July 7, 2008
Greetings! It’s great to be back and my sincere thanks go to John Dean and Richard Whitbread who have been looking after things while I’ve been away. Without, er, willing volunteers like these two fine gentlemen, the weekly updates would have fallen into a void during the month of June and I’m very grateful to both of them for keeping the fires burning and the mouse traps refilled in the weekly update office.
Me? I’ve been involved in a special Corrie-related task that’s taken all my spare time over the last few weeks. I’ll be giving it a mention in a few weeks via the weekly updates so keep your ear to the ground and your finger in the air to see which way the wind blows. That’s got nowt to do with Corrie, it’s just a general tip I like to pass along. Don’t run with scissors in your hand, that’s another. And so, without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.
If you’d like your weekly update with pictures, fan stuff and fun stuff, then have a look here: http://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com
Tony Gordon makes Rita an offer she can’t (but she should, she should!) refuse. He wants to expand in ladies pants and offers to buy Rita’s Kabin. She doesn’t need to think on, she says yes to his cash price almost there and then. Norris sniffs that she’s sold out for thirty pieces of silver and Rita agrees, fully aware of what she’s going to do. She’s old, she says, and she wants to retire to the sun. “I could be Senorita Rita or the Queen of Spain,” she cackles to Norris from the sweet counter. Did you know that the Queen of Spain is the dead spit of Gail Platt? No honest, she is, have a look here. Anyway, I’m now officially fed up. Rita Sullivan has always been my favourite Coronation Street woman of all time. If Rita goes to Spain, I’m going wi’ her.
Tony also wants to take over Kevin’s Auto Parts but no one’s touching Kev’s parts, not if he can help it. He’s stern with Tony for “sneaking around behind me back and poking yer nose in me premises.” He really said it too, I didn’t even have to make that one up. Kev tells Tony that if he wants the garage he can have it for a million quid, and laughs off his offer to buy him out. Somehow I don’t think Tony will be put off so easy. We never had this trouble when Mr Baldwin were in charge. Bring back Ida Clough, she’d soon sort them out. When Kev throws Tony out of the garage for barging in with a surveyor, Tony decides to wheedle his way into Rosie’s charms and get in her good books to take a peek at Kev’s finances. Daft tart that she is, we all know that she’ll send her dad up the swanny, for much less than a kiss on a factory doorstep from a smarmy Scot.
Anyway, Norris spills the beans to Kev that Tony wants to buy the Kabin as well as the factory and Rita and Kev lock eyes across the pub. She wants to sell; he doesn’t. What’s to do? “Tony Gordon’s chasing you an’ all?” asked an incredulous Kevin to which Norris replied: “Oh yes. It was like McCartney chasing Mills.” I had to rewind and listen to that one again. By ‘eck it were good.
News of Liz and Vernon’s separation spreads like soft butter on a barm and Harry the bookie is straight round to the Rovers chatting up Liz and dancing on Vernon’s grave. Ooh, you should have seen Deirdre’s face when she gawped at the cheek of the man. Liz packed her bags, full of heavy-duty mascara and plunging £2.99 tops off the market and headed to Jersey to stay with a mate.
Vernon’s booted out of the Rovers so he packs his bags and paradiddle paraphernalia into the back of a van and drives off, all the way across the cobbles and moves in with Lloyd. Blanche watches from a chair on the cobbles and shouts obscenities at Vernon for giving up on his marriage. “Don’t mind her,” says Deirdre, embarrassed. “She’s got geriatric tourettes.” Anyway, in the space of half an episode Vernon goes from feeling sorry for himself with a rendition of “You picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel, four hundred children and a crop in the field” to singing his freedom with Lloyd in a singsong on the sofa as the two of them belted out the old Viola Wills hit, Gonna Get Along Without You Now. Vernon and Lloyd are so cute together. It can only be a matter of time before they end up sharing a bowl of pasta and shyly realise they’re chewing on the same piece of spaghetto. As an aside, Craig Charles who plays Lloyd, presents the Radio 6 Funk & Soul Show (I said funk dear, funk) and if you’ve never listened to it, you should, it’s ace. It’s on BBC 6 Music, Saturdays at 6pm.
Becky storms out of the café, the flat and Roy’s life after he says she’s got the morals of a stray cat. Now, I’m not so sure. There’s a stray cat spending time in our garden and it’s really lovely although it does keep its morals to itself, that’s true, and I never ask. Becky replies with some choice words of her own which cut deep. She calls Roy a weirdo. Ouch. And she calls Hayley a weirdo too. Double ouch. Roy’s so upset with this turn of events that he hyperventilates into rubber gloves and Becky moves in at Eileen’s.
