Tommy Duckworth and Confidence & Paranoia

There's an episode of Red Dwarf from Series 1 called "Confidence & Paranoia", in which Lister (played by our very own Craig Charles) contracts mutant pneumonia and starts hallucinating. One hallucination manifests as two people, his Confidence - who wear flashy suits and calls him the King - and his Paranoia - who is a pale, nervy little guy in a black suit. Confidence eventually murders Paranoia and tempts Lister outside the space ship which almost results in disaster. Watching Corrie last night I realised we've got our very own "Confidence & Paranoia" going on in the form of Tommy Duckworth.

I can't quite see the point of him being brought back, except to up the 'beefcake' quotient somewhat. I don't know whether Tyrone will end up leaving with him to Cambodia or Malaysia or, indeed, Thailand, where they can definitely avoid kids on their gap years. But Tommy is definitely doing a good job of tempting Tyrone, bigging up his time as a mixologist in Sydney and the sunshine and the sand under his feet, and so on. Tyrone is good at being his own Paranoia, and I'm worried that he's too annoyed at Weatherfield to stay, especially if the entire street turns and blames him for what's just happened to Kevin.

That for me would be a huge shame, because I think Tyrone is one of the most normal people on the Street. He wants a quiet life, a wife, a kid, somewhere to work, a few bevvies of an evening... We can all relate to that in one way or another. We need Tyrone to keep some normality, and I think he could in due time turn into an oldie that we all love, like Ken or Emily or Rita. Don't go with Tommy, Ty, he's not worth it.