<soapbox>
It's a bit hard to know whether I was watching my favourite TV soap or one of those cheap Australian imitations this week. You know, something like Neighbours, Home and Away, that sort of dross. I mean, what's going on? This week we've had stuff we've never seen on Coronation Street before, and stuff that doesn't sit comfortably on the show. Coronation Street isn't real. It's gritty, it's funny, it handled transsexualism really well, making the nation sit up and learn. But it's not real. Do we really want drug dealers on the street? I don't. I know it happens in real life, but I don't want to watch it three times a week on TV in the guise of a storyline. Drug dealing on Coronation Street is as out of place, unpleasant, and unnecessary as finding a used elastoplast in t'middle of a pineapple melba. This kind of realism we can do without.
</soapbox>Anyway, let's get on with this week's Coronation Street update, I've got to get this done and out of the way so I can listen to the Sunderland vs Crewe game on the radio tonight!
Some great comic moments this week when Charlie West tells Les that his pal has won the lottery. This pal has all that money desires but one thing he really misses is 'home'. He has the money now to build himself a tradtional street to remind himself of his working class background, so Charlie suggests to Les they dig up the cobbles in the street to sell to the poor homesick lottery millionaire. Janice walks in as they're scheming and has a go at Les. As she leaves, Les shrugs at Charlie; "Hormones, eh? Who'd have 'em?". Anyway, they draft in Dobber to help out, digging up the cobbles until Les hits himself on the foot with his ice-pick and the other two scarper as Les hops around in pain. Next day, Audrey and Maude wonder what's gone on, where have all the cobbles gone? Les tells Audrey he's going to complain to the council about his injury, blaming the missing cobbles for him hurting himself. Audrey promises she'll ring the Highways department at the council and after that, it's in their hands.
Greg and Sally are over the moon at securing a large contract from a firm called Rubens - one of Mike's customers. Janice overhears Sally telling Gail about the contract in the cafe, and she tells Mike what's going on. Mike vows to Alma that he's going to bring Greg Kelly down if it's the last thing he does. When Rubens pull out of the contract without giving any reason, Greg is suspicious about Mike causing problems but wonders how he found out about the contract in the first place....
Toyah comes out with some corking lines this week when she realises that Dobber is really just a waste of space. She confides in Janice that she's not happy with Dobber - "It's times like this you wish you were a lesbian!". Later in the cafe, Toyah gives Ken an essay of hers on Wuthering Heights, to read. Gail says she wishes there were real men like Heathcliffe in Weatherfield, and Ken says perhaps there is, what about Dobber? To which Toyah replies "Dobber does plenty of the wuthering, he just can't reach the heights". She tries to break the relationship with Dobber, but he's still hanging around, being apprentice berk to master of them all, Les. A right comic pair.
Deidre is looking for a job, and Alma suggests to Mike that he offer her a job in the factory. So, via Alma, an offer is made and Deidre accepts. And that's about as exciting as it got this week for the poor lass.
Zoe, Ashley, Tony, Maxine, Nick and Leanne all go nightclubbing together. Tony has a 'bit of business' to attend to in the club and Maxine isn't best pleased to be left on her own while Tony does some dealing (hence the soapbox bit at the start of this update). He offers her some, and she refuses. In the club, a couple, Ruth and Ben start talking to Zoe and Ruth takes Zoe's purse from her jacket. This Ruth and Ben are like, really weird. Anyway, next day Ruth brings back Zoe's purse, saying she's found it and wanted to return it to her. As she's talking to Zoe, she gets her to talk about baby Shannon and sort of wheedles her way into Zoe's confidence. Ruth returns the next day with her sister/cousin (excuse the confusion, she was called both in seperate episodes) who apparantly had also suffered the loss of her baby, and can sympathise with Zoe. Anyway, Zoe's loving all this attention and invites Ruth and Ben for dinner, and Ashley invites Nick and Leanne to come along to the dinner party too although Zoe isn't best pleased about this. It's roasted chicken on the menu but Ruth and Ben are vegetarian and don't drink either "We don't need alcohol anymore, life's intoxicating enough!". They also denounce meat, saying it ruins a person's spiritual balance. (I'd like to see them say that to uncle Fred, I say, I would). There's something strange going on, and Zoe is going to get sucked into their weird cult life any day now, just wait and see. Nick and Leanne come away from the dinner party announcing Ben and Ruth "a couple of prats".
It's tonsil hockey ahoy this week with Liz and Michael. He catches Liz outside of the Rovers and kisses her in the ginnel. Liz cries "no, stop, more, please more, stop, no, more". Anyway, Michael tells her he's going away to work in Milton Keynes and gives her a last physical check-up chez McDonald before he pops off. Anyway, as the two of them are writhing with physio passion on the downstairs bed, what no one knows is that for the last few days Jim me laddo has been taking his first, few tentative steps with the help of a zimmer frame thing. He's planned to walk into the house on his own two feet with a bunch of roses under his arm, a diamond ring in his pocket and a gleam in his eye to ask Elizabeth to marry him. He struggles to walk into the house, he opens the door of the living room and finds Liz and Michael on the bed, together, naked, and throws his walking frame away, crying.