Fortunately, there’ll be space as Sean is moving out after he and Marcus find a flat together. But their finances are up the creek when Sean gets sacked by Tony after one too many extended, liquid lunches and Marcus walks out of his job in a strop. The factory girls don’t exactly come out in support of Sean but mooch to the pub where Marcus muses on postgrad courses he might take up at Uni. “There was erotic novel writing, or sumo wrestling,” he said. “Why not do both at the same time?” asked Betty while the wonderful Wiki looked deep into her half pint and murmured darkly: “I alvays vaunted to be a doctor buddit nevarh wurcked out.” It was the first time the factory girls have been lost for words since 1974.
And that’s just about that for this week.
Coronation Street writers this week were David Lane, Lucy Gannon, Martin Allen, Stephen Bennett and Jan McVerry.
Glenda
Blogging away merrily at http://flamingnora.blogspot.com
July 14, 2008
Greetings my little cherubs and welcome to another weekly update. It’s been a rather dull week on the cobbles this week but it’s been all go in the Streetcars office where there’s new drivers wanted and Eileen still hasn’t solved the Rubik’s cube. And so, without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.
If you’d like your weekly update with pictures, fan stuff and fun stuff, then have a look here: http://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com
Steve returned from Spain this week and proposed to Michelle Sinead Connor. If this wedding goes ahead it’ll be the fourth for Stevie Mc. His first was for money, the second for a bet, the third could have been for nothing more than fantastic dialogue from a bride wielding stilettos as a weapon. And the fourth, if there is a fourth, will be to cover a guilty secret. It’s no wonder the boy keeps on gurning. In the smokers’ shelter in the yard of the pub, Steve asked Michelle to be his McBride and the lady with the shiny hair, she said yes. But then she changed her mind when she found out from Lloyd that Steve had just proposed because Lloyd had coaxed him into by way of a prank. Michelle doesn’t yet know that Lloyd’s plan was to cover the lies about Steve’s night with Becky but no doubt this will hit the girl soon, these things always do.
Anyway, talking about the smokers’ shelter at the Rovers, it’s become the new Rovers back room. All manner of secrets and lies are now being whispered within its fag-end covered walls. Where the old back room at the pub used to be the sanctuary of choice for a tantrum or tears, now it’s to the smoker’s shelter they head. Where once secrets were shared over a cuppa and a damp tablecloth, now they’re being spilled by women of a certain age shivering under the night sky wearing too-tight tops and sharing a Lambert & Butler.
Elsewhere this week, another proposal might be forthcoming when Jack convinces Tyrone that Molly wants to get wed. She doesn’t, or at least, she hasn’t said as much, but Jack wants these two young ‘uns together just like the rest of us do so it can only be a matter of episodes before they tie the knot and tacky Jackie Dobbs returns for the bash. Heaven help us all.
In the corner shop, Dev’s got too much time on his hands and draws up plans to rearrange his stock. Molly tells him to let things be but he’s already cleared all the biscuits off the shelves. This leaves Ken and Deirdre more room as they battle out a domestic in front of some dried prunes.
Yes, the battling Barlows are at it again. Ken goes to the University of Manchester Alumni reunion where he met up with his old Uni pals. “Clarkie!” he yells at another old geezer. “Marion!” he leers at the female librarian who taught him how to thumb a hardback. Yes, the class of 1961 gathered to reminisce and Ken’s nervous twitch returned when Clarkie told him he had a farmhouse in the Languedoc. Ken’s trump cards couldn’t compete. He’s got a daughter in jail; a mother in law in the spare room and a new beige jumper still in the packet, so he kept very quiet about life back at home. He then told Deirdre he was handing in his notice at Roy’s and it was left to Blanche to voice the real reasons, that Ken was embarrassed about not having reached the same dizzy heights as his old Uni mates. Deirdre was so upset she stuck out her paunch and pouted.
Over at Underworld, a cleavage with Rosie Webster behind it bounced and jiggled its way from the factory office to her dad’s garage to steal Kev’s customer list to give to Tony Gordon. I had to look away from the telly, I really did. “Put ‘em away, dear,” I yelled at the screen.
