Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Don't get involved with drugs or gangsters.  Once again we have a storyline involving drug taking and violent thugs, and once again it just doesn't work.  Weatherfield is a cosy, homely place; the only dodgy substances consumed in this Street should be Hermesetas with a questionable use by date.  Ofcom rules mean that people can't snort anything illicit before nine o'clock, and there can't be any violence or swearing.  It's hard to get frightened by a gangster who can't say anything harsher than "wally".  The best thing to do is just avoid the plotline altogether and replace your homage to Guy Ritchie with some nonsense involving Mary and an amusingly shaped aubergine, but they keep trying, and now we've got this tedious mess stinking up the screen (and another week of it to come).  I suspect the writers are also less than thrilled with this storyline which is why they've put Ali in as a Greek chorus, voicing their innermost thoughts.  Michelle gets in another fit of hysterics and Ryan worries he's going to get his face smashed in and Ali just stands at the back saying "you brought this on yourself" and "you deserve to go to prison" and "you're all awful."  I hope he spends most of the coming CAR CRASH WEEK tutting and saying "I told you so."

The Seventies are back.  What's with all the denim?  Over the past few weeks I've noticed that all the men in the show have started dressing like Status Quo.  Les Battersby's not coming back, fellas, give it up.  Did they discover a load of props from the old Baldwin's Casuals set and decide to get their money's worth out of it?  There's David up there, sliding a jean jacket on over his t-shirt...

...Jim has decided denim is the perfect outfit for when you want to simultaneously punish and seduce your ex-wife...

...while last week, Peter and Tim both wore blue jean jackets at the same time, giving new meaning to the phrase "double denim".

Sean, meanwhile, as a committed homosexual, brought his own spin to the look by wearing a black denim shirt.

What is going on?  There's so much dodgy blue cotton on display it's starting to look like a hoedown; Jenny Bradley will be dosey-doing around Maxine's bench while Sinead chews on a bit of straw.  Still, the good news is there's at least one fashion maverick holding out on the Britney and Justin look:

Praise the Lord - Kevin Webster's got a new coat!  I hope the old one was donated to the British Museum.

Yasmeen identified with Rizzo from Grease.  I have to be honest, I wouldn't have put Yas down as a Rizzo.  Can you picture her leaning up against the wall in a pair of snug pink shorts, fag dangling from her mouth, wondering if she's knocked up?  Me either.  She's far more of a Sandy, albeit one who would've sternly told John Travolta that she was perfectly fine with her puffball skirts, thank you, and if he didn't like it he could jog on.  Mind you, if Yasmeen is Rizzo, then that makes her nemesis Sally Cha-Cha di Gregorio, and that would be amazing. Imagine Sally starting a drag race using only the powers of a neckerchief and her impressive bosom.  Marvelous.

If you're going to steal, steal from the best.  Not content with ripping off Claudia's idea for his serial in the Gazette, Ken managed to wedge a bit of thieved Austen in there as well.  It shows how bad he is at this that he asked Daniel if he'd spotted his "homage" to one of the most famous opening lines in English literature; he thinks he's some kind of brilliant magpie making New Yorker-style literary jokes, when in reality he's one step above printing an essay off the internet and crayoning his name over the front page.  I look forward to hearing his thrilling tale when it's finally released, the story of well-known hairdresser Bridget Jones cutting James Bond's hair at Manderley.  While Harry Potter watches.  It'll run and run!

Food is not always the answer.  It's difficult enough being little Jack Webster, what with him now being confined to a wheelchair and having to wear that weird green sock so the SFX people can CGI out his real leg.  (Ever since I saw that video of the special effects process I can't stop staring at his fake stump; I'm waiting for it to glitch, like it's The Matrix).  It doesn't help that Kev thinks the answer to everything is stuffing the poor lad's face with food, leading to his explosive cry of "why do you always think I want pizza?" in Wednesday's episode.  The answer is it's the single parenting skill the Websters had; Sophie and Rosie only ever appeared onscreen in the 90s to jam fish fingers down their gob.  They didn't have any dialogue that wasn't Captain Birdseye related until they hit their teens.  Simply put