Des and Nat are back from honeymoon and Des suspects something is up with Tony when he and Nat walk into the house and Tony has a friend there, Jason. As Des and Nat walk in, Tony hurriedly puts away his stash, scales and drug paraphenalia in a briefcase and Jason hurriedly leaves without the 800 pounds cash Tony owes him. Jason catches up with Tony later in the week, demanding the money he's owed, which in turn is owed to someone nasty in Leeds. Tony can't pay and Jason warns him that people are out to kill him if he doesn't get paid. Tony asks Nat to let him stay longer in the house than first agreed and she, as his mam, adrees. Des knows there's something going on and warns Tony he doesn't want any trouble in his house.
Nick needs some extra money so when he sees a poster in college advertising a vacancy for a life-class model for an art class, he takes the poster and let's just hope, please, we'll be spared having to sit through an episode of Nick without his clothes on.
And that's about that for this week
Glenda :-)
Hello everyone, me again, with yet another episode of the great "moving home" saga, part IX. No, I haven't actually moved yet. Yes, I hope to move before Christmas. My house is sold, the people who are buying my house live across the road from me, in fact, if I stand up and look out of the window here I can see into their kitchen and my word, her cooker could do with a bit of a clean. Anyway, they're moving in here as soon as I move out and the only thing stopping all of us moving in, out, in, out, are the solicitors who are generally shaking things all about. I've already moved most of the furniture out of here, including my dining table and chairs. Now, before the dining table went, I had this glass pendant lamp hanging over the table. Now the table and chairs have gone, there's nothing to stop someone who isn't looking where she's going from walking into the lamp, smashing her face against it, knocking herself out and getting a bruised face in the process (yes, I really did). Anyway, I'm escaping it all with some R & R in the Californian sunshine next week during half-term at Uni, and when I come back, all tanned and lovely, I'll be ready for the big house move.
I've found a volunteer to write the next two weekly updates - the very willing and more than capable - CP Turner. For those of you who know and love CP's style, I know you'll look forward to his two insertions. However, for the rest of you, well, *you've been warned* and, as usual, all complaints will be sent to my solicitor where he'll file them in his waste bin with the rest of my stuff, it seems, under "I" for ignore. Anyway, on with this week's Coronation Street weekly update.
The Street went a bit daft this week. I mean, daft as in silly, unbelievable, laughable. It was the first time I can remember watching the Street, shaking my head from side to side, tutting. What a pile of rubbish the Crystal of Nirab storyline is. Anyway, I suppose I'd better explain. Ruth and Ben come to dinner again at Zoe and Ashley's house and they're getting really pally with Zoe, she feels loved and accepted by the gruesome twosome. Off she goes ice-skating with them and the next thing you know, Zoe has been offered a job by Ruth. Anyway, at the 'office' where Zoe is now working, Ruth and Ben get her involved in the "foundation", giving Zoe her very own Crystal of Nirab to wear around her neck and warn her not to have fleshly contact with people (Ashley) outside of the foundation. Ruth takes Zoe outdoors, selling crystals door to door to bored housewives with a spare fiver in the back of their purse. Ben tells Zoe that when they think she's strong enough, they'll show her the inner sanctum (whatever that is). It's all a bit naff and doesn't sit well in my favourite soap. Next!
The Jim / Liz / Michael saga continued this week (unfortunately). I wish she'd just pack her bags and leave, but oh no, she's still hanging around. Michael asks her to go to Milton Keynes with him (go Liz, go!) but she feels a certain duty towards Jim (no Liz, just go!). Deirdre gets to act as the shoulder to cry on again this week, and little else. Jim warns Liz that if she goes off with Michael, he'll put in a formal complaint to Michael's employers saying he took advantage of the situation but this doesn't deter Liz or Michael.
Nick signs up as a model for the art class at college and yes, it's cringe making time when we get to see him in the noddy - well, sort of, more or less. He's keeping quiet about his new job at college, telling Leanne that he's just there doing a few odd jobs "All I do is get the equipment out and put it away again" he says.
Greg is furious with Sally when he questions her about the Rubens contract and she admits she told Gail in the cafe about it. He knows that's the only way that Baldwin could have found out about the contract and now he's ruining every chance for Greg to make a success of his own company. Sally is in tears, begging Greg to calm down, and after a few dreary minutes of Sally whimpering "Oh, Greg" and then Greg answering with a menacing "Shaddup", he takes a swipe at her and she falls to the fall, crying, her lip burst open and bloody. Greg takes advice from his friend, the solicitor, who advises him to patch things up with Sally otherwise he'll be up the creek without Sally's money paddle. So, Greg returns to Sally with a bunch of flowers and a made up tale about how his father used to hit him as a kid. The lies make Sally warm to Greg, when she recounts how her father used to hit her mother when she was little, and they hug and she says she'll give him another chance.
