Parenting is so easy…

…just dump the sprogs and feck off to a different continent.

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That was my thought as well, Joe. What a ghastly hypocrite that woman is!

Also a lush: she was slurring her speech again.

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JD’s comments about her bond with Ruairí were a bit wide of the mark, too; has she even seen him since he was about seven? And why does Ian need to ask? As I recall, Ruairí spent rather a lot of his childhood at Honeysuckle, mainly kicking a ball around with Ian.

Another “new listeners start here” episode? (With the corollary that established ones can get stuffed.)

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I think that it indicates that the new scriptwriter knows precious little about The Archers and the backstories.

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Neither does the editor, evidently.

That, of course, is to take the charitable view…

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Just did a quick check. Adam and Ian’s moment in the polytunnel was in March 2004, and they’ve been an item pretty much since then, formalising their relationship with a civil partnership in December 2006. Ruairí didn’t arrive on the scene until Siobhán died in 2007, so Ian was around for all the stuff that’s being “revealed” now.

Now I come to think of it, didn’t Ian and Adam spend quite a lot of time and effort persuading JD to take on Ruairí?

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I think Adam did a bit; not sure about Ian. I do know that Ian did a lot of playing with Ruairi, who liked him a lot, while Adam was glad that he didn’t have to “do child care” and felt sorry for Brian, who was exhausted by it.

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Yes, exactly. If a new writer is making dreadful gaffes, it’s the editor’s job to catch them or put one of the other writers in charge of reading over her scripts.

Liz John is giving me the impression she is writing fifteen-minute playlets for characters who only need to come up with lines that serve the purpose of the moment because there’s no back story or continuing story. Something that really sounded wrong to me was Robert saying ‘This stops now’, firstly because it’s not the sort of language he would use and more especially because I cannot imagine that he is so stupid and to tell a very elderly woman that she has to prevent her cat from hunting, as if that were actually possible, then flounce off. The only way to stop a cat killing is to keep it in and, again, I just can’t see Robert issuing orders to that effect.

That said, I think she could work out fine if only someone would read her scripts over. And she should go back and listen to as many podcasts as she can and swot up on Lowfield.

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Interesting that JD was all charm & pleasantness to Kate … & at the end turned into a quite vicious version. All in the time it took for a facial.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Telling Kate it was about time she fulfilled promises and pulled her weight was exactly what I’d be saying. But where did that come from ? Peculiar.

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Alistair should have put her down; it’s the only way to deal with the problem. Of course, they’d have to rehome Hilda…

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I think she went “off” Kate because she realised that Kate had been gossiping about her, and also because Kate had done the very unkind tease about Roy in his brinkles, and another about it being safe because he wouldn’t turn up now.

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Good question! Perhaps Jennifer was saying ‘since I appear to have treated you when you said you would treat me, the least you can do is a bit of work in exchange’. I doubt Kate did pay her back.

On the other hand, this writer is struggling to get the right voice for characters in TA.

For instance, this week Peggy started off in her conversation with Tony being absolutely authentically Peggy, disparaging Bridge Farm by saying how nice it will be for Johnny to work for a successful business at Home Farm and then not apologising or retracting what she said when Tony - again typically - got grumpy and defensive. Then, all of a sudden she switched to faux empathetic mode saying what Tony was really upset about was Johnny leaving. I say faux empathy because it strikes me that telling someone that their being annoyed about something-or-other is really about something-else-or-other is incredibly arrogant. It’s possible to be both upset your grandson is leaving to work elsewhere and pissed off your mother is once again implying you are a failure.

I would have expected Peggy to be extremely brisk about Tony missing Johnny. She wasn’t at all keen on his coming to Bridge Farm in the first place.

P.S. When are you going to update your wills, Pat and Tony? Time to make sure you leave to Johnny what would have been John’s share. The will might already say that, but do make certain of that and don’t forget to tell Tom and Helen!

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Oh no, please, don’t tell them. Let it be a fait accompli so that there is nothing they can do about it by whinging and going on and on and on at you!

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Yes, but I don’t want to have to wait until Pat and Tony die, they are my age, I could go first! And I would love a stampy-foot inheritance row so long as the end result is Tom’s and Helen’s noses thoroughly, thoroughly out of joint. Oh, and do please have Helen flounce out of Bridge Farm and try and make it on her own.

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That would definitely be fun!

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… and last about as long as an extremely short thing indeed.

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They’ll encourage Johnny to take up dangerous sports like Fergie racing.

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But do you tease bulls as a hobby?

Immediately before they die, so that the wills (which in the normal course of events they would soft-heartedly change back once Helen whinged a bit) are locked in.

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Well I liked the Duchess of York. Just sayin’

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Well I hope you’ve been keeping up with her on C4 in The Windsors.

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