DumTeeDum - A show about BBC Radio's 'The Archers'

Imagine Beavers

This week’s podcast is presented by Stephen and Jacqueline.

We hear from:

Jade in Australia, who has been wondering about the new goat;
Jacqueline from Cardiff, a first time caller-innerer with views on how to pronounce THAT word;
David from Carmarthenshire, who was incensed by Helen’s behaviour this week;
Globe-trotting Richard, who has thoughts on Fallon, Helen, the rewilding and George;
Katherine, who is wondering what’s going on with the female characters in Ambridge;
And finally Witherspoon, who has been reflecting on George’s situation.

Plus: we have the Week in Ambridge from Suey, a roundup of the Dumteedum Facebook group from Michelle, and the Tweets of the Week from Theo.

Please call into the show using this link:

www.speakpipe.com/dumteedum

Or send us a voicenote via WhatsApp on: +44 7810 012 881 (07810

012 881 if in the UK) – Open the WhatsApp app, key in the number and click on the microphone icon.

Or email us at dumteedum@mail.com

How to leave a review on Apple podcasts: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/podcasts/pod5facd9d70/mac

***

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Duration:: 1h 1m
Broadcast on:: 17 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

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Individual results may vary. Let's talk about something that's not always top of mind, but still really important. Life insurance. Why? Because it offers financial protection for your loved ones and can help them pay for things like a mortgage, credit card debt. It can even help fund an education. And guess what? Life insurance is probably a lot more affordable than you think. In fact, most people think life insurance is three times more expensive than it is. So with state farm life insurance, you can protect your loved ones without breaking the bank. Not sure where to start? State Farm has over 19,000 local agents that can help you choose an option to fit your needs and budget. Get started today and contact a state farm agent, or go to statefarm.com. This is a Dumpty Dum production. This is Dumpty Dum, a weekly podcast about the archers and the goings-on of Ambridge. I'm Steven Bowdoin, the natural answer to biodiversity. And I'm Jaclyn Beto. And who would have thought I'd turn into a flat white kind of guy? And then there's you, our lovely Dumpty Dumos. Not a serious prospect. Welcome to Dumpty Dum, a place to talk about the things that are happening in our favourite Borsonshire village. This week's scripts are written by Katie Hymns, who's one of my favourite script writers, because she does the smaller stories so well. Coming up, we have calls from Jade in Australia, who has been wondering about the new goat. Jaclyn from Cardiff, a first-time cholera. Hooray! Hooray! With views on how to pronounce that word. David from Kamarthinshire, who was incensed by Helen's behaviour this week. Globe-trotting Richard, who has thoughts on Fallon, Helen, the rewilding John. Catherine, who is wondering what's going on with the female characters in Ambridge. And finally with a spoon, who's been reflecting on George's situation. Plus, we have the Week in Ambridge from Sui, a roundup of the Dumpty Dum Facebook group from Michelle, and the Skeets and Tweets of the Week from Theo. So let's go straight into the Week in Ambridge from Sui. Hello, lovely people. It's Sui here, going on to art. For what week it's been my lovely Dumpty Dummers. I don't know how many times you shouted at the radio this week, but it's been a good job nobody else was in the car with me on occasion. Too long didn't read for you this week. Justin is still a bleep. George is a fire trucking bleep. Helen isn't going to buy the house in Beechwood, but Tom and Natasha might do. Fallon isn't going back to the tea room, but isn't going to be at the Evie's station either unless something dramatic happens. Pat spent £750 on a goat for Henry, who is plotting roast dinners all railed. Helen did pay for a survey for Beechwood, and apparently needs a 20k work done on it. Surely, this should be under warranty, or it counts as normal wear and tear. Anyway, Helen is too rural to buy it. It would be good if she could tell Kirsty that. Natasha wants to buy it, but sausage boy Tom is being very Tom. Helen could move into the farmhouse with the boys if Tony gets his weightable to the co-house, but Pat thinks they're too old to do it. Tony was going to project manage it, not physically build it. Let's see what happens. Fallon has not yet told the Evie people that she's not accepting the substandard unit. She asked for a job back about five minutes after Natasha offered it to Emma, the assistant manager job that is, as Natasha will be charged. Emma and Fallon talked like they were friends again, said there's some hope there. Jolene offered Fallon some money, and Harrison suggested alone of his parents, but it was all for naught. Rex and Kirsty went to see Tony for his advice about reintroducing beavers. Yes, I can say that with a straight face. It's going to cost about 200k over the next five years. Tony's having a think when not under pressure to Paul Carrots. Pat, we discover as bake Peggy's birthday cake. There will be a hundred. Oh dear, and then we got to Thursday. And Susan, unsurprisingly, was very nervous about going back to prison. George behaved abominably. He only invited them out of pity, and could they just shove off? Neil, oh, how much we love Neil, gave him a dressing down. So George then told them what happens to him in prison is going to be all their fault. Emma, of course, wanted a blow-by-blow account of her lovely Georgie. Hopefully they will tell her the awful truth. I should have admitted to having been bankrupt. There's no Christmas show. No, really. And that was about it. So let's see what happens next week. Bye-bye. Thank you for that, Sui. And there really was quite a lot going on in Ambrage this week. Lots and lots of storylines weaving around each other rather than one big one or silly ghost stories or things like that. Anyway, how has your week been? Oh, I've had a wonderful week. Any dumpty-dummers who at our Friday get together at the academic archers conference might remember that I had two daughters there, Sophie. My daughter, who lives in London, and Emily, who lives here in France. And I've spent two full days in London, very tiringly, early Euro stars there and back with Sophie. She's 32 weeks pregnant with her first child, and she's quite old in the late 30s. So she's very exciting for us and I have to say the pure joy of spending time with a joyful daughter in that situation has really, really touched me this week. So I've had a wonderful week, Stephen. So how about you? It's been fairly quiet. I did start a new batch of kimchi. This is with a totally different and made up recipe. It's going to be a sort of Christmas-y kimchi because it's mostly made with brussels sprouts rather than... That sounds wonderful. Now I hope in a month's