Yours sincerely, offended of Oldham. Anyway, Tony’s got Rita wrapped around his little finger and it’s wrong - surely Rita would see past someone as scheming as Tony Gordon? He shows her the show flat up in the sky. It’s closer to heaven than Rita might like, especially at her age. Kev’s in uproar as Tony brings in a henchman to put the frighteners on him and he starts a campaign to get Kevin really peeved. Peeved; it’s my word of the week. Try it, it’s nice.
Kevin might have more problems too as his missus isn’t happy living in their new house. There she was – picture it if you will. Sally, feet up in the conservatory, cuppa in one hand, biscuit in t’other, Sugar Plum Fairy on the CD and a mountain of cigarette ends on the conservatory roof. They’re all from Theresa next door who’s been flinging her fag-ends onto Sally’s roof. Sally’s not happy and storms round there to give her new neighbours what for.
And in the salon this week, Duffy’s CD was on rotation again. Yes, again. Come on, Corrie, give it a rest. I mean it’s a decent CD, it’s good, but not that good. Do what Sean and Marcus planned to do and listen to the real deal, Dusty in Memphis. Now that’s worth a spin.
Tune in next week to find out how Eileen’s getting on with the Rubik’s cube.
And that’s just about that for this week.
Coronation Street writers this week were Peter Whalley, Chris Fewtrell, Mark Burt and Carmel Morgan.
Glenda
July 21, 2008
Here we go again, another week, another update, another load of washing in and another page of the diary turned as we all hurtle towards impending doom and only if we’re lucky, without any pain. Oh, I know, I’m feeling sorry for myself. I’ve just had to do the worst google of my life. No, I’m not telling you, it’s too horrible. I’m only in my early forties. Yes, really I am. When we first met, back in 1995 when I started writing these Corrie weekly updates I was a firm, young spring chicken aged just 31. It’s almost 13 years on and I’ve started having days when I feel the age I’m at. And as for that google search? Oh all right, I’ll tell you as long as you don’t laugh. You promise? Here it goes. I typed into a search engine for the first time in my life: “bingo wings” + “how to get rid of”. Oh stop it, right now, you promised you wouldn’t laugh. Well, if you’re going to take that attitude, I’m off. And so, without any further ado here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.
If you’d like your weekly update with pictures, fan stuff and fun stuff, then have a look here: http://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com
Liz might have kicked him out and his paradiddle might have lost its oomph but there’s a place behind the counter at Roy’s Rolls where Vernon fits in perfect. Roy takes him on as he’s short staffed in the caff and needs an extra pair of hands, even a pair that keeps belting out a five bar rhythm section on the table tops every half hour, on the hour, come rain, come shine.
Over at the factory, Rosie wheedles her way in with Tony Gordon and gets Sean his job back. Well, it’s the least that Tony can do after Rosie nicked her dad’s customer files from the garage last week. Sean’s been great this week. He walked into the café (see para 1 above) with the girls’ cake order (and it wasn’t even Wicked Wednesday) while George Michael’s Faith was playing on Roy’s wireless. Sean sang along in style: ‘Cos I gotta have cake, cake, cake.’ WHe should've started at the top really with "Well I guess it would be nice, if I could touch your barm cake, you know not everybody has got a barm cake like you."
Anyway, there’s more than cake, there’s hot gossip at the factory when John Stape turns up in his little blue car. He tells Fiz he still loves her and he wants her back. He also wants her front, the side bits and the bits that stick out. Ah, but would he love her if she had bingo wings? Sigh. She gives John what for and slaps him across the chops but he’s not put off. News spreads that “John’s back on the Street” and it’s Chinese whispers a-go-go as his return hits the factory floor and goes from Sally to Rosie to Kev in the garage who finally hears: “John’s snake’s bagged and asleep.” Kevin plays to his strengths and bradishes his spanner. And then right, then, John only goes and gets himself a job as the new driver at Streetcars. Well, they were kind of desperate after their interviews produced two no-shows, one manic depressive and a woman who crashed her car on the way there. I say bring in Big Brenda from Levenshulme, she’s the only woman for the job.
In the Rovers, Blanche isn’t best pleased to hear that Ken’s going to see a play with Gail’s dad Ted. I’d love to go out for an evening with Ted. Along with Molly’s Aunty Pam (of whom more later) I think Ted’s the best thing to hit Corrie in a long time. Anyway, Blanche pursed her lips and spilled out some thinly disguised homophobic vile. Gail returned from the land of sun dried tomatoes and multi-coloured ice-cream (you can tell I’ve never been) to find her living room redecorated and her son with a new hairdo.