Des knows there's something fishy going on with Natalie's son and when Tony asks to borrow £1,000 from Des, the answer is a definite 'no'. Des and Nat go to the Rovers and while they're out, three lads come looking for Tony, and when they find him in the house, give him a good beating up when he can't pay his debt for the drugs. Anyway, when Nat and Des return to find Tony lying on the floor, Nat assumes Tony has fought off burglars. He gets rushed to hospital in an ambulance but discharges himself the next day. Des comes home the next day to find Tony digging something in the garden, he's trying to bury the drugs but Des unearths them and flushes them away down the kitchen sink as Tony cries "No, Des! No!". Des tells Tony he doesn't want him around, and that he'll call the police if he stays, so later in the Rovers, Tony tells his mum he's leaving to go to London.
And finally, my favourite storyline of the week. Rita and Alec have an "official opening" of the doorway connecting their two flats. Rita performs the opening ceremony, cutting the blue ribbon that Alec has festooned all over it and they celebrate with a bottle of champagne and Rita cooks dinner (looking resplendent in her black sequinned shoulder padded jumper). Over dinner, Alec is fumbling with the top of a second champagne bottle and when Rita asks him to stay the night, he almost pops it open to overflow. Next day in the Rovers, Alec pours himself a glass of stout to keep his energy level up, he thinks he's going to need it when Rita tells him she wants another early night. However, he's disappointed when she says she wants to be alone with a steamy book and will be fastening the lock on her side of the door that evening.
And that's all for this week. Remember, CP Turner will be here with the next two weekly updates.
Glenda :-)
They say you can't keep a good man down (which is rubbish, especially if you use proper ropes; or, alternatively, if you swallow hard enough), and so here I am, back to do a 'guest update' for my good friend, Glenda Young. (I say 'good friend' but in actual fact I hardly know the woman. Apart from what I read in the newspapers, of course, but then you can't believe everything you read in crime reports, can you? Besides, I blame society. I mean, it can't be easy for a single mother of seven living in Sunderland. And after all, what was it that she stole from Boots? Half a dozen bottles of Oil of Ulay and a can of 'Pump and Spray' that was well past its sell-by date anyway. Fortunately she got off with a suspended sentence, but that's hardly surprising given that she's on first name terms with half the magistrates in the North East. The judge was compassion personified. "I shan't give you a custodial sentence this time, Glenda," he said, "as long as you promise us all that you'll attend forthwith to your chronic Dettol addiction." And so that's what she's doing this week: she's holed up in some grotty clinic yet again, being weaned off cheap disinfectant. Which is why I'm standing in for her with the weekly update).
I have to say that it's lovely to be back with you again, albeit just for two weeks, although it is a little weird, guesting for someone else when I was so used to others guesting for me. Having said that, I don't regret giving up the Wednesday update slot one little bit. Like those cabinet ministers who resign in order to spend more time with their families, I resigned in order to spend more time with complete strangers - and I'm having a ball. (No moralising, please: after all, our Father's house has many mansions - and one of them is a sleazy bar with a backroom).
Talking of ministers resigning, wasn't that Ron Davies business an absolute hoot? I mean, I've been on Clapham Common loads of times, but I've never once been invited for a meal. (Oh, I've been asked to eat things, figuratively speaking, but nothing that you'd see Delia Smith experimenting with). As it happens, the Clapham Common fiasco unearthed several more skeletons in Labour's cupboard: Peter 'Mandy' Mandelson was outed on 'Newsnight' and Nick Brown, whom I've met on several occasions, was dragged kicking and screaming from the closet several days later. Of course, it was of little surprise to anyone that Peter Mandelson is a whoopsie, although rumours of his plan to scrap that awful Dome and build a 'Millenium Cottage' instead are probably unfounded. But Nick Brown's friendship with Dorothy came as a complete surprise.
Anyway, what have you all been doing since I saw you last? I've been trying to get to grips with the ceaseless hustle and bustle of a brand new term. As Tony Horrocks would say - and indeed *has* said - I'm just busy busy busy! (Only I say it with more panache, without a mobile phone, and minus that awful bleached hair look that was so beloved of Eighties footballers). It hasn't been a bad term so far, all things considered, and the students are all sweeties, as usual. And no nine o'clock classes! (This is offset, however, by the fact that I have a couple of two-hour lectures on my timetable that I could well do without. Well you try speaking for two hours on the vicissitudes of life in pre-Islamic Arabia without wanting to throw up! Naturally I give them a fifteen minute 'fag break' in the middle, which is when the three queens in Year Four huddle in a corner to bitch about the decor. But what do they expect on a student grant - Laura Ashley?)
Apart from the usual grind of work, I have been trying to recapture my once vibrant social life, but frankly it's an uphill struggle. The spirit is willing but the flesh is oh, so weak. I mean, when you've been standing at the front of a lecture theatre all day, the only thing you want to do when you go home at night is collapse in front of the television with a bag of sherbet lemons, a couple of bottles of Blue Nun, and a rent-boy from Hartlepool whose face you recognise from 'CrimeStoppers'. Clubs, parties, dinner with friends - they're all very tempting, but awfully hard work. Getting ready just about kills me; these days, even a half-hearted attempt at making myself presentable is a task akin to re-staging the Siege of Stalingrad, and possibly messier. It's simply not worth it.
Anyway, what has been happening on the Street this week? I'll give the day-by-day lowdown, starting with:
