August 2, 2004

Here I am again with another one of me things dropping into your email with a plop of satisfaction.  This week I’d like to say hello to those highly sophisticated, well mannered, good looking and extremely intelligent employees of Axa Insurance who wrote and told me last week the weekly updates have achieved cult status in their office.  After checking they hadn’t made a typo, I promised I’d mention them - although of course this isn’t a policy endorsement and other insurance companies are available in all good supermarkets; terms and conditions apply and this weekly update does not affect your statutory rights or the size of your premium.

Life without Chesney at the Battersby’s gives everyone the blues and makes Janice feel bad at forcing him to live with his mother.  And just when we were writing off Cilla as a stubborn stain on the gusset of life, she roars back on the cobbles in an Alfa Romeo sports car (in obligatory red) with a scarf around her head, dark glasses across her eyes and an extra roll of fat around her midriff. She tells Les she’s come into money, her Aunty Di’s died and left her loads of dosh.  Fiz knows Di’s dying is lies but Les falls for it and they go for a spin in the car with the Quo on CD and Les in the passenger seat.  “Foller that car!” Janice yells to Patrick as she jumps into his cab and they go racing after Cilla and Les.  When they finally catch up with them, the car’s up an alley with the seats down and snogging inside. The windows would’ve steamed up if it hadn’t been a convertible. After giving Les a thrashing with her handbag, Janice tells Patrick to take her back to the street where she moves her stuff back to her flat.  Les begs her forgiveness but she’s heard it before and won’t listen again. As Les hobbles away from Cilla in his one shoe (t’other’s gone missing in the heat of passion, as these things are wont to do) he says he wants nowt more to do with her - until she pulls alongside him in the sports car and he jumps back in for another bumpy ride with Cilla.

Stop the press, hold your horses, turn back the tide. Martin and Katy are back together again. Gail’s not best pleased and tells Martin what she thinks about his fling with a younger girl. “It’s not a crime to enjoy life, Gail.” he tells the woman who wears a life sentence of misery on her head. And when Sarah and David take sides with their mother, Martin says he won’t have his love life run by his family and tells Sarah: “I will not be accountable to a 17 year old girl!” to which she yells back at him: “Except the one you live with!”.  Oh yes, she’s her mother’s daughter all right.   Tommy’s unsettled by this turn of events in his daughter’s life and tells Martin he’ll get him back for it one day. “Oh yeah? And how’re you gonna do that then?” says Martin, voice quivering slightly.  “I’ll kill yer” says Tommy, eyes glinting madly.

Fred spies Penny and Ciaran cosy in the Rovers and tells Mike his lady friend’s having an affair behind his back and under his nose.  What’s really going on is that Penny and Ciaran have gone into business together and have bought a wine bar, as you do of a Thursday when there’s nowt much on the telly.  Mike makes a fool of himself when he reads Penny’s text message from Ciaran and turns up at their business meeting accusing them of all sorts.  When Penny tells him the truth, Mike says she’s made a bad decision to go into business with the barman, and he puts Fred straight on the gossip: “It’s more of a takeover than a leg over.”  Meanwhile, Ciaran allows Tracy the run of his flat and even gives her a key so she can take herself and the baby there whenever she needs to escape the tut-tutting disapproval of Ken, Deirdre and Blanche.

Harry’s undervalued at Underworld when Jamie helps out doing a bit of driving, a bit of sweeping, a bit of cleaning, a bit of everything that Harry used to do.  He tells Danny he’s leaving and walks out of the factory into the pub to spend his last pay packet, hoping not to bump into Frankie. She’s already upset him when she criticised the fashion sense of his dead daughter when Harry brought a box of her old clothes for Emily’s jumble sale.  Poor Harry. He feels he wants to spread his wings, see a bit of life, take off, for instance, in a camper van and see the world.

Could it be a coincidence? I think not. There’s Harry desperate for travel and adventure and here’s Roy and Hayley in their campervan and a bad mood after a trip fraught with difficulties and a chemical toilet.  Roy brought back with them a railway signal and a signalman’s hat; the signalman perhaps preferring to wait at his post. The Croppers decide a camper van life isn’t for them and plan the rest of their holiday by train on days out and picnics.

