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 will miss Jim so much. A superb character and brilliantly acted. I loved his scenes with Jazzer - he brought genuine, laugh-out-loud humour to the show. I also loved his competitiveness with old Robert and their bird watching exploits. But for all his quirks and foibles, he always felt like a real person and never a caricature.

Why on earth is Oliver actively managing GG to the extent of caring about shampoo refills?! It’s such nonsense, he’s about 20 years past normal retirement age and he never got involved in hotel management at all until after Caroline died, and even then there was always an actual (albeit silent) manager doing the managing. Stupid suspension of reality just to shoehorn him into scenes.

I am loving how frosty he is with Brian though.

Also, hilariously contrived “Get off my land!” from Brian the other day. I bet Charles Collingwood loved that.

Why on earth is Oliver actively managing GG to the extent of caring about shampoo refills?! It’s such nonsense

Exactly!

Though I am starting to feel sorry for Brian - he's becoming increasingly isolated.

Im not sorry for Brian, its his own stubborn fault and I did like Oliver being very frosty with him.
It's funny but the actor who plays Oliver has always played a baddie, (Sharp),and now he is lovely Oliver.

It is all his own doing. Zero sympathy here

I've long thought that Oliver sounds mentally deficient. All that nonsense about selling GG (or part of it, or whatever) to the consortium that Adil was involved with, then coughing up a shedload of money for the renovation. And living (in a cupboard under the stairs?) with the Grundy mob at Grange Farm ... it's just bonkers.

I also wondered about the shampoo nonsense. There would surely be a dozen layers of household management beneath him, to whom Kate would have taken such a question.

Are the SWs just stupid, or what?

I mean, I did wonder if it was just Princess Kate carrying her entitled heiress attitude to her new MW job - but she isn’t stupid, and would have been told who she reports to. And it’s not Oliver.

I think GG currently only has a staff of about 4: Oliver (Head of Wittering), Ian (even he doesn't know what his job is these days), Mick (security - ha!) and Lily, possibly now replaced by Kate (dogsbody with posh accent). I'm surprised they haven't got Clarrie in to do the rest.

I'm not surprised when he does things like berating his daughter at her place of work and tells her she is demeaning herself in front of her boss. I've never liked Kate but was rooting for her here.

Kate is the type of person who might be told that the head of housekeeping is her boss but would still ask Oliver about refilling the shampoo because she knows him socially and doesn’t consider the staff hierarchy to be relevant to her.

Or Kate might just think that would be no point in asking the head of housekeeping, as s/he wouldn't reply, what with being a silent character. And she'd be right!

Just like with any property or farm in Ambridge (or the River Am, for that matter) Grey Gables has expanded and contracted so much over the years that the SWs have lost track of the size of the enterprises.

It would have made sense to have Mia back from Uni getting a temp summer job there, not Kate who should be busy at Spiritual Home (even if it isn’t profitable).

Where is Lily, these days? Is she still in Oz or have she and Freddie been banished to a silent existence in Lower Loxley because they are too posh?

I think Kate said she and Lily were sorting out towels for the bedrooms.

Brian's campaign of making people in Ambridge think he's nuts is going well.

I like Kate. I warmed to her enormously when Lynda was in hospital after the explosion and Kate gave her a pedicure.

She is right to worry about the loss of partnership income. Brian has to realise his decisions impact all the children.

Top episode.

I enjoyed Brine being astonished and "humiliated" about "my daughter" as a skivvy. Then reversing it to say all labour has its dignity.
He praises Kate being "his wild entrepreneur" while completely ignoring Adams; solid year on year work for Home Farm. And shitting the bed when Adam suggest anything he does not agree with, i.e. wild.
The possessive pronouns make it all about him and his injured amour propre while ignoring the part that is about him - his actions and their effect on his family.
All served with lashings of suspicions of ulterior motives all round.

Unwarranted projection about Oliver not wanting to be "put out to pasture". Clumsy stuff, SWs.

Does this changeable nature make him demented? Not a bit of it. He is as he always has been, with an eye to the main chance - Brine first, family a sometimes close second.

Fabulous acting, but Brine is a cashed-up Eddie Grundy.

Forgot to say how good Kate was.

I wasn't listening properly when Alice was wittering on about Father's Day except to register that it will be exceptionally akwkward for the Aldridge clan this year , but did she say Chris was taking Martha on a heritage railway with Mia?

No, Chris is taking Martha with Neil.

Isn't Zainab working on reception?

That makes more sense!

I have no idea, but maybe it’s the same reason as Lilian working behind the bar at the Bull rather than running her property empire.

Late to listen to Sunday’s episode, but I thought I heard them name-check Lily. Presumably she is still the events manager?

I know Dane/Dean was only supposed to be temporary, but I wonder why they decided that a Chef (or pizza van man/food consultant) would make an excellent manager for Grey Gables. Was it just to stop Adam, Ian and Xander from flouncing off to another continent?

As for the pub cricket team….

(Where are Kenton and Jolene, BTW)

Lily decided not to go to Aus in the end I think.

She went for about three weeks … (Or something like that.)

God knows what the SWs were scared of.