Coronation Street Weekly Update, August 18 2008

Hello and welcome to another weekly Corrie update. This week the update comes anticipating cake, lots of cake, as it hurtles towards my birthday this weekend. And so, without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.

He’s more Alan Bradley than Richard Hillman but Tony Gordon’s ready to enter that special, dark room at the back of the Hall of Fame that’s home to Corrie’s Best Villains. First it was bats and this week it’s cats as Tony throws an old man out of his home and tosses his cat to the cobbles. And this is no ordinary old man – it’s Jed Stone.

That was Jed then, back in '66...

And this is Jed now, over 66...

Jed’s got a photo on his mantle from the old days with Minnie Caldwell who he always called Ma. He’s got history has Jed Stone, but that counts for nowt to men like Tony Gordon. Tony wants Jed out of his house so he can bulldoze the terrace to make way for a multi million pound development in the back end of nowhere. And when Tony threatens the old man, Jed collapses in pain clutching his chest. Tony whips out his phone, tells Jason to get round there and board the house up. Tony’s second call is for an ambulance and as Jed’s carted off to t’hospital, he sets Jed Stone’s cat to the ground and shoos it away. But this is no ordinary cat, it’s Sunny Jim. Sunny Jim! Before you know it he’ll be miaowing an SOS to Rita in The Kabin. “What’s that Sunny Jim?” she’ll call out from the counter. “Jed Stone’s tekken poorly and even though we haven’t seen him for 42 years we’ll all rush to his bedside and mount a defence against the evil Tony Gordon?” And Sunny Jim will nod his head and lead the soap OAPS from the cobbles to Jed Stone’s hospital bed. But before he does that, I hope he has a cat crap on Tony’s shoe.

Tony’s causing more problems for Kev at the garage. Kev’s called out to service a busty blonde on a breakdown only to find the woman driver had simply ran out of petrol. While he’s filling her tank with his nozzle, Kev’s breakdown truck is stolen and there’s worse to come when the insurance won’t pay up as he left the keys in th’ignition and they’re citing negligence. Kev’s world is slowly crumbling and no one seems to care. Mind you, he’s never been the same since his moustache was shaved off.

Now then, we saw summat this week in Corrie we’ve never seen before; the upstairs flat in the Rovers Return. We’ve seen the bedroom before when Jack and Vera lived there and when Shelley was held as a paranoid prisoner in a pair of bad pyjamas. And now we get to view the rest of the upstairs as Steve and Michelle decide to give their relationship another try. However, all’s not well in the love department when Michelle meets old mate JD on a karaoke night in town. Steve’s not best pleased to find JD staying overnight at the pub and goes all out to get Michelle back. He succeeds but then she announces she’s off to Belgium on a tour with the band and JD. Or, as Steve likes to call him, Jer Der.

Ken Barlow’s been luckier in love than Steve McDonald this week, and that’s not something I’ve said in an update before. He and Deirdre get back together, have a cuddle by Uncle Albert’s photo and then Ken propositions his missus. “D’ya fancy having a Deirdre in the back yard?” he asks her. “You what?” I said out loud at the telly. “You what?” said Deirdre in surprise. Apparently, to “have a Deirdre” is to have a drink of wine in like, really, really big glasses. I don’t think you have to wear the glasses, you just drink from them, but I could be wrong.

Over at Eileen’s, Sean’s upset to find a few lines and wrinkles and considers having Botox but he can’t as he’s frightened of needles and a big prick. Anyway, he and Marcus go to the clinic together and although Sean comes out in the same Botox-free state that he went in, the visit changes Marcus’ life and he decides to become a Botox practitioner. He has to attend a two day course so packs his bags and moves away leaving Sean home alone to worry about wrinkles.

Tina and David officially fall out, again, this week after David stalks his ex-girlfriend at work in the kebab shop. He orders 10 kebabs just to spend time in the shop and then locks himself in until she speaks to him. She didn’t of course and David got chucked out by Jerry who has this week been eating curry. (This storyline went nowhere but it was a nice rhyme that I wanted to use.) Tina gets her revenge when she visits David at work at Peter and Paul’s, the posh hair salon in town. She pretends she wants a haircut and demands that David wash her hair. But when she’s mid-soak and David hadn’t even got round to asking where she was going for her holidays, Tina pulls a tantrum and causes a scene, spraying water at David who is then promptly sacked. He’s back to sitting around on the sofa all day while Gail takes phone calls from Tina’s dad Joe asking her on another date and promising to spank her. Really, he did. I don't know about you, but I shuddered.

Molly’s Aunty Pam is in a bit of a pickle. In fact, she’s got it all over her hands and half way up her arms. Molly’s lost her engagement ring, the one Jack handed down from Vera, and Pam knows it’s in the pickle somewhere. This is pickle she’s been flogging up and down the Street and she finally narrows it down so she knows exactly which jar of pickle Molly’s ring is in. Trouble is, the jar with the ring in it is now in Emily’s raffle hamper for the Friends of Weatherfield Hospital and Emily, being Emily, won’t be bribed so Pam can win.

And finally this week, Roy returned from visiting Hayley abroad. It can only be a matter of weeks before Hayley returns and when she does, she’ll get as much of a shock as Roy did when he walked into the cafe to find Vernon had replaced Roy’s trains with 45rpm singles. Instead of pictures of steam engines and rail tracks, there were guitars and rock posters. But Vernon’s dream of turning the Roy’s Rolls into a Weatherfield Hard Rock café – Hard Luck Chuck Café – turn to dust when Roy’s eyes met the menu board offering fries instead of chips. And as we all know, Roy is not a fries guy.

Five things we learned in Corrie this week.

1. John Stape reads The Guardian
2. Fiz is a fan of The Simpsons
3. Steve McDonald reckons Take That is suitable music for seduction
4. Balaclava Terrace has a restaurant called A Slow Boat to China
5. Liz McDonald once went on a weekend break to Brussels

And that’s just about that for this week. If you'd like to receive these weekly updates automatically via email, have a look here for details of how to sign up.

Coronation Street writers this week were Jonathan Harvey, Mark Wadlow, Lucy Gannon, Martin Allen, Mark Burt.

Glenda
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Blogging away merrily at http://flamingnora.blogspot.com/