Anyway, this Aunty Pam of Molly’s (see para 4 above) turned up selling knock-off ham in the Rovers. She can get anyone anything knock-off, can Pam. Whadday ya want? Slabs of baked ham? A crate of foreign beer with no questions asked? Trident Cruise Missile with the sell-by date erased? Anything. She’s fab, is Pam. She’s like a breath of fresh air and she’s turned up just in time to see Molly and Tyrone get engaged this coming week. Tyrone tries, bless him, he’s all ready to pop the question with Vera’s engagement ring (this bit brought tears to my eyes, I’m such a sad muppet). But at the chi-chi La-La Lounge, as recommended by de-de-desperate Dev, Tyrone’s planned sparkler and cake failed to compete with another guy’s proposal to his girlfriend which included fireworks and a marching band. Never mind Tyrone, there’s always next week. Tyrone’s engagement sparked memories for Jack of asking Vera to marry him way back in the day. Apparently, Vera was up the stick. And that’s not a phrase you hear enough of these days.
Someone who’s having less luck in the lady love department is Steve McDonald. Michelle throws the £7,500 engagement ring back at him and he has to search in a skip until he finds his investment. She knows he’s been up to no good and throws him out of his own home and pub, which I found a bit odd. Steve takes to sleeping in the Streetcars office, whiling away the hours with the Rubik’s cube.
Elsewhere this week, Dev and Vernon went golfing together. Dev was in his Pringle jumper and sensible trousers, Vernon was rock and roll with his hat on back to front. The whole point of this set up was for Dev to bump into Prem Mandal, another Asian businessman who’s big in floor covering and carpets, a bit like shag pile. The actor who plays Prem once played Dev’s dad but he didn’t seem to recognise him, which is just as well as Dev’s going to end up adding Prem’s wife to his own shag pile.
And finally this week, Jerry came over all peculiar in the kebab shop and Mother Theresa takes it upon herself to look after the afflicted. Poor soul.
Five things we learned in Corrie this week.
1. Steve McDonald’s feet smell and he can’t spell. Are these two things connected?
2. Roy Cropper’s favourite train is the Mallard.
3. Janice, Sean and Sally reckon that Nigel who works in the loading bay at Underworld is hot
4. So is the new extra they had in Roy’s Rolls.
5. John Stape was forced out of his teaching job by a “cynically orchestrated campaign on YouTube”. I wonder if he means this?
And that’s just about that for this week.
Coronation Street writers this week were Joe Turner, Mark Wadlow, Damon Rochefort and Simon Crowther.
Glenda
July 28, 2008
Greetings, sun-seekers and welcome to the hot and humid world of the weekly update office. The update’s a bit late this week as I was out on the razzle last night. Tomorrow night it’s Batman and the night after’s the weekly shop, but I’ve kept tonight free just for just you and I to spend our weekly time together. Come on in, close the door, put your feet up and crack open those biscuits. Yes, dammit, the chocolate ones. And so without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.
If you’d like your weekly update with pictures, fan stuff and fun stuff, then have a look here: http://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com
Molly’s Aunty Pam is brilliant and I want one too. In fact, every home should have one. You get the feeling Aunty Pam’s been spirited in from somewhere else, somewhere more fragrant where everyone’s fridge is packed with cheap meats off the market and they’re happier for it. It can only be a matter of time before Aunty Pam wiggles her nose, clicks her heels together three times and chants the mantra “There’s no place like Holby City” and then she’ll be gone, her work in this world done, leaving everyone who met her with a smile on their face and a vacuum pack of minute “give it ten minutes, it’s got history” steak in their hand.
And so it came to pass that Aunty Pam got Tyrone to propose to Molly this week with the help of some knock-off, naff Fabergesque eggs. “There’s not a girl alive who could say no to a talking egg,” muses Pam. And do you know, I think she might be right. The gaudy, plastic eggs had a recording button and Tyrone recorded his proposal to Molly. But when he got down on one knee in the Rovers with everyone watching and he pressed the button on the egg, it was Kirkeh’s voice that floated out after he’d scrambled the egg. “Where do you put the batteries, then?” the egg asked Molly and it’s not a phrase most women want to hear on a proposal, although some women might. Anyway, the joy of the Fabergesque egg is that you can re-record which Tyrone duly did, the egg popped the question in front of a burger van on the cobbles which Aunty Pam decorated with fairy lights that twinkled. She didn’t plug them in, she just wiggled her nose. And Molly replied via an egg of her own. As the two of them kissed to celebrate their engagement and Tyrone slipped Vera’s ring onto Molly’s finger, the camera panned around the cobbles as the spectators took in the scene. Vernon looked across the street, lovingly at Liz who was giving Harry the glad eye as he was watched over like a hawk by soon to be ex-wife Clarissa. John Stape leered at Fiz who looked troubled. And Jack must have got something in his eye because he came over all peculiar and had to look away, memories of his marriage to Vera all too apparent. It was darn good this bit, it really was, and both Sunny Jim and I had tears in our eyes.
