Greetings and welcome to another weekly update, brought to you this week by the power of sweat as I’m sweltering in the heatwave of an English summer. There’s no air conditioning in my office and I spent a crowded journey on the tube last night stuck to someone else’s armpit.   Tube etiquette, one of the things you learn pretty quickly in London, forced me to pretend I didn’t notice, or care.  I’m an inner-city girl now, me, no longer a London tourist. Sometimes I help those less fortunate than myself, those tourists outside the British Museum for instance, going “Gee, can you tell me how we get to the Briddish Mooseeom?” and all I have to do is push them through the gates they’ve been lingering outside of for the last hour.  Other times I’m not so charitable and in this heat – and in this city - well, tempers can get frayed.  So if you’re a parent of an Italian teenage son, last seen wearing a bright yellow backpack, who’s part of a crowd of let’s say, oh, about 50 of them blocking up the entrance to the tube stations and screaming at each other as we Londoners struggle to and from work in our non-airconditioned offices in this record breaking heat – and if your son should have a bruise on his shin from being kicked by a passerby, well, it wasn’t me but heaven knows, I’ve been tempted.  Anyway, without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.

Hayley’s in shock at Roy’s revelation that he had relations with truculent Tracy.  She’s having trouble believing that he can’t remember anything and asks him if he could have been unconscious.  Hayley decides to find out the truth by confronting Tracy.  At the Rovers the new M. et Mme. Barleau are back from honeymoon and Tracy begs Peter to let her stay on but Shelley has the last word, a definite No.   So as well as being pregnant, Tracy’s homeless, friendless, bitter and twisted and a nasty piece of work to boot.  She decides to head back to London and hops into a taxi just as Deirdre spits out that she’s ashamed she’s her daughter.  And as the taxi pulls away from the cobbles, Hayley chases after it, demanding to know the truth from Tracy but there’s four wheels on that wagon and it just keeps rolling along.  Having a hard time with what he thinks he’s done, Roy says he’s moving out but Hayley persuades him to stay and the Croppers try to come to terms with the seismic change in their relationship.

Martin’s all set to tell Tommy about him and his daughter but when he gets to the Nelson’s Katy talks him out of it. Which is a shame really because Tommy losing his nut with Martin and smashing his head in might make this storyline just that little bit more interesting.

The best storyline of the week has been the McDonalds, of course. Steve’s surprised to receive his decree nisi from the solicitor and tells Karen she needs to call her solicitor to stop the divorce. No can do, matey. Karen wants the divorce because she wants another wedding, a big fat greedy wedding with a cherry on the top, not the poor excuse they had last time when they were wed for a bet.  Steve’s against the plan so Karen tries all the tricks up her sleeve and down her trousers to get Steve to change his mind and seduces him in the Rovers.  “When all else fails, you bring out me favourite panties” he says.  Steve’s still not convinced it’s a good idea, but you just know – and hope – Karen will get her own way.

At the factory Mike’s expecting a buyer, Preston King, but when he doesn’t show up Mike takes off to the pub.  Later, when Preston does arrive, he’s red in the face and falls to the floor with a heart attack. Harry calls for an ambulance and the jobbing actor is taken away to be visited later in the week when Harry goes to the hospital to return Preston’s wallet that he’d dropped.  I know all this is leading somewhere, just not sure where - and his wife, the jobbing actress, looked vaguely familiar.

Curly and Emma are still trying to sell their house and have now found somewhere new in Newcastle although it probably won’t be.  A castle, that is. But then, every Englishman’s home is one, so perhaps it will be. Who knows?  Shelley and Peter want to go for a look-see and in the absence of the Watts, Norris is custodian of the keys.  He tells the Barlow’s he’ll have to accompany them around the house, for security reasons, oh and the fact he’s always wanted to see their upstairs.  Curly and Emma get another visit from Archie Scanlon the pigeon rustler who tells them this time he’s straight, he really does want to buy their house and shows them ten grand in used notes in a sports bag. Archie says he wants to live next door to his mate Les but the Watt’s are convinced it’s just another scam and Emma throws him out in a policewomanly sort of way.  The Watts feel there’s nothing to do but reduce the price of the house and tell the estate agent they’ll sell it for a song (probably “Under the Moon of Love” by Showaddywaddy).  

Little do the Watts know that their least favourite neighbour has just been released from prison. Yes, Les is back on the street and spends his first episode shouting and screaming at just about everyone and gets himself barred from the Rovers straight off.  After mouthing off at the bent coppers in the pub, PC Mick threatens Les with another stint inside – this time for three years instead of three months.  Les is tagged and put under curfew as conditions of his release and Fiz, bless her, offers to cook his tea when he finds himself retuning to an empty house as Kirk has gone to Blackpool with Tyrone.  I don’t know about you, but I liked Corrie better when Les wasn’t around.

And that’s just about that for this week.

Glenda

August 18, 2003

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