Melling Enterprises and Christine

Can anyone sort this out?

In May, Matt told Latif that investment was closed. Latif duly went ahead and “went to the top” and invested.

In July, they held an investors’ event at Grey Gables. which Justin sabotaged. Christine was there.

In August, Christine sold her house to Fallon and Burns.

We are now told that Christine invested heavily in Melling Enterprises…

How? When? The opportunity was gone by the time she had any money to do it with.

And then Matt gratuitously invented a river cruise prize in order to blag out of Shula a ticket to the Hunt Ball for which he had no use, and Christine won it.

Do you know, I think that he only did it in order to be seen to have cheated a little old lady, in order to make him into a completely unforgivable bastard? So that people would stop wanting him back?

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But cheating foolish and greedy little old ladies doesn’t make you a bad person, does i… er, sorry. That’s just me, then. You might have a point. It is a ‘hate Matt’ plot development. And why do they need one of them, eh? Is it because KD (no, the good one) has told them to poke it, perchance? And why might he have done that?
It doesnt bode well, me hearties, but it doesn’t half bode.

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I assumed it was like one of those Dolman-Saxlil style perpetual closing down sales:

“Well, Mrs Barford, although the deadline has officially passed, we might be able to make an exception in this case - but we can’t hold it open after today…”

In any case, if the scheme was closed to new investors, what was the point of the piss-up - sorry presentation - in July?

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I had wondered that.

The whole thing is backarsewards, though.

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An excellent question, one to go with “Why were they holding this event in a piss-poor hotel in the middle of bloody nowhere?”

If it was to attract new investors, why was Latif, who had already put in his money, among those who turned up?

If it was for shareholders, as this evening’s scriptwriter seems to think, why was Christine invited in?

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I vaguely remember that it was because she is so very expert about horses. Her riding school stables no doubt were teeming with St Leger likelies. Sigh.

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And that is why she was invited to be at a presentation given by Hugo Melling, at which she did not speak, and at which she made no secret of the fact that she had nothing to invest.

Matt had buttered her up about her expertise with horses when he spoke to her and Peggy in their garden, but that was not at GG.

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Misremembering, then. SOMEone came and encouraged her in when they were at GG, quite possible for the Jack Woolley Memorial Beanfeast. Don’t think it can have been that charming Hugo M, because he has never spoken. I will Lowfield in due course. I get very irritated with others who invent their own ‘TA the unbroadcast version’, but I suspect I might now be doing it too. oh dear.

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Didn’t Peggy eat her pudding whilst she was absent from the table? Or is it False Memory Syndrome again?

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17 July - Just LA’d

Matt invited Peggy, Jill and Christine to go to the meeting and help themselves to the buffet. Christine went, Peggy was cynical about the “free lunch”. Later Matt asked Christine what she thought of Hugo’s presentation and she said he seemed to know his stuff. Christine made it clear that she had nothing to invest - certainly not at the sort of level they seemed to be talking about; Matt told her there was a range of investment packages. He then offered to introduce her to Hugo, who would, he assured her be very interested to meet someone with her expertise.

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Yup - cheesecake. It seemed to be a major disaster. Does Ian only make one slice a day?

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Right now, with Ian being especially nasty and petulant I’d say one slice a day is entirely possible.
I’m assuming Ian and Matt have both been written to hate and exit.

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I don’t think that they realise just how disgusting they are making Ian, you know. He is supposed by them to be one of the family and one of the good guys. Besides, he’s gay, and it is the BBC: would they really write a nasty gay in a family programme?

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I was just thinking how refreshing it is that they now feel there are enough gay characters on TV/radio that they don’t need to make all of them saints. (But when it’s one of two in this particular programme, it doesn’t work as well.)

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I am trying to sort this out into order, stripping out all the pointless crip-crap about Matt deliberately making enemies all over Ambridge unless it is particularly absurd.

On 7th April Matt came back, and on 9th April told Lillian he was part of a consortium setting up a racecourse in Costa Rica, and was in the UK on business.
(On 10th April Matt was gratuitously offensive to Brian on the golf course, in front of Justin.)
On 18th April Matt paid £50,000 into Lilian’s bank account.
On 26th April Matt tried to sell Brian on the idea of the Costa Rica racecourse, and we heard of it for the first time. He also, for no particular reason, told Brian what had happened between Lilian and Paul.
On 11th May Matt had a meeting with Latif Hussein, and talked in terms of big investments – but at the same time told him the investment consortium was oversubscribed and they were not accepting new money, so it seems to have been a little futile and I couldn’t see why he was bothering. (And this is when Latif would have asked a couple of questions, then told the world and his wife starting with Justin and Brian that there was no possibility that the racecourse could be real. He said that he had read the brochure, and that it was clear they were building a racecourse in Costa Rica, so he would have known where to ask what.) Matt also said he had been having meetings with stud managers, and that he was interested in breeding-stock, looking to breed for class three upwards, ideally going on to the classics.

