Over the years, Dave's been hit over the head with a frying pan by Mavis Riley.
He's also played Shelley Unwin's uncle Gerald, sold Ken Barlow a replacement for Uncle Albert's sideboard, played a photographer (three times), popped up as an insurance man then a gas man and sold Boomer the dog to Jack Duckworth. Crikey.
Over at the official website for our favourite soap there's news of a Coronation Street newsletter you can sign up to receive.
One of the more unusual items up for sale on the online car boot sale that is eBay is this Through the Keyhole video presented by Lloyd Grossman. I've never seen this before and am half tempted to bid for it myself.
Coronation Street fans have voted for their favourite characters to return to the Street and loveable Curly Watts topped the poll as the one most fans would like to see back on the cobbles.
The Guardian Guide today did a review of Madonna's upcoming new CD and noted that the Queen of Pop Reinvention appears to be going through her Liz McDonald phase. I can only agree.
Sensational. It's not a word that should be bandied about willy-nilly but I think we can stick it on to Steve McDonald at the minute.
Coronation Street is getting a new producer in the form of Kim Crowther and ex-producer Steve Frost (pictured) is moving on and up within ITV. He's to become ITV's new Head of Continuing Drama, says The Guardian today.
Some of the Coronation Street cast have got their own, official websites.
Since she left Coronation Street after playing Rovers Return barmaid Shelley Unwin, actress Sally Lindsay has been a very busy lady.
When Sally Webster took up book learning she got more than she bargained for, but such is the way with the women of the Street. She developed a crush on tutor John who was sleeping with daughter Rosie and when husband Kevin found out he thumped John on the cobbles and was sent down for a month.
I'm loving the fun stuff that's being emailed in to the blog, more please! Can you name the current Coronation Street woman whose knees these are? Clue: It's not Norris.
Ladies - and men who like this sort of thing - if you had to choose, and I think you know what I mean, who would it be? Harry or Dan? Coronation Street bookie dad or lad?
It’s been a funny old week for Corrie this week. I wasn’t sure if the writers had eaten too much sugar on the Easter break or whether spring fever had hit the writing room but there was some very weird stuff going on indeed. We were given insights we’d never been given before. Did you know Amy was off her yoghurt? Me neither. Did you know Kirk once wanted a monkey when he was younger and wanted to call it Dirk? It’s a new one on me too. As I said, it’s been a funny week.
Let’s head straight to Weatherfield General where Gail is in solitary confinement in her hospital bed wearing an odd dressing gown and a face full of make-up with a blow-dry hairdo resting on her pillow. It’s amazing what you can get on the NHS these days. She can’t remember what happened or who pushed her which is just as well for David as he gets pulled in to the cop shop and quizzed. Tina lies for David and says he was with her when he was pushing his mother down the stairs. Gail reacts badly to Audrey’s accusations that David was the one who pushed her but Audrey and Bill have got their suspicions, and rightly so. Bill the builder’s got more on his mind as he tries to secure a building contract with Eyeball Tony the Catalogue Man for building work on the new Victoria Street development. Can Bill do it? Yes he can. Whether Tony will give him the work remains to be seen.
She’ got a face like a dropped pie (my new favourite expression) when Ryan’s real dad, Nick, takes Ryan away on a surfing holiday to Cornwall. I went to Cornwall once and I’ve never been back. It’s a long way to go from wherever you are. Vernon’s still trying to forge on with his master plan to build a smoker’s shelter in the backyard of the Rovers but when the ever-increasingly-likeable Sean quizzes Vernon on the plans, he admits the builders are in fact a couple of musician mates of his. Apparently, they’re builders-slash-musicians-slash-builders so should at least be able to whistle a decent tune as they swindle Vernon out of Liz’s hard earned cash.
In the pizza place in the precinct, Leanne’s feeling fed up. The restaurant’s losing money and she’s had enough. She jokes to Dan about torching the place up in flames for the insurance money and he thinks she’s mad (she is). These two look set to be an item which means I’ll do a LiaMaria on them and call them LeDanne if they do. Dad Harry finds out from Blanche about Leanne’s past life as an escort girl and doesn’t take too kindly to son Dan copping off with Miss B.