time when you come here you might be able to transport me a bit of this brussels brat kimchi. I should be able to do that. I wouldn't want to take it on a plane in case cases exploded, but taking it on the train should be doable if I wrap it up in several layers so that it does leak out or do anything suspicious like that. It doesn't contaminate everything else. But I have to tell you that the walking between... in the metro station, it looks very simple between Gardener and Montpannas, but you have a lot of steps to do. So shaking your bag might not do your kimchi very good on the rent to the Paris to Sanbury your trade. You'll have to see. I might pack my rucksack rather than a wheelie luggage. I think we ought to get on with the calls, don't you? We probably should. So after this sound we will hear from Jade. Hello Tiger. Hello Jacqueline, Stephen and all dumpty dummers. It's Jade Collar entering early in the week. I just listened to Mandy's episode and I'm baffled. So normally I'm quite forgiving with storylines being a bit untruthful because it's a program and if we had Christmas rehearsal starting in July, every year it would get pretty tedious. But I don't understand what's going on with Henry's gold. Tony doesn't know... Tony and Helen and I think Pat don't know how much it costs. Where did Henry get the money from? Have I completely missed something? Did they... I don't understand if they have a credit card. I'm so confused about that. And the other thing, I'm so glad at the end of this episode that Helen started to talk since because Jolene's offering her money for cash flow. But if the business model fundamentally doesn't work because of the unit being in a bad location of things, a cash injection is not going to fix that. So yeah, I just found out a very strange episode and it didn't quite sit right. So I'd love to know if I've missed something with Henry because that just felt super bizarre. And yeah, I hope everyone's having a great week. Apart from that, I've been enjoying the archers. I find the Justin thing quite entertaining if a bit bizarre. Anyway, hope you all having a good week. Bye! Hi, Jade again. I just have one other thing. I loved the podcast last week, but I say tortoise for the... the turtle... the land turtle thing. If I'm talking about a tortoise shell, I would say tortoise shell. But for the animal that's not a cat, I definitely say tortoise. I hope that I don't think clarifies anything, but it might confuse things a little bit. Maybe it just becomes Scottish. Who knows? Have a good day, right? Lovely to hear from you again, Jade. Our lovely Scottish corona from Down Under. Yeah, I think you got the wrong end of the stick at the beginning of the week. It all became very clear at the end, by the middle of the week, that it was packed as it bought the goat for the farm. But in theory, it's Henry's beginning of farming because he'd managed to get away with trimming the hooves and dealing with them all very... Very well to the point that Tony felt superfluous on the job as he was telling Helen. Yeah, but how much? Don't you think she spent rather a lot of money on that book? £750. I just don't know. I've never thought about buying a goat before, so I don't know whether that's a lot or not a lot. I think it has to pay for itself in terms of selling the kids for meat, because they're meat kids, not dairy kids. It struck me as odd that Henry was so intrigued about the idea of raising goats to eat them, because he's, what, 13 going on 14 next year? Yeah, not 14, I think, yeah. Yeah, he was born the day that Nigel fell off the roof, so 2011. So, yeah, 14 in the new year. And at that age, I think I can understand you being interested in raising goats to milk them, but raising goats so that you can eat them does seem a little bit forward. Well, maybe this is a wicked side of Henry coming out. We shall have to wait and see what happens further down the line, but it all seems a bit sudden. And I do think that just going straight into that, it was very odd, that conversation between Pat and Tony and Tom about the money, because as Tom said, it's in the farm accounts. Yeah, I think that was very weird. But I actually quite liked that. I don't enjoy Bridge Farm a lot very, very much, but I've quite liked the conversations around Tony having his ideas, and Tom pointing out that actually the person who talked about it with his Pat. And Pat obviously doing something that she's trying to keep away from Tony, where Tony only needed to open the accounts, presumably on the computer, but maybe it doesn't do computers. I've found it quite interesting that even Tom pointed out that the way of communicating with each other at this grand old age is that many years of marriage that they've had, they even said how many years, didn't they? 50, they just saw them at their golden wedding anniversary. Yeah, I just find that lack of communication. It is rather surprising that they've lasted as long as that, but maybe that's why they survived that long by not communicating properly with each other. I don't know, but I found it quite an enjoyable set of exchanges that it's building up. As you said, she's a very good Katie Hems at these little stories, and she's building up a scenario for the future, which we've always questioned what's going to happen to Bridge Farm in the future. So I really feel that this housing crisis with an attachment in the mix, what does he call it, something else? A passive house. A passive house, yeah, in the mix and everything. So, yeah, very interesting. But it was about time they talked about the succession, because we've always known that Bridge Farm was effectively going to go to both Helen and Tom, and all kinds of practicalities around that arrangement, which we hadn't discussed in terms of where people were going to live, or who was going to live in the farmhouse. And it's going to be interesting with the next generation, because Helen's two have got a head start on the Tom's children. The twins. You must say twins. Even Tom knows that he says, "I do have twins a lot." Yes, I don't say twins, because being one, I know how irritating it is always to be considered. I mean, yes, of course, I forgot you were a twin. As half of a pair, rather than as individual in your own right. But there will come a point when Henry will, I think, assume that he's going to inherit, and Natasha will probably think that Celine and Nova should be getting their fair share, and the whole thing will be broken up into many parts and fail. Yes, a lot of people focus on the inheritance of Home Farm and Brookfield, but we've always said here that the one to watch is Bridge Farm. Yes, very interesting, and as we always say, this is going to be interesting. Now, the one thing that Jade mentioned right at the very end, we haven't discussed, because that's also raised in our next score, which is from first-time caller Innera, Celine. Hi, Stephen and Jacqueline, and fellow Dempty Demers. First-time caller Innera is Jacqueline from Cardiff, and