Also on 11th May he started the employment of Anisha.

On 5th June Justin (who had heard that Latif had invested in Melling Equestrian) accosted Matt to tell him that he hoped Matt was not getting Latif mixed up in anything, but Matt said he had nothing to do with it: he had thought the fund was closed but Latif went straight to the top. After Matt had gone, Justin told Lilian that he was going to investigate to see what was going on. (But clearly didn’t do so particularly hard.)
On 6th June “Justin tells Brian that he has found out that Matt’s operation seems to exist. Melling Enterprises or similar. Hugo Melling was at school with Miranda’s brother in law so that’s all right then.” Not exactly due diligence: he rang his ex-wife, it seems, but quite failed to ring anyone in Costa Rica.

On 3rd July Matt started to plan “an investment day” at Grey Gables: not actually his but for a friend, all A-listers. On the same day he approached Christine for advice about horses. (As if.)
On 5th July Justin and Latif chatted: Latif was "interested in the scheme of Hugo Mellings for the racecourse. He seems like a good kind of a guy and Latif is very confident in his investment. The money isn’t in the bank yet but it looks like a handsome dividend. Latif suggests that Justin should join in on Matt’s investment day at Grey Gables but Justin doesn’t think it’s for him. Justin admits that while he doesn’t want to invest, he is curious about Matt’s role in all of this. " (But still neither of them did the checks which took Lilian and Jolene a few minutes on the telephone.)
On 17th July the investment day happened at Grey Gables, with Latif among those present (Why? He had already invested.) In spite of knowing that Christine had no money, Matt encouraged her to come in to the presentation, which impressed her, and introduced her to Hugo. (Why? She had no value: she had not yet even thought of selling Woodbine Cottage.)

On 21st July Justin lost patience with Matt (he was being rude about the pig-unit) and " A few phone calls to his friends in Melling Equestrian Investments Ltd should see Matt on his way, especially given his recent performance on the investors day. " (But he still had not found out anything about it?) “He simply intended to crush him.” (But made no particular effort to do so.)
On 23rd July Justin confided to Brian that he intended to get Matt fired. (Ah, that explains it: too busy chasing the individual to bother with the business.)

On 9th November Lilian spoke to “Alex” at Melling whatever-they-are (it seems to be a variable, this time they were Investments) and learned very little.
On 10th November James had gone and had a look at the “office” in Regent Street and established that it wasn’t an office, then rang Lilian and told her so; she and Jolene got on the phone to Costa Rica and within half an hour or so had established that that there is no new racecourse being built in Costa Rica, that the alleged location is in a national park which would never have got planning permission, and that nobody in racing circles there has ever heard of Melling Investment or Matt Crawford.

So why were Brian, Justin, and Latif unable to make those phone calls, or in Justin’s case get his financial advisor to make them for him?

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Good question, o Fish, but they have to fill up the twelve a points something minutes with something, and I suppose we could feel grateful that it wasn’t something worse…
While I hesitate to use the phrase in this context, it seems to me that they changed horses in mid-stream for some reason. The Christine angle is plain feckin daft

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Matt’s 'Fluence doesn’t start to wear off until he’s more than 666 chains away (a bit over 8¼ miles).

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Wasn’t Woodbine done up a couple of years ago, following the flood? If so, surely a better story for YOY, sorry, Y&Y to run would be about the obvious cowboys who did the work so badly that it all had to be done again when Fallon and Plank moved in?

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Matt was away several times during the scam, in Newmarket and other places, so they would have been outside his Sphere then.

In any event, why the blue thundering blazes make a dead set at a Hole like Ambridge if you are running a large scam?

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Another mystery is Shula and Alistair’s sudden animosity towards Matt. OK, they have no reason to like him, but they managed to tolerate his presence in Ambridge for a decade without going into meltdown every time he appeared. Why the change now? Has Shula developed some sort of mental health issue, perhaps? In a very literal sense, she doesn’t seem to be herself; I don’t think “scumbag” was ever in her vocabulary before.

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