And finally this week it’s good news for Sally as Rosie gets accepted at posh Oakhill School. Kev can’t understand how his daughter’s been accepted without an interview or test but when the Oakhill School bus appears at the garage for free servicing it becomes clear to Kev that Sally’s bribed the headmaster.

Right, that’s me off to the Great British Beer Festival at Olympia now (Tues) where I’ll be tasting the likes of Daffy’s Elixir, Fuggle dee Dum and Umble Ale, followed by a swift half of Betty Stogs.  And if I survive all that, and more, hic, I’ll be sending the update out tomorrow (Weds).

And that’s just about that for this week.

Glenda



August 9, 2004

Greetings and welcome to another weekly update.   Firstly this week, I know a couple of you've had problems in trying to unsubscribe from the weekly update.  I can only apologise and ask for your patience until top man Peter Flint returns to sort out your unsubscription requests manually.  To unsubscribe automatically, please send a message to  corrieweeks@solarsite.co.uk and in the subject line put UNSUBSCRIBE.  Please ensure you are posting from the same address you subscribed with.   I know there's not many more things annoying that receiving emails you don't want from a list you can't unsubscribe from - apologies again.  But for those of you who do want the weekly update, mother, here we go with this week's Coronation Street update.

Jack gives a pep talk to the ladies bowls team to get them fired up for their first match.  He wants them to be a lean, mean, bowling team but the best Fiz can offer is a harmful armful.   With Dolly the stuffed pigeon as team mascot, Jack outlines the bowls game plan, highlighting the importance of knobs and blobs as he thumbs his balls in the Rovers bar.

Harry buys the Cropper's campervan and leaves this week to travel around the world.  He tempts Eileen with the trip of her life; sunshine, adventure and a chemical toilet but while she's flattered to be asked, she's too scared to leave and turns Harry down.  In the cab office, Eileen shares her fantasy of being whisked upstairs by a silent stranger who comes to fix her boiler.  Later in the Rovers Janice and Fiz are joking with Eileen and a stranger at the bar says he knows a few things about heating systems and offers to look at Eileen's pipes. " It's no good," she jokes, "..you've spoiled me fantasy now, by talking".  The two of them flirt and the bloke leaves.  At closing time, the gas man cometh and silently takes Eileen home to service the old boiler.

Still believing Cilla's come into money, Les chucks out the chintz and furniture from the house, secure in the knowledge that Cilla can afford to replace it with new stuff.  He also leaves his job at Streetcars thinking Cilla will keep him in beer and chips.  The furniture goes to the tip and much of it ends up in the crusher but it's not as crushed as Les is when Cilla has to tell him the truth.  With help from Kirk and Jamie with his van, they troop off to the tip to recover their goods but end up only with a couple of manky chairs, a fun-size billiard table and a space hopper.  There's a brief glimmer of hope for Les when he thinks he's recovered his Quo records, but his glee is short lived when he finds a Des O'Connor LP inside the Quo sleeve.

Joshua, son of Maxine and the too tall doctor, starts calling Claire 'mummy' and she's not best pleased.  Ashley can't see what the problem is, he assumes he and Claire will be married some day anyway so why not marry him now and be done with it and it'll end all their problems (and could start some new ones).  Claire, wanting a little more romance in her life and a proper proposal - perhaps with Ashley down on one knee with a red rose in one hand, a diamond ring in t'other and a 24 piece orchestra serenading them from t'ginnel as scented petals fall from heaven and angels sing on high - says no and gets all stroppy and goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on about it to anyone who'll listen (not me, I zoned out).   Ashley confides to Claire he's not Josh's dad and the two of them get lovey on the sofa and rub marshmallows into each other's hair while Fred's away at a square dealer's convention.

