The Kabin noticeboard is a dark place. "Mixed Pants - 10 for £2". Firstly, anyone selling underwear via a card in a newsagent window is either a pervert or a psychopath and most likely both. Secondly, anyone buying underwear this way is a very strange individual who is probably on some kind of register. It feels like a glimpse into a seedy underbelly and forces me to look at the other ads with fresh, and slightly scared, eyes. That missing cat? Probably lost to a satanic cult. "Yoga"? Sex people. This is the Weatherfield equivalent of the dark web, and Norris is the gatekeeper.
Numbers are complicated. So Alya decided to sell her 100% of the knicker factory for 18%, before upping it to 36%, so that she could cover Imran's 50% in the restaurant. That's a lot of maths, and it's before we even get into Peter providing a mysterious percentage of his own to go with Carla's percentage so they can run Underworld. As always with Corrie business deals, actual numbers were entirely absent, with Yasmeen knowing off the top of her head that 18% of the factory's value wouldn't be enough to buy Imran's half of Speed Dahl without Alya mentioning any figures. That's some fast maths, and she should probably get on the Countdown numbers game sharpish. It all meant the WestClyde Bank had a somewhat mixed week as a result. On the one hand, it processed the money from Johnny to Peter to Alya in the space of about three hours, which is impressive; on the other, apparently people's account details are public knowledge, allowing both Sally and Gail to receive huge sums of unsolicited cash from known criminals. Gail in particular was concerned about their security, worrying that someone might chop off her thumb to get access to her phone, which certainly puts the TSB's recent IT troubles in perspective.
Bar snacks are coated with seven different types of urine. Gemma's attempts to bring the Rovers into the 21st century were doomed from the start. Adam pointed out that some men are a bit slapdash at the urinals, and smear the results all over the complimentary Haribo; he didn't name names but I'm sure we'll all break out the antibacterial hand gel after shaking hands with Kirk from now on. Never mind, thought Ms Winter, at least the ladies will keep the place classy, until she spotted Eileen running off with the nail polish from the loos. Gemma should know that nothing good ever happens in a pub toilet, and sticking a couple of cans of Impulse in there won't change that.
Yummy Mummys are dull. The incessant chatter of new mums at her toddler group was getting Leanne down. "All we have in common is we had sex at roughly the same time" she moaned. It's hard to imagine Ms Battersby making casual conversation with pampered parents dropping off their kids in a Chelsea tractor. She's led a somewhat, erm, colourful life, and her anecdotes would probably terrify your average smug mother into silence. "Yes, I'm hoping to go back to work. What do I do for a living? Well, I used to be a stripper and a prostitute, but then I went into hospitality. I burnt down my first restaurant for the insurance, then the second one exploded and a tram fell on it. I've recently been working in my sister's pub but she gave it up because my other sister pretended her child was the first sister's surrogate baby until she changed her mind. No, I'm not with the baby's father; he's about to marry for the sixth time, to a convicted murderer he's already divorced once. Pass the hummus."
It's all about chemistry. Once Peter agreed to fund Carla's purchase of Underworld, we were all counting the minutes until their palpable sexual tension bubbled over. However, even I was surprised by how quick it happened, with Carla barely getting the keys before she was snogging her ex-husband's face off. The most unrealistic storyline in Corrie for quite some time was the revelation in Friday's episode that all they did was kiss; there was no way that passionate embrace didn't end with the two of them stark naked in the reject knicker bin.
The author is writing this while wearing a pair of large pink dungarees. Pictures can be seen on his twitter account @merseytart.
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