Emma is. Sunday is not the day to harass people about work.
She takes after her mother, who quite legitimately wanted to know what was going on about the shop, her place of employment, and so decided the best thing to do about finding out was to go and doorstep Peggy just before lunch on Sunday after church and harangue her. Jennifer saw Susan off, that time; pity she wasn’t there today to tell Emma the right way to behave.
As for Ed, he is a nasty bit of work. He doesn’t dare say anything to Brian himself, so he goes and attacks Will – on what possible grounds? telling Emma that there are times and places for her “I’m a councillor!” stuff, and Sunday on Brian’s land without an appointment is not one of them was entirely legitimate, and Ed and Emma are both well out of order.
(And the continuity announcer said that Nic is going to sort it out, which probably means that Will is going to have to go to range Farm and make some sort of grovelling apology to the nasty couple, with her standing over him and saying, “Now what do you say, Will?” as if to a four-year-old.)
The Lowfield summary of tonight’s episode shows a certain amount of pro-Ed’n’Em bias - Will is ‘truculently aggressive’, Ed ‘understandably protective’, but nowhere in it do the words ‘ignorant, mannerless trollop’ appear
I thought all three Grundys behaved badly, Emma demanding answers Brian had already said he didn’t have, Will’s totally unnecessary intervention - he really seemed to enjoy throwing her off Brian’s land. What did he think he was up to? Currying favour with his boss? Was Brian not capable of dealing with Emma on his own? I was surprised Brian didn’t say something of the sort. In his place I would have been annoyed. And then Ed in surly, stupid and vaguely threatening mode making things worse - just what was he proposing to do, anyway? Stupid of Emma to have told him, she knows what he’s like.
They are all three of them trouble-makers. If Will had left well alone and let Brian deal with the situation, Emma would have had very little to complain about other than not being able to get answers out of Brian because he didn’t have them. All Brian had to say was, 'I’ll let you know as soon as I know more.
That said, the whole situation felt a bit contrived to me. Oh, did anyone notice Will has a new dog? And all of a sudden it seems everyone now knows Pip was responsible for spreading the IBR and they respect her for it (OK, David didn’t quite say that but he made it sound as though it was generally known, not just by the couple of people Pip confessed to). Funny, that, because David had told Ruth he would protect her reputation and take the blame himself because she is The Future of Brookfield.
It sounds as though the writer had a check list for this episode:
a) manufacture row between Grundys
b) make it sound as though Will has had a new dog for some time even though this is the first time I’ve heard of it
c) re-write history concerning people’s knowledge of Pip’s role in the IBR outbreak
The dog was mentioned a couple of weeks back, I think: Will was telling her to jump in (to the car, assumed).
She opened her remarks with, “Brian! Hang on a minute! I need to talk to you!” And when Brian said, "What about? she said “What do you think?” That set the tone: accusation and rudeness from her, Brian doing his best to tell her (repeatedly) that he didn’t yet have any information for her: when she demanded a guarantee from him that it wasn’t going to get into her drinking-water (not terribly likely, is it? unless she drinks from the Am) he replied, “All I can say is I hope to have more information soon.” – to which Emma graciously replied “Soon? That’s just not good enough Brian.” (So he did tell her that he had no more idea than she did about what was actually happening.)
My mental comment was “where does she think she gets off, talking to him as if he were a naughty child?”
And at that point Will intervened, as I would have done too if I had heard the way Emma was talking to Brian, whom I already knew to be depressed. She was well out of line.
Emma is now going to go round the village telling all and sundry that Brian had her thrown off his land, refused to answer questions, and was shifty about it, while Will was rude and aggressive to her – none of these true, all calculated to stir up the maximum trouble for everyone except her.
Honestly, you’d think they’d make more of a thing about introducing the new dog! That completely passed me by. What did he call her? Was it something like Kai?
I think if I had been Brian I’d be annoyed at the implication that I wasn’t able to deal with a rude young woman by myself. He’s a bit sensitive about his age and he hadn’t asked Will to intervene. I thought it was officious of him. Will, that is. I know Brian thanked Will but he would, he’s usually pretty polite and would have realised Will was trying to help, even if he was enjoying his role of bouncer a bit too much.
I don’t think any of them came out of it covered in glory except possibly Brian who really can’t be expected to do anything as the matter is out of his hands at the moment and he was quite polite to Emma under the circumstances.
And as we now discover, Emma has queered Neil’s pitch, because he did the thing properly, by ringing Brian up and inviting him to come to the PC meeting. Or rather the public meeting called by the PC, or whatever it is.
At which if Brian has any sense he will say, “Thirty years and more ago, someone dumped a lot of drums of chemicals on my land after getting my permission to dump some builders’ rubble there. One of the drums started to leak, and toxin from it got into the Am and killed some fish. I don’t know what may be in other drums there, and until the experts have had a look and found out, nor does anyone, since the builders involved were in their sixties then, have ceased trading and cannot be contacted. I have employed a company recommended by the Environment Agency to clean up the site, and until they have done so I know no more than anyone else what is there.”
This being the truth, Emma won’t believe it, but so long as Alice keeps her big yap shut and doesn’t try to be “helpful”, and Adam can be brought to refrain from going around saying that it is the worst disaster that has ever happened, other people with more sense and less self-importance might.
So one would hope.
But this story will not be complete without one or other (or indeed more than one) of the BFNI mouthing off in a more-organic-than-thou fashion. Something to look forward to.
Haha, Gus, I hope they do and someone mentions Little Millie Robson. And it wasn’t just the e-coli scandal, the reason they got the poo lagoons was because of some problem with their slurry leaking into I forget where.
Which is 100% what he should say. Of course makes for less drama & that’s the deal at the moment.
It’s a given in conflict resolution that pressure is met with pressure. I know this very well & in my work I meet a lot of pressure. My issue being that I rather enjoy the push & shove of it … up to a point.