Dev and Maya return from the holiday that should have been their honeymoon if they'd been married as Maya had planned.  Sunita collapses as she's working in the shop and Maya reckons she's doing it for attention but Dev wants to look after Sunita, and finally faces up to his true feelings for her.  "I need you.  Sunita, I love you" he tells her, getting all romantic by the Tunnocks caramel wafers that get a gratuitous shot of their own this week.   I had a wonderful email from update reader Lynne this week who recently enjoyed a Mega Tivoli (oh yes) while in the Tivoli Gardens,Copenhagen.  Apparently, the Mega Tivoli is a waffle cone stuffed with four varieties of ice cream, whipped cream, strawberry sauce and all topped off with.. a Tunnocks Tea Cake.  And if your life has still not been brightened by the biscuit of joy, click her for more information www.tunnocks.co.uk

Despite Mike's reservations, Penny gives Ciaran the money for her share of the wine bar business.  Tracy's all over Ciaran like a rash now he's in funds.  "Is that a cheque for fifty grand in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?", she might have said but didn't.  "Geddoff moi body, yer dirty, psycho slapper," he didn't reply.  As the two of them canoodle in the flat, Blanche moans to Ken in the Rovers about dirty nappies and errant granddaughters.

Aye up and by 'eck, these shoes don't half pinch.

Glenda


August 16, 2004

Greetings and welcome to another weekly update, the one that comes with a saucy wink and a knowing smile from a woman who will have celebrated her 40th birthday by the time you read the next update.   And so, without any further ado, here we go with this week's Coronation Street update.

After the gas man sorts out Eileen's plumbing there's an awkward scene the next morning when Jason assumes he's a piece of rough Todd's picked up in town.   The gas man, embarrassed, skips out of Eileen's house and her life with an unseemly rapid movement of his feet.

Feckless Baldwin son number two turned up this week, young Warren, with an eye for the ladies and a bottle of wine.  He tells everyone he's playing football for Brentford Nylons and he's been sent up north on sick leave but it turns out he's been sacked.  This doesn't deter Candice from thinking he's her ticket to the plastic life of a footballer's wife but she soon dumps him when she finds out the truth.  He also gets an earful from Frankie and Danny when they find out too.

Sunita decides to move away, she can't trust herself to trust Dev after he destroyed Maya's trust in him so quick and harshly.  But when Dev pledges undying love she knows she wants to stay and be with him, if for no other reason than to get a good discount on Tunnocks.  Meanwhile, mad Maya takes Dev's news as only a scorned woman can.  She wrecks his flat, smashing everything smashable, upturning things where possible and generally making a dogs dinner of the place before she leaves.  

Dev gets Tyrone and Kirk to clean up the flat and tells them to get rid of everything.  The lads find a video tape labeled 'Tracy' behind some shelves and assume it's a saucy tape Tracy made for Dev when they were together.   After much sniggering in the Rovers, they let Jamie and Warren in on the secret and Jamie tells, er, Ken, not realizing he's Tracy's dad.   A horrified Ken takes the tape home to Deirdre and there's a moment where Deirdre looks alarmed as Ken wonders if Dev has any more such tapes of his ex-conquests.  Tracy arrives and returns the tape to Tyrone and Kirk after making Kirk bark like a dog before he runs to Les' house to watch it with the lads, thinking they're in for 'Tracy does Salford', and not as it turned out, highlights of India's greatest cricket moments.

Sunita goes to hospital for her brain operation.  She spends the night before the op with Dev in her flat, scared she's going to die the next day and it'll be the only time they ever spend together naked.  Before she goes into surgery, Dev asks her to marry him and when she comes out of the op, all having gone well, she'll probably say yes. And then Maya'll get really, really angry; a smashed-up flat being the least of Dev's worries.

It's the first match for the ladies bowls team. They're all dolled up with Jack in a panama hat and the girls in white and black outfits only to find the opposing team in shell suits and jeans.  When Eileen takes a call on her mobile phone she's disqualified on a rule that didn't apply last time Jack played the game and she forfeits her turn - but as you always knew she would, Hayley saves the game.  However, tragedy strikes later when two of the team drop out as Shelley does her back in and Janice sews her fingers together at work.  It could have been worse, she could have had them up her nose at the time.

Audrey sacks Sarah from the salon, prepared no longer to tolerate her laziness even if she is her granddaughter.  Gail isn't best pleased.  "But what did you do?" asks Gail.  "Nothing!" says Sarah, which perhaps was her problem.  Mind you, there was a great scene in the salon this week when Sarah takes a phone call and goes "Eeew, no, we don't do that." before hanging up on the caller.  Audrey reprimands her, reminding her they do anything the customer wants them to do, and asks what was it, exactly, that the customer wanted?  When told it was Frankie Baldwin wanting a Brazilian, Audrey has to agree: "Eeew, no, we don't do that."   But anyway, Gail seethes at Audrey, telling her if she doesn't beg Sarah's forgiveness and re-employs her, she'll never see her family again.  But after a quiet word with Martin, Gail starts to see sense and makes up with Audrey by the end of Monday night's second episode, which is always a drag, two episodes where one will do.  It's like 'buy one get one free', without the quality of two for one, just the time and expense of dragging it home in the car when you only have space for one anyway but you think, oh no, I'll get two 'cos it's economical.  And then you open the car door and one of them drops on the floor and smashes and you end up wishing you'd only seen one episode 'cos one would have done, really it would.

Emily gets a court summons for non-payment of council tax in protest at the Alf Roberts Memorial Fountain.  Spider would be proud of her but Norris is scared witless she'll be sent to prison. "I know what it's like, I've seen Bad Girls." he says, and he pays the summons for her.  Emily assumes Audrey's paid the bill and gives her an earful but later has to apologise. And after a trip to the Council, she gives Audrey the bad news that the Alf Roberts memorial fountain has been voted out and the Alice Studwick memorial public lavvies has been voted in.

And that's just about that for this week.

Glenda


August 23, 2004

Greetings and welcome to another weekly update from the woman who is now officially over the hill and away the pixies, but you knew that bit already.  And so, without any further ado, here we go with this week's Coronation Street update.

Needing new members for his bowls team Jack signs up Deirdre and Liz who plays bowls in her fishnets (good for catching crabs) before falling over on the green.  Hayley's off the team when her past catches up with her. She's still registered as Harold Patterson in the East Lancs Semi Pro Bowling Guild and therefore can't play in the final against the Slaughterman's Arms.  Jack needs a new team member and when no one else offers to play, Deirdre jokes that Jack should drag up in a frock if the team want to win.  Hayley looks decidely uncomfortable when Jack says he'll do it.

When Tracy's at Ciaran's flat with the baby, she pockets the fifty grand cash and puts the money, for a laugh,  in the side pockets of Amy's pram before she waltzes out and leaves him to change nappies. Ciaran's beside himself with worry at losing the money and dumps the baby with Deirdre while he goes looking for Tracy, sure that she's nicked his cash. Deirdre's got bowls practise so leaves the baby with Roy who, of course, finds the cash in the pram and spends all week fretting, as he would. He's sure Ciaran and Tracy are up to no good and warns Penny King that Ciaran shouldn't be trusted in business.

Leanne's interviewed by Fred Scuttle - he's all jam-jar bottoms and wandering hands - for a job as a nightclub barmaid. Jamie wades in when the bloke, real name Bob, gets too friendly with Leanne and the pair of them end up losing their jobs there. Frankie's not keen on Leanne hanging around son Jamie and the two of them trade insults all week.

Katy gets disappointing A level results but can't bring herself to tell Tommy, especially when he gives her a two hundred quid reward for passing her exams.

Karl's back on the scene as he turns up to see Todd, who's starting to look like the bloke from the Etch-a-Sketch box.

Karen's not happy when her dad turns up on the doorstep with news that her mother's really ill and close to dying.  Steve can't understand why Karen won't give her dad the time of day but it all comes out later when a tearful Karen explains her dad was a religious bully and there's never been any love lost between them, she moved out after he beat her to a pulp.  Karen's in bits telling all this to Steve and as her past comes spilling out, there's so much emotion going on in her face that her eyebrows could have been given a storyline of their own.