Speaking of Blanche, she’s been kindness itself this week, which as we all know, is very unusual for Mrs Hunt. But I think she sees something in Chesney which she sees in herself, an outcast ready to be put into care at any minute without any warning. When she finds out that Chesney’s coming home from foster care to live with Fiz and Kirk in 
Cilla’s old house, she pops round with some kind words and footy mags from The Kabin for Ches. Kirk’s overjoyed that Fiz has moved into the house and thinks he’s onto a winner with Fiz back in his life now she's back from her hols. Where's she been? Have a look here to find out. Fiz tries to break it gently to him but there’s no much of “You’re a pillock” that he seems to understand. Ches has been looked after well by his foster parents and even had, with a nod to the Canadian audience, maple syrup on his porridge. I prefer sultanas with mine, or a banana, I’m not that fussed really.
Meanwhile, in Roy’s café, he takes pity on Becky living in the hostel and asks her to move into the flat with him. She’s full of cheeky innuendo and plays Roy up something rotten, bless him. She jokes to anyone who’ll listen that she’s cohabiting with Roy while he’s at pains to point out that she’s lodging in the spare room until Hayley returns. They’re brilliant, Becky and Roy, and together in that flat will take on the world from above the greasy spoon.
And finally this week we learned that Blanche was boycotting her one o’clock club because she’d been asked to jump around to jazzercise. “There are standards,” she moaned to Audrey in the salon. Yes, indeed there are.
I've already waxed lyrical about Coronation Street newcomer, Michelle Keegan who plays David Platt's girlfriend, Tina McIntrye.
Bruce Jones (Les Battersby) and singer Sinnita in Celebrity Wife Swap? I couldn't watch it, it was too much like car-crash TV for my liking. But Ian Wylie of the Manchester Evening News watched it and blogged it and if you want to read his take on it, it's online right here and there's a full, frank and revealing interview with Bruce Jones too.
As well as offering a competition to win a trip the Coronation Street set, Harveys the furniture store have some short and sweet videos on their site showing how they made the new Corrie ads.
There's a competition on the Coronation Street sponsors' website at Harveys.com where you can win a trip to the Corrie set.
While the Daily Mail may be a paper I don't usually read - even if it does have wacky photos of Corrie's Ken Barlow - The Guardian is one that I do. And it was there I spotted an ad for A Gala for Saint George, and the president for the night will be John Savident, better known and much missed as Corrie butcher Fred, I say, half a pound of sausage and some chops, please love.
I never usually read The Daily Mail but I spotted these fab pics today in someone else's copy of the paper. Yes, that is William Roache, aka Ken Barlow, for a photoshoot from 1970. I think he has a look of Mike Baldwin about him in that picture of the left.
Four Coronation Street actresses have been busy with blu-tack and their creations are up for sale in a charity auction on eBay from Monday March 31st.
Are you a woman of a certain age with a voice like a foghorn and a penchant for nagging your husband? Then you need Vera Duckworth's cardigan which is up for sale on eBay now. With proceeds going to charity, it's just what you need to wear when you nip out to the shops in your slippers.
Grab your beard and sandals and head over to uk.food+drink.real-ale where there's a discussion on the guest beers being sold in the Rovers Return. It's been suggested that Roosters Ale is on sale. What? No Newton and Ridley?
Canadian Corrie fan Lesa Mansfield wrote to tell me about her Coronation Street Breakfast group, which was featured recently in Niagara ThisWeek. The group meet for gossip and a Corrie catch up each Sunday morning in The London Arms in St Catharine's, Ontario, Canada.
Ex-Corrie actress Sally Lindsay, who played Shelley Unwin, will soon become the new voice of Wallace's girlfriend in a TV Special of Wallace and Gromit.
The hills are alive with the sound of Hilda Ogden on audio tape. Fans of Hilda might want to make the trip over to eBay where this little ditty is up for sale and you can hear words of wisdom direct from Hilda's very own lipsticked gob. Let's just hope she doesn't sing. eBay gum indeed.
Voting is open in the TV Now Awards and if you'd like to vote for Coronation Street as Best Soap, get clicking and voting right here.
If you’re sitting there reading the update this week and you’ve got a couple of spare grand in your pocket or are looking for something worthwhile to spend your life savings on, then my friend, why not invest in some property on the cobbles? You could, if you so wished, buy 40% of Underworld as Liam’s share is up for offers and the pizza place in the precinct is going cheap for sixty grand. And Leanne’s a girl who’s always up for offers.
When he gathered Carla’s family round and menaced “Marry Me” across the table to Carla, it wasn’t a question, it was a command. Carla wavered until she saw the size of the ring bling and then she caved in to Tony’s Northern rock shock. I nicked that Northern rock thing from one of the tabloids after I saw it this week and I liked it a lot. See, I always credit my sources.
We travel now a short distance from pants to parmesan as we go to the pizza place in the precinct where business is bad. Cashflow is tight and Leanne’s thinking of selling. She gets a man in who makes her an offer she can’t refuse while Dev embarrasses the wonderful Amber in her new job as waitress. He’s aghast that a daughter of his can demean herself to work for buttons in the service industry when there’s a perfectly good corner shop counter she can stand behind all day.
Elsewhere this week, the big news was that Gail ended up in t’hospital after she was pushed, yes pushed, ladies and gentlemen, down the stairs by David’s fair hand. It all started when Jason got the wrong end of the stick and heard Audrey and Gail talking about abortion. He assumed it was Sarah who’d had an abortion and went to see Gail, all guns blazing. She slapped him for his impertinence, and a good slap it was too, rating 8.5 out of 10 on the Corrie slap-o-meter but still coming short of the classic Sally Webster / Nastily Horrid slapper slap. It was such a good slap I whizzed the thing on the remote control and watched it again, twice. Anyway, Jason left Gail’s house with her handprint on his cheek while listening in at the back door was David, putting two and two together about abortions and babies and he 
realised that it was Tina who’d aborted their child. After a row with Gail at the top of the stairs, (her: “I did it because I love you!”, him: “I hate you!”) David reached out to confront Gail and she ended up falling down the stairs and into intensive care. She’s concussed, confused, and doesn’t remember anything after the row with Jason, which doesn’t bode well for young Mr Grimshaw. Did someone just ask for a picture of Jason without his shirt? No? What the heck, let’s have one anyway.
David broke up with his girlfriend Tina this week but only for a while. He really needs to keep that girlfriend, now he’s got the word Tina etched into his arm. Either that, or he could embellish it a bit if they ever did split up, maybe changing the tattoo into cortina or even gratination. But I don’t suppose tattooists get much call for either of those words in their line of work.
Over at Underworld, Kelly was caught knicking the knickers but Wiki was sacked. Ah, you see, they’re clever these Connor’s. They knew Kelly was the thief but they also knew that if they confronted her she’d deny all so they sacked Wiki, Kelly came to her rescue, owned up to the thefts and got a slap on the wrist.
Meanwhile, Kirk goes to visit Chesney who’s with the foster family, the wifey of which answers the door to Schmeichel and Kirk. “I’ve come to see Chesney,” Kirk reports at the door. “Oh, you must be…” she falters, wondering who on earth the gormless lump at her front door with a dog the size of a small horse could possibly be. “I’m his Kirk.” says Kirk, proudly. “I’m his Schmeichel,” the dog didn’t say.
Also in the Rovers, Vernon’s got plans. Not content with masterminding the revamp, he’s now planning the Smoker’s Secret, a backyard hideaway for a quiet puff. Make of that what you will, I’m saying nowt. And background music of the week in the Rovers was the newly released and downright awful version of Echo Beach, originally released by the fab Martha and the Muffins and now used as a god-awful theme tune for a dreadful ITV soap. I had to mention that bit ‘cos it set my teeth on edge. Agh! I’m going to have to YouTube the original version now, just to get that awful thing out of my head. You know when All Saints released that version of Under the Bridge? It’s almost, just almost, quite as bad as that.