In the café, Vernon’s turning the place into a shrine for his lost musical youth. Up goes the framed advert for a Rock Rhythm Rascals gig. Up goes the framed crisp packet touched by the hand of the God that is known to Vernon as Cozy Powell and down Vernon gets with the kids when he tries to explain the appeal of ELO. “Who’s PLO?” asks Darryl who’s more of an Arctic Monkey sort of man. Frustrated, Vernon tries to spell it out again. “It’s the Electric - Light - Oh… what’s the point?”
Harry Mason, a man whose dress sense has clearly been informed by Bada-Bling – the mafia clothing catalogue for men. Advertising tagline: Yer want it? Yer wear it! Or else! Delivery tagline: We send da boys round witcha oyder. It’s all soft woollen knits worn loose around the shoulders, braces to hold up trousers and glasses on a string round the neck. I bet his socks have got diamonds on them. Or as it’s Bada-Bling, diamonds in them. Anyway, Harry’s socks are included on a list of complaints that his soon to be ex-wife Clarissa passes on to Liz in the Rovers. But is she his soon to be ex-wife? Liz was clearly hoping so but then Clarissa won Harry round with some of Aunty Pam’s cheap steak and a bottle of red and it was left to Harry to break the news in the pub to Liz that he and Clarissa were back together again. Liz lost control and yelled at Harry to leave but when he wouldn’t go, Vernon turfed him out and sent Liz to her comfort zone (aka smokers shelter) for a fag to calm down. He followed her outside where he promised her they’d always be friends. Liz pulled Vernon towards her for a hug but he was hoping for a snog and his face crumpled up in disappointment.
John what’s the point Stape has been really creepy this week. He bought Chesney a bike for his birthday but as soon as Ches found out who the present was from, he dumped the bike on the street. His mum hadn’t forgotten his birthday and had sent tickets to join her in Vegas. Chesney was off like a shot to see Cilla in the city of sin, leaving Fiz to fend off John Stape as best she can, but she’s folding, you can tell. Norris, bless him, refused to serve John in the Kabin. I say Good On Yer! - that’s Norris, not John - and everyone’s bemused by the fact he’s now a driver for Streetcars - that’s John, not Norris.
David turns paranoid when Tina giggles as she’s typing and she won’t tell him who she’s emailing or what she’s doing online. He doesn’t understand the concept of friends, never mind virtual ones called PIXOCUTIE! and DUFF_37. I don’t know if they’re called that, it’s just a guess on my part.
“I have no problem with the gays…” Blanche tells Deirdre but when people start a sentence like that, you know their problem is a big one, “… and I’d walk over hot coals for that Paul O’Grady”, but it doesn’t look like she’d do the same for her own son-in-law. Not that Ken’s gay, at least we don’t think so, but Blanche thinks he is when he goes to an art auction with Ted and starts reading Armistead Maupin. Deirdre took the news with her usual exasperation and Ken exploded in a camp sort of way: “I am not a homosexual,” by the dining room table. Anyway, his night out with Ted has fired Ken up to reignite the inner flames of passion that made him want to be a writer. He dusts off his old novel that’s been fermenting in the loft and sits down with a pencil in his hand and an idea in his head of becoming the famous novelist he always wanted to be. I think I could do with a night out with Ted.
Five things we learned in Corrie this week.
1. Aunty Pam can down a sweet sherry in one single gulp. What a woman.
2. Becky and Jason enjoyed happy doubles hour on their jollies. Or was it double happy hour?
3. Rita has got fabulous skin.
4. Liz is short for lizard.
5. There is at least one girl alive that can’t say no to a talking egg.
And that’s just about that for this week.
Coronation Street writers this week were Stephen Bennett, Chris Fewtrell, Carmel Morgan, Debbie Oates.
Glenda
Blogging away merrily at http://flamingnora.blogspot.com