And was it a first? I rather think it might have been - the viewer's first look in the gents loos at the Rovers.

And that's just about that for this week.

Glenda

August 30, 2004

Greetings and welcome to another weekly update. I'm off on holiday now and the next three weeks of updates will be brought to you by the weekly update session singers. In week 1 we have Janet Waterhouse on guitar, strumming a good tune nicely.  In week 2 we have Richard Whitbread freestyling on keyboards, and in week 3, if he's back from rehab, we'll have John Dean on the tambourine and strong medication. A huge thank you to all of them, I know they'll wear the weekly update slippers with pride and keep the weekly update jumper free of those little woolly round things that gather on it in the wash.  If you'd like to know more about Janet, Richard and John, visit the weekly update website at the url below.

And so, without any further ado, here we go with this week's Coronation Street update.

It's the final match for the ladies bowling team and Jack is dragged up in a frock as the team's femme fatale.  He looks like Bet Gilroy's older, prettier sister and when he sees his reflection in the mirror, says: "I've gone out wi' worse".  The girls name him Ida Fagg and of course they win the game. Vera doesn't find out what Jack's been up to and thinks he's having an affair when she gets the reek of cheap perfume: "You smell like Elsie Tanner on VE day".  It was all supposed to be funny, a pantomime dame in the middle of Manchester but somehow, for me, the whole thing stank of eau de'speration for ratings and fell flat when it could have been done very much better.  

Steve brings Karen's aunty Eva to help her cope with the death of her mum. Everyone's assuming she should be riddled with grief but Karen tells Eva she'll never forgive or forget. On the day of the funeral, Karen's dolled up to the nines and heads to the Rovers for Dev and Sunita's engagement party, where she gess vey, vey drunk azza bar.

Chesney's home alone when Cilla and Les bunk off to Blackpool for the weekend without making arrangements for him to be looked after. Fiz is away too and his only company is Digby the biggest dog in the world.  When the electricity goes off, Chesney heads to the Harris' house to ask for money for the meter and a dead sheep's leg, two calves and a chicken for the dog's dinner.  Tommy and Angela take Chesney and Digby indoors and look after them until his wayward parent returns.  Cilla gets a roasting from Tommy in the Rovers, in front of everyone gathered for the dearly beloved couple about to be wed (see earlier paragraph) about just how bad a mother she really is. Yes, but is she bovvered? Does she look bovvered?

While the happy couple are celebrating in the Rovers (see above, twice) Maya creeps, nay, slithers into Sunita's flat with a key she had stuck behind her left knee.  She rifles through Sunita's drawers and takes her birth certificate.  Outside she's met by some fella in a car who asks her: "Sunita, you have what you need?".  "Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be someone not mentally unhinged" says Maya pretending to be Sunita.  

Eileen's over the moon when Todd says he's returning to college to take his A levels.  The news puts her in a good mood which is just as well as a friend of Karl and Dorothy's, Shaun, turns up looking for a place to stay. And you have to be in a good mood, I find, to put up a screaming queen. Eileen agrees to him sleeping on the sofa although Jason's not happy and Todd's just bemused.  Whatever, Shaun's a welcome addition and livened up the Rovers with his beauty advice. 

More advice comes by way of Blanche to Deirdre when mother tells daughter it could have been her with Dev, instead of Sunita. "You've married foreign once, you could have done it again" she says, before pointing out how much of a disappointment Deirdre has been and how the sausage rolls aren't up to scratch either.  Either the Chardonnay I was drinking was especially strong or Corrie entered a strange twilight zone at this point, but the scene ended with Blance telling Deirdre to play another song on the harmonica, which she did. Bizarre.  Mike also had a word or two for Deirdre when he tells her he could have been a good husband for he.  "I chose the better man" she replies "I think we both know that".

And that's just abut that for this week.  I'll be back in 3 weeks time.

Glenda

By Glenda Young , writer of Coronation Street Weekly Updates for the internet since 1995.



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