me and my husband say, Tour Toys. Not tortoise. Thanks for everything you do. Bye. Thank you for calling, Jacqueline, and thank you for starting your first call with one of the great Dumpty-Dum controversies of our time. And Jacqueline and I have been talking a bit about this. I think, at the end of the day, people can call the scaly, shelly animal, whatever they like, Tour Toys, Tortoise. I think we're going to adopt an official pronunciation for the name of the cat in the bull. We are going to do so in the spirit of Linda Snell, so the cat is going to be called as far as this podcast is concerned, Tour Toys. Tour Toys. Okay, I'll try and remember that. So Tour Toys is a very good name for a cat. Yeah, I've been fascinated by the interest. It's just typical of Dumpty-Dum. The scone and scone debates ran for a long time, and I noticed that Andrea from beautiful Britain tried to revive it last week before the tortoise tortoise tortoise conflict started. So, yeah, this is a good one. We'll keep on going with this. And yes, but officially Dumpty-Dum, we've announced the name of the cat, Tour Toys. Thank you very much, Jacqueline. Oh, by the way, how many brilliant Jacquins are they coming out of this podcast now? We've got Jacqueline in New Zealand, who does one of our social media around them. Jacqueline, first time colouring her from Cardiff, and of course, you've got me, the eternal Jacqueline. We do indeed. Let's move on now to our next call, and this one is from David. Hi, David. I've been calling in for a while, but I really felt compelled to call in this week after being incensed by her and to hating, yeah, especially about the house so with Kirsty. Where the heck does she get off? Really? Is she just rippling them purposely? Is this horrible neurodee-mple, selfish, entitled character? Or are we meant to like her and feel sorry for her because of all the things she's been through in life? You probably know which kind of thing you're calling into on that one. So it was awful the way that she spoke to Tony about cynically using any results of the survey to turn down the rights of the house, where Kirsty obviously needs the ready to move into her farm. It's just a very cynical thing to do, especially when we think that the house is probably part of some kind of new home warranty or guarantee scheme. Even if the house was willing damage, I can't imagine it would be after five years of going up. Also, she's learning about the nature of the house, despite having it there for a few years like herself. Well, check with that. It was a rich one who cashed in on telling what he could have. Cultural land house built in the first place. So he doesn't have any place to promote the postponement of the English countryside when she and her family are cashed in on a grand scale in the sale. So yeah, not really a happy relationship this week. And again, even this week now, she was talking about all these and how she's on her own and of course can kick the ignore in Kirsty's predicament. I think your Helen's definitely behind you a little bit. It's a miracle in child rearing. Basically, if you don't have a child or then you're not worth anything really. She's just really appalling. Anyway, I'm going to have a lie down now for the Coleschang law race and just take some deep breaths. Only number two, bye. Oh, David. Yes, I do hope you have calmed down, but I agree with you completely with about Helen this week. We went through many years of seeing her as a victim, and I personally felt very sorry for her. I felt she was backed into a corner by her manipulating person in the form of Rob. And she has got her sons, and she went through terrible things with her being pushed to that limit, which was just amazing acting, amazing story writing. But she has definitely all around that story, irritated the hell out of me. And this week, she has been peak Helen, beautifully written, fantastically acted, but all the person you would, if ever I was incited to have any violence getting her, I want to slap her. I really do want to slap her. And I think, yeah, we are meant to feel sorry for her because she's in this kind of strange situation. She's gone through a lot. But yet even down to the point where Lee was looking after her boys this week, that is just typical of Helen. Yes, buy Lee football tickets and take to take the boy to the football if he wants to spend time with them. But I just felt that she was just saying, oh, no, irritated the hell out of me as well, the whole Helen storyline this week. And then when she had the goal to say, well, the houses are a bit suburban for me. It's not where I see myself. Yep, that was their land. They chose to exploit that farmland. It's going to be used to produce food. So, yeah, David, I am 100% behind you. Now I'll have to go lie down with a cool flannel over my head. You've said everything I was going to say, and particularly I noticed, but only on the second time of listening, that it was Lee looking after the children. I think that was when Helen was talking to Tony quite early in the week. Yeah, she does seem to just have everybody at her beckoned call and sail through life moaning an awful lot about stuff. And as David said, seeking to take advantage of things like that, having a survey to drive down the price. And I was very pleased that Kirsty stood up to her and said, I'm losing my patience and saying that she wouldn't do it. I think it's all going to be resolved with the arrangements of Natasha and Tom buying that place. And Helen moving into Bridge Farm, farmhouse, well, Tony and Pat build this passive house, this eco house on Bridge Farm land. I don't know how long it's going to take, and I don't know how much Kirsty is going to have to put up with until that's all helpfully resolved. I can't actually see Natasha being a much better buyer of the place than Helen. Now a manipulative. Natasha might realize that there was a guarantee still on her house. That it's less than 10 years old. Yeah, exactly. And then you wear and tear that might have been spotted by the surveyor. Her amazing ambridge fairy thing about the surveyor suddenly being available on them the same week as they began talking about it. And the other thing that David said was the most irritating conversation that Natasha, not Natasha, Kirsty and Helen had this week, was when Helen said it's just me and the boys. She didn't consider Kirsty's situation. Kirsty's supposed to be her best friend. Just so entitled. So it's all about me and David suggested that as far as Kirsts, as Helen's concerned, Kirsty is on a lower, lower on the step ladder of life than her because she's not her mother. Oh, that is just so irritating, thoroughly, thoroughly irritating. So all I needed this week for me to have her coronary was to have pippiness. So luckily she didn't appear. No, but maybe as a counterpoint to all of that, we had this burgeoning love story involving Kirsty. Ah, yes, now that is a very good point, Stephen. Yes, that was a feel-good, lovely thing. Plant a