allowed sheds and some one has put a child's climbing frame on theirs. I gave ours up because it was too much work as we both worked full time and could only tend to it at weekends.
Ardils allotment seems to have disappeared, but I agree that or a small holding would have been better for Akram, then he would not have to answer to anyone except the allotment police.

Happy Open Farm Sunday everyone! 🚜 🐄 🐄 🐄 🐖 🐖 🐖 🐓 🐓 🐓 🐑 🐑 🐑 🌾 🌾 🌾

I don’t miss Elizabeth but I do find it totally incompetent that neither of her kids are currently gainfully employed on the estate. What exactly is the point of it? They could do literally ANYTHING on there and neither of them has done anything more than order people around in the tearoom.

Coincidentally there is some sort of mental health wellness thing started up in one of our villages right next to the much loved and much cared for allotments. I haven’t yet got to grips with what the group is doing as I only see Facebook posts as currently housebound. Seems to be a good deal of activity in the river but I wonder if they have linked up with the allotment holders for ‘learning experiences’.

Exactly. Even though the trustees decided that he couldn't take over LL at the moment, he will be taking it over at some point, so should be involved in the running of it in some way and learning the process.

I don't see how the SW can keep kicking this one down the road, it's a major storyline. It's ridiculous they've sidelined Elizabeth and LL. Think of how Nigel was so fundamental to the programme, Freddie should be too.

The distaste for inherited wealth by the programme makers is so obvious but they're ignoring a potentially great storyline which is fundamental to the programme with everything else it would entail eg what happens to Lily and Elizabeth in the long and short term, in favour of boring silly things done badly eg Akram and his farming ideas, by characters who have been there for 5 minutes and would not make a jot of difference to the village if they were permanently and immediately removed and never heard again.

I have no doubt the SWs are busily planning a financial crisis that will require the executors to sell Lower Loxley and rehouse all Pargetters on The Green …

In a leaky tent? Of course, Elizabeth can just move in with Vince the Mince, and doesn't Lily live in Shula's house, whatever it's called? Maybe Freddie does too, for all I know ... or maybe neither of them does? Paul's room is presumably available, since he hasn't been heard or even mentioned since he went to visit his dying grandmother rather a long time ago. So many random bedrooms, so little interest in who sleeps in them!

Meanwhile, back to the Maliks ....

Now I may be misremembering this, but when Azra + kids moved to Ambridge from (possibly) Solihull, Akram was in Pakistan sorting out his late father's estate. And for some reason I thought that the estate involved agricultural land. So perhaps Akram is actually a true Son-of the-Soil and plumbing is just what he did when they moved to the UK? You know, what with there being little call for farm workers in Solihull.

I can’t remember the details.

D’you think the relay team of SWs can? …

I realise this may may make me an over invested sad sack but I’ve listened back to the moment where Brian first proposed the partnership.

In my defence I was on a long train journey and I was bored.

In the omnibus of 30.04.17 Brian proposes:

• A share for each child = 5
• An extra share for Debbie and Adam to reflect their work on the farm = 2
• 3 each for him and Jenny = 6 = 13 shares

Obviously Adam wasn’t happy with Debbie getting an extra share and I haven’t yet found the bit where they seal the deal.

Brian made clear the land remained his and the point of the partnership was to keep the land together.

Interesting that it would appear all the kids together could always have out voted Brian assuming this is how the partnership was ultimately formed. I guess that’s why he feels he has to pull the land out.

I hope when they remember Freddie Vince will offer him a promotion at the abattoir and he’ll say so long and thanks for all the meat fish, I’m off to run my big house now. Then turn up at the big doors of LL and tell his mum to move over the heir is back. I think Elizabeth should take a gap year in Tuscany and let him make all his own mistakes and generally stop acting like he’s 15.

You can have a job as a script writer @WitcheryDivinecan you start tomorrow?

I worry @ExOptimistis right and LL and its inhabitants are being sidelined along with a potentially great storyline.

They’ve already been sidelined.

Though I would have thought the creative team are contractually and morally obliged to produce a great and life changing story for LL - as much as for every major family - during this anniversary year.

I don’t understand why Adam isn’t putting more pressure on the other partners to resolve this sacking situation. It’s putting the contract work at risk which is nothing to do with Brian’s land.

SWs, @Darker …

That’s the only reason. Because of course he would be doing that.

If Brian inherited Jenny's shares, then all it takes is for one of Kate, Alice and Ruairi to vote with him and he's won.