seed, good old mum. Romance blooming over Beavers. I think Ron does the dog go out, are you ready? Why will this send into chaos? Well, let's see if Richard wants to talk about Beavers. Richard calling in, thinking about cafes, the recharging station, rewilding, and the housing market, if I can squeeze it all in, and George going to the bad. So, yeah, I'm on my way to Zurich. I wonder why Fallon was being encouraged by Harrison to take a bad decision. His loyalty was very striking. If the space isn't the one she planned for, she's right to call out, obviously neither the landlord nor she had made a binding commitment. Otherwise, the landlord wouldn't be able to change the tones, and she wouldn't be able to pull out. I wonder if St. Justin having intervened, but the rewilding will now intervene to give her the original deal, or one even better. Why doesn't she open it up in the bull, in the upstairs space, where there used to be a disco, I wonder, I think that would be a lot less risky, and makes sense for everyone. And interesting that Helen and Kirsty are being subject to market forces in the British housing market, that happens rarely. Very disappointing to hear Pat dashing Kona's dreams without even realizing she's doing it. I was going to comment on rewilding that given the struggles of the rewilding unit, the idea that introducing beavers at a cost of 200k is the right thing to do when you've just been on your financial app is quite extraordinary. And last but not least, I wonder about George is going to the bad, and whether there'll be any desperate intervention to stop coming out of prison or hardened criminal. Recent news reports suggest that prison is really out of terrible places to be. And I suspect that Alice might be called on to go in and remind him of his promise to come out about a man than he went in. We'll see. Thanks for all the hard work. Bye. Thank you for that call, Richard, and I hope Zurich is pleasant place to be, and we have time to look around the nicer bits of it, as well as doing whatever work you're doing there. Harrison, I think, wasn't trying to get Fallon to make a bad decision. I think he is just desperately trying to be loyal and supportive, and that's how it came out because he knows how much she wanted to do that. So he's not the brightest business brain in the village, not that that's where I bar to get over. But I think that he just didn't want to see her have to walk away from something that she had been really keen to do, and it is all a bit sad at the moment. Justin has obviously got something in his mind that he might think that Fallon could do, and that might be a good thing or it might be a bad thing. We've always thought that the EV charging station was going to be somewhere where people could meet and talk and so forth, and that does require there to be villagers there. It might be that one of the other units is taken up by Chelsea to be a salon, but I'm not totally sure that the timing is right. I think you need about half an hour to charge a car. If it's not a super-fast one, and that's quite tight for a pair appointment, and you'd have to make the appointment in advance. So while a men's barber shop might make sense, I don't think a stylist boutique from of the sort that Chelsea would want to run would quite fit with an EV charging station. So that does leave a cafe there as the most likely place, and that does, again, point to Fallon, though, as other people have said, the idea of it being a vegan place might be a bit of a stretch. But I think, said, Harrison wasn't deliberately trying to push her into a bad decision. He was just trying to be as supportive as possible. Yeah, and I think the same of Jolene with her offer of a loan, which we didn't talk about, but Jade mentioned as well. Jolene is wanting her daughter to achieve her dream, which is what she set out, and she sold it to the family as a very positive thing for her personally. But, yeah, I think Fallon has got a good business head about it and is seeing it as a proper how to make ends meet and how to do it. So I think she's made the right decision. And it is a bit blind loyalty on the part of Harrison and Jolene. Now, Richard suggested upstairs in the ball. Well, that's still used for events occasionally. But also, Fallon needs somewhere which is visible, dropping people a place to meet, upstairs in the ball would be in direct competition with the ball, and where's she going to do the catering? Personally, I think she needs to think about, I could see her doing more outside catering, catering events. She's done a good thing at the tea room with developing the tea parties and birthday parties and whatever. And then, of course, what's her name? Natasha has built on that and pushed that even further. But there is a lot of demand for outside catering, even Pat the Sweet when she made the cake for 80s birthdays. We should have got somebody else to do. Where the hell didn't they get Fallon to do it? They know that Fallon is a brilliant baker and he's great at cakes. Or Jill? Oh, Jill, yeah. But Jill is an old old lady, isn't she? And Willie would not distress her, put that pressure on her. The one thing Jill can still do, I think, is bake a mean lemon drizzle cake. Yeah, but would you have it with a cup of coffee? Apparently, people do. Oh, yes, but not in the not in the hamperage, if you're Rex. But I would, and I suspect that Jill would. But you wouldn't, Peggy wouldn't have it with a cup of coffee. She'd have it with a cup of tea. As I would. Richard did mention beavers. Yes, he did. Okay, go on. Let's go on with the beaver. No innuendos, innuendos, please? I think he's absolutely right that to jump from where is our next penny going to come from? How are we going to do this? Well, we've got one salary for five years, so let's find £20,000 to build beaver-proof fences. Which don't necessarily work. No, not at all. There's lots of reports in about in Cornwall how the beavers are actually causing more problems because they can go under them. Yes, or round them because they go down the river and unless a fence goes all the way out to see, the beaver can probably find the end of the fence and go around it. And so they are spreading, which I think is a good thing. I know that there will be plenty of people who are saying that they are damaging, and we had some posts on the Facebook group about beavers in North America. Now, they are a slightly different species and the American beavers, I think, build much bigger dam complexes and the European ones are less impactful on the landscape. But even so, I think that it's fine to stop the flooding where you want to stop the flooding, but they can divert water courses and change things which surprise farmers who don't particularly want to adapt to fit around the new arrangements. But overall, I think they are a net good thing. And they were first introduced of all places into the river Otter, which seemed to be the wrong river to introduce beavers. Very much the wrong river there. That's enough to confuse a small-brained person like me. Because when they started talking about beavers, I pictured an otter, Tarka. But I don't think there's a river beaver anywhere in the country. And if there is, they'd probably introduce otters to that. So, yeah, just to confuse this. But I thought the writing was just brilliant. There was, so when Kirsty said, "But aren't beavers net zero," you almost hear the collective chortle. So, great fun, good, good, good fun, good writing. Yes, it was where they store the carbon. That was the question. Brilliant. I think that Katie Himmers was having a good joke on everybody this week writing that story aloud. And as you say, it was ridiculous considering that last week they were ready to throw it all in and it was all going to finish and it was all worries me and so on. A new scheme that's just come up like that. But I love these stories because it makes everybody turn to Google and look for images and find out things. And especially this flooding has been in the headlines so much in the last few in the international news recently as well as in the UK. And here in France, it's not just in Spain that they've had devastating floods. Yeah, very, very, very good, enjoyable part of the storyline. So those are the first few calls and there's a couple more to come. If you'd like to join in by calling us yourself or dropping us a line by a message or email, Shatlin is here to tell you how and the details are also in the show notes. So the first option is to record a message or a plot prediction by going to www.speakpike.com/dum-t-dum, where you can leave us a message of up to two minutes. Alternatively, you can send us a voice note or a written message via WhatsApp on 07810 012881. If you're calling from outside the UK, start with a +44 and drop that first zero. Please try to keep your call to a maximum of two minutes, although this limit isn't enforced like it is by Speakpike. And finally, we have an email address you can contact us on if you would rather write to us with your views. Please aim from @250words. The email address is www.dum-t-dum-t-dum-at-mail.com. And do bow in mind you need to be at least 18 to contribute. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. 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So with state farm life insurance, you can protect your loved ones without breaking the bank. Not sure where to start? State Farm has over 19,000 local agents that can help you choose an option to fit your needs and budget. Get started today and contact a state farm agent or go to statefarm.com. Now let's hear what Catherine has to say about this week. Hi everyone. I feel that's a big disconnect somehow between the goings on at the key room, Natasha and all the extraneous characters we've had. So we've had a lot of you who seems to fulfill no function. And we haven't had a Chelsea for ages. So there's something going on in real life. Fallon would be on YouTube on TikTok and all the platforms talking about baking and this other because he's obviously really good at it. Why do you want to limit herself by doing vegan? I don't know. But there's also these other characters. So we thought that Adam and Thingamajogg were going to be at the tea room. But yet we've got a lot of you. I just can't see the point of her. Why would they introduce that character? And also Chelsea can do hair. There's no hair salon or anything else. So I'm wondering about all these spare female characters with no role. And the only role they seem to give them is the whole test about are they to do with anything? I can't remember what that test is called about female characters in films. With Kirsty. What's the point of Kirsty? So I don't know. I've been to the pub. It's been a great night. But what's going on with the women characters in Ambridge? Thanks very much. Well, thank you for that, Catherine. I'm glad you had a great night. I was in the pub and found time to call in. I'm going to pick up on your point about Kirsty. Because Kirsty is someone who we've had quite big storylines about in the path to do with her getting married to Tom. And the Philip Moss storyline and the modern day slavery. But those storylines always end in disaster. And as Stephen mentioned earlier, here is another storyline around Rex and the rewilding that we're hearing slightly more about in the last couple of weeks. And then the idea that Rex might be a suitable partner for her. But I've always thought of Kirsty as being someone who we discover as the friend of other people. She listens to other people. She listens to Tom. She listens to Brenda at the time. She is a friend of Rex. She's been Helen's best friend through all the tribulations that Helen's gone through. And if she gets her own story, often it ends in a bit of a disaster. So that's what I think is the point of Kirsty. To listen and to get information about other people. And not necessarily have her own big storyline. But I would like it to have a happy ending. I think you've picked up on the key point to all of this, which is that things in Ambridge only happen when people talk about them. And the nature of the program being on the radio is the only way you can really understand stuff is through conversations. And some characters almost exist to have conversations about particular topics. And Lottie is one of those characters. And her purpose is to talk about primary school. And so she was originally brought in to do that with Pitt and with Rosie going to primary school. And now she's back and she was so completely forgotten about Pitt and is talking to Ian and Adam about Zander going to primary school. So you can have a better conversation about Zander starting off at school than you would have with just Ian and Adam talking about it. Because frankly, that would be incredibly boring for the two of them to do that because it's both their child. They won't have a contrary view about it. It'll all be how wonderful Zander is. And given that one of the two of them is Adam, it's going to be boring simply because it's got Adam in it. So that's what she's there for. As you said, Kirsty often exists as a foil. Of course, when Kirsty first arrived, she was Tom's sidekick in trashing Brian's GM Crocs when GM Crocs were very first a thing. And that was one which I don't think ended in a disaster in narrative terms. Yes, she ended up in court, but I think they got let off. And so it could have been a lot worse. I think Brian decided in the end he wasn't going to kick up a huge fuss about it. I wasn't Kate involved in that as well. I'm not sure that she was. I don't think that Kate was eco warrior Kate in that time. It was I had Kate and John down in all of that as well. Must be some old photograph I've seen that stuck all four of them together. Roy, Kirsty, Kate and John, because I always feel like Kirsty, I feel like she doesn't know Kate. No, but the trashing of the GM Crocs was definitely Tom and Kirsty. And she had radicalised him to extend at that point. And she was the real eco warrior, even more than Pat and Tony. Yeah. But they were left really having to support Tom and Kirsty against Brian. So that was a fascinating storyline when it happened. But that was a long time ago. It's good to see that must be at least 20 or 20 years ago, if not more. Yeah, so I think so. In the 80s, 90s, I'm not sure. Yeah, no, I can't remember either. But yeah, now, Catherine also mentioned Chelsea. Chelsea, yes, is somebody that comes in and out of our other storyline as does Tracy, her mum, and Brad. And yeah, Brad's getting his own little storyline with his connection with George at the moment. But Chelsea, yes, she's finished her training, presumably, to be a hairdresser. But she's not just a hairdresser, she's done a beauty and hair force, I believe. But I think that there are different levels that they can do. So she may be doing more studies for all we know. Yeah, so I don't know whether she's doing NVQs or something like that. But they got through several levels. I think level one is fairly basic. Level two might be GCSE, level three A level and level four, almost degree level, something like that. And I think she's still at college. So I think she's still studying. I don't think she's done three years. No, she will be thinking about a career and where she can go. But remember that Borchester is only five miles or so away from Ambridge. So if she wants to work in a salon, there will be plenty of salons in Borchester that she can work on. Though she'll probably have to do the tedious stuff of being with those new sweeps of floor to begin with before she gets her hands on washing people's hair and then eventually. But I would have thought that anyway, if she was studying, she'd be doing placements where she would do the sweeping the floor and washing her and general interacting with other things that real old debt already qualified hairdressers are doing. I was interested that you said about surely you'd have to make an appointment, a men's barber and everything. But in fact, here in the supermarkets, we have a chain of hairdressers, which is called Quaff and Co. Obviously not pronounced like that. And you don't make an appointment. And I'll tell you what, the queue of people who have dumped their partner there and the other one goes off and does the supermarket shopping on a Saturday morning is incredible. And so they have their own schools and they train people to do quick, quick treatments. And you never have, you cannot make an appointment. So you just go in and say, Matt, we'll make it to Borchester. You never know. Let's have our last call of the week, and it starts in a very familiar way. Y'all know how this goes. Hey baby, I hear the blues are calling into our salads and scrambled eggs. Greetings, Jacqueline, Stephen and all of them two dimmers around the world. It's with a spoon here, collaring late Friday night from a Florida hotel room. So I hope this makes it onto the show. First off, another tortoise sighting. Husband and I were watching the first episode of the new series of Bad Sisters, which is set in Ireland. We sense that the slow-moving reptiles seen in the opening credits and the wedding will become an important part of the plot. And not to my surprise anymore, the creature was identified as a tortoise. On to more serious matters. It was a very bad week for George, and he hoped that he's going to use the time in jail as a launching pad for his personal growth has evaporated, as he appears to have regressed in all ways in the short time he's been there. Look, being in jail is a very stressful experience, but reflecting on his discussions and behaviors with his family members, he's using what Anna Freud would characterize as primitive defense mechanisms, such as denial, projection, identification with the aggressor and splitting to cope with his situation, leading him to cut off all contact with his relatives, a very counterproductive act. His level of maturity has always been very low. What will the next year bring him? It doesn't look good right now, but maybe he will wind up in some sort of therapeutic group there. That will be of help. But that will be in the hands of the average gods, i.e. the script writers. Talk to you soon. Thank you for that call with a spoon. And on your last point, I'm not sure where there's going to be a therapeutic group for George. I suspect that the therapy he will get will be on release and coming back to his family. By when, who knows what sort of person he will be, it felt to me as if he was building a shell around himself. He decided the way to survive was to become a supporter of somebody with power and influence within the prison population in the shape of baseball. And he must be starting at the bottom of the pile. I think we discussed last week the possibility that he's having to give loads of money to other people. And I think that by paying out his money to baseball, he gets protection from everybody else, but that still leaves him at the bottom of the pile. And so he's built a shell around himself in which he's hiding and visits from Susan and Neil are really putting that shell at risk because of the emotional burden they carry and would cause him to, if he relaxed for a moment, break down and he would feel that he'd lose face in front of the other person who's going to be in the same room as him during the visiting time. I think that it's all a very defensive mechanism. Probably at this point it's not too late for him to be rescued from that, but by the time he comes out, he may have spent so long living behind that shell and having turned down family visits. That it's not going to be any good. Richard suggested Alice might be called upon to go and see him and remind him of his promise. I don't know whether he would accept a visit from Alice. I think it would be different. I think that somebody who isn't family would have a different impact on him. But he might realize that and therefore want to keep them away because even if he can maintain the shell for a short visit from Neil and Susan, what if Alice turns up, he probably doesn't know how he would react to a visit from somebody like Alice in his position. He's like to be afraid of it. Yeah, I agree with everything that you've said there, but one of the things I took over from this week was such brilliant, brilliant writing, because it could be read from both ways. If you are absolute, have no sympathy at all for George, you see him as an evil little quote. And then here he is proving the point that he was actually, he was frightened, but now here he's reacting as he did to Nana, but I was relieved that he kept calling her Nana because Nana is a pet name in many ways, a friendly name. So he's not completely rejecting her, but made me stop and think about who have been the worst influences on George to create this person, the person that he is. Yeah, because we could say, well, petty crime has been made acceptable by Eddie and the way he goes about things and obviously the Elf and the Clive influences and he looked up to Clive enough to call him a few weeks ago, didn't he? But Eddie got me thinking about Will and what kind of father Will has been, because Will is a very complicated character, and I don't think he's done George any good as a father. And he's created this son who has been made to feel he's entitled to more than he gets because Will has had more than the general run of the milk when he's hasn't he, completely by hazards. It's been a complete chance that he's got more money, but he looks down on Ed. So George looks down on Ed. He looks down on Ed and Emma's relationship. So George looks down on his mother and stepfather relationship. I found it fascinating because I can be able to see it from both sides that George is this horrible little person yet he could be, as you say, building a complete shell around himself. I think he's subject to influences which we don't see so much. He's teased at school about the complex relationship to him and Ed and Will. And I think that's probably true. And we know that he's been influenced by influences the Andrew Tate School of Influences. So I think that has had an impact on him and given him a channel for the frustration he's had with his circumstances. The idea that things could be so much better. I'm not sure quite what influence Eddie will have had on him. It won't be a good influence. But I think he'll have looked at Eddie much as Emma does in some ways as a serial failure and feel that he can do better than that. His approach to doing better than that is different from Emma's. Emma is the hard work and we can get out of this rut, whereas George is looking for the easy way out each time. As did Eddie. Eddie's always on for the easy way out as well. But it was interesting at the end of the week we heard that Emma was upset because George had sent a message saying he did never wouldn't want her to visit again. Didn't want the family to visit. So this ongoing story with the stress upon Emma and we heard a bit of this week when she was offered the manager's job by Natasha, very grateful, very pleased. And then as soon as she realized that Alan wanted to job back, she was ready to concede and step back down. And I think Emma is in a very, very fragile position at the moment. And the fact that we saw Susan and Anil very vulnerable after the trip to George obviously will affect Emma as well. So that's a building story as far as I can see. That offer wasn't as generous as it sounded Natasha wants her weekends free so wants Emma to cover for her at weekends and Emma will have no weekends to herself will be doing tree work during the week and the theorem during the weekends. Yeah, exactly. And I don't see any offer from an Natasha ever as being generous is so self centered. So those are the calls for the week. Thank you so much for calling in. We love hearing your views on the weekend average. So don't hesitate to call again this week. Now we had no emails this week. That's I think three weeks in a row with no emails the poor email account is going to get lonely. So please do consider writing in even if you don't want to call it. I mentioned a few times now. Patreon backers of Dummy Dummy get an ad free early release version of this podcast around six o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. This isn't a guarantee just an aim as there may be weeks where other demands on my time means that I can't do the edits until later. And Patrons also get a weekly email about Dummy Dummy the Archers which this week including the feature on Robert Snell. We are in the process of trying to update our patron arrangements. Now this is going to involve patreon backers being asked to move to a new patreon feed which will come with a lower subscription rate. We need to watch out for some messages about what's involved in the next couple of weeks but to spare with us it's a bit of a slow process. Let's move on to Facebook and give a warm, dumpty-dum welcome to the following people who have joined our Facebook group in the past week. Angela Ray, Oliver Parsons, Baker and Graham Walsh. Welcome to you all. Now don't be shy about joining in and never hesitate to start a new conversation. And of course it's never too soon to start posting, colouring and emailing especially in the same week. Now let's hear what's been going on in the dumpty-dum Facebook group this week from Michelle. How are you dumpty-dummers? Michelle here with this week's roundup of all the goings-on over on the Everactive Facebook page. Speaking of activity seems to be plenty of movement in employment and/or housing this week. There's been cold fleet of plenty when it comes to house purchases and new business ventures resulting in the theoretical movements and genuine job offers, all the rage. With such upheaval this has led dumpty-dummers to do what they do best and to muse on future inhabitants of houses, cafes and pubs. The ever brilliant tea-brown artist had it all mapped out with her real estate musical chairs, plot predictions, world guesses. Jolene and Kenton will sell the bowl to Fallon and Harrison. She will turn the upstairs into a fairy cake lounge for formal teas. Tasha and Tom will buy Kirsty's house and tea the serum into a co-working space and 1950s style automat for juice and kale scones. Helen will remodel the twins' fake fruit stand in the backyard to make Pat and Tony an eco-house with a pop bottle glass roof skylight and composting toilet. Then move into bridge farm. Henry and Jack will insist that she keep her parents' drapes. Kirsty will buy a window farm and invite Rex to ruin with her after his house sinks on the am. George will come out of jail, a deplorable criminal. He'll make tons of cash, then date Lillian, since she's all about rich villains. Emma will insist that he's still a lovely boy. Brilliant as ever. We love your contributions. Helen is she would wonder if Fallon will end up as a pastry chef at Grey Gables. Eddie Wilson thought Adam and Ian could have taken one of the better units of the charging station for their pizza business and plenty of people are expecting Mr Scrooge himself, Justin, to have a change of heart and provide the unit originally agreed. What's for sure is the script writers could definitely come to our Facebook page for story ideas. Certainly better than AI. Whilst Tony went high in my expectations this week by finally telling Tom to just shut up and listen. He did come in for some criticism on the Facebook page. His reaction to the goat purchase. With Quentin Bennett pointed out, Tony can contemplate an eco-friendly passive home new build but not 750 quid for a goat. This started a conversation around their money management skills in general. KP Cunningham reminded us they would do one million for the sale of their land for housing development. Albeit, Lynne Rafferty reminded us it was only 900,000 after Tom's intervention. There's a lot of money to waste indulging Helen's cheese school. A goat really doesn't sound too bad after all. Certainly preferable to having tedious Tom around, it would certainly contribute more. Talking of animals, I can't complete the roundup without mentioning the most mentioned animal on the Facebook page this week. The rain Mihan drew attention to a beaver corridor in Wales, Jill Ansti that the current supermoon is a beaver moon, and Mary Finn about a beaver safari at the Wallington Estate in Northumberland. There's plenty of beavers out there that Kirsty and Rex need to do more homework on the subject. Meanwhile, we're all desperately trying not to think about that scene in the naked gun. On that note, that's it from me this week. Thanks for your great contributions. Keep warm and well everyone. Laura Bitts. Thank you, Richelle, and thank you so much to everyone on the Dump2Dumb Facebook group. If you'd like to join them, please do. But don't forget to answer all the membership questions so that we know that you're a real person. And if anybody out there would like to write us a review, please do that as well. There is a link to instructions on how to do this in the show notes. And if you can't leave a review, or if you already have, talk to your friends and family about us and about the archers. Don't be shy. The love of all things Ambrage is not something to hide from those around you. Now we'll move on to Blue Sky, where you'll find us at Dump2Dumb.BSky.Social and make sure you include the archers hashtag using a capital T and A. So the visually impaired who use screen readers can enjoy any archers based skits. As well as @Dump2Dumb, I can occasionally be found at whenlock.BSky.Social. And I am @JBerto.BSky.Social. We're also on Twitter @Dump2Dumb. And I can occasionally be found there at whenlock.House, but probably not for much longer. So let's find out who has won the Skeeting and Tweeting Rebels this week with Theo. Tweet, tweet, pushcat. Or should that be XX these days? Hello, Jacqueline, Stephen and Dump2Dumb is everywhere. It's Purple Pumpkin here with Tweets of the Week. This week, one of the funniest things on Twitter was that the word Blue Sky was frequently picked up by the Twitter algorithm as a top trending topic, helpfully guiding more people who want to leave X to find the kinder alternative for now at least. Over on Blue Sky, there's a special welcome to the hundreds of people who started following Dump2Dumb this week. And there were also loads of people, presumably not the same ones, asking what is the archers, having discovered it from the trending words on Blue Sky. Our world domination progresses. There were also lots of nice pictures and videos of beavers on all the platforms this week, alongside some unreputable jokes on the topic. It set me off this weekend to try and see the beavers that have been reintroduced into West London. And Manx Free State at ManxFreeState.beastry.social pointed out that Friday night was the night for a beaver full moon. Who knew? Alongside all the somewhat predictable vitriol for Helen and George this week, there was much discussion of Tony's newfound but apparently lifelong ambition to build a passive eco-house. Serena Blancheflower at all Serene.beastky.social thought that just possibly this plan could work if it was built as a family house, not just a retirement cottage, and it could be left to Tom so that the current farmhouse is given to Helen. But then Serena realised that this would cue several decades of hearing Helen whinging about the money pitch she was living in compared to the modern conveniences of Tom and Natasha's home, and that could work whether she bought the Beechwood house or the eco home. Meanwhile, Zanderl at zanderl.beastky.social followed a natural progression of thought from learning last week of the death of June Spencer to wonder when, after a respectful interval, Peggy will pass away. So that her will can cause mayhem. Jen Steven, at ambridgeponyclub.beastky.social, is hoping there's a clause in Peggy's will to say that everything goes to Hilda and whoever is looking after her. There should be some good storylines to come, whatever Peggy settles on in the end. But now, over to this week's medals for blue sky skates, threads and ex-posts, all of which we consider as Tweets of the Week. In bronze position, it's Charlie Thomas, at Sea Thomas 663. Are they trying to set a record for the number of times someone has said beaver on the radio? Well, Charlie, I suppose it makes a change from having to count the my darlings a week or two ago. The silver medalist is MJD2023 at MDup21. I think this episode has really proved that Tony is Tom's dad. Always the parent's least favourite, check. Married the most commanding woman available, check. Always bossed around by everyone, check. Embarking on poorly sought-out ideas, with zero planning whatsoever, check. Yup, like some like father. And the gold medal goes to Little Kim, at Little Kim. Helen doesn't need a passive house, a passive-aggressive house on the other hand. And on that passag note, that's it for this week. I hope to see you all on #TheArchers on blue sky, Twitter or threads. Next week. Thank you for that, Theo, and congratulations to all who are mentioned in this week's roundup. And don't forget we're on Instagram @dumptydum. Please send any the archers or podcast relevant photos to the Dumpty Dum email and we will publish them with credits to you. So that's dumptydum@mail.com. And we will be recording next week of the normal time of pre-door on Saturday morning. So please get your calls in by midnight on Friday, UK time as usual. And as we come to the end of this episode, we need to say thanks to all our wonderful contributors and to the team of Dumpty Dummers behind the scenes. I would need to say a great big thank you to all of you who are listening to us. We love making this podcast and sharing our love of the archers around the world. We must say thank you to Kim Durham and Sonny Ormond for their voices and pay our respects to the creators of this podcast. Thank you so much for listening and joining us today. Now we are off to build a Niko house on Bridge Farm Land. So it's worthwhile for me. And it's goodbye from me. (singing) (applause) Let's talk about something that's not always top of mind but still really important. Life insurance. Why? Because it offers financial protection for your loved ones and can help them pay for things like a mortgage, credit card debt, it can even help fund an education. And guess what? Life insurance is probably a lot more affordable than you think. In fact, most people think life insurance is three times more expensive than it is. So with state farm life insurance you can protect your loved ones without breaking the bank. Not sure where to start? State Farm has over 19,000 local agents that can help you choose an option to fit your needs and budget. Get started today and contact a state farm agent or go to statefarm.com. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B. But with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com/results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn. The place to be. To be. [BLANK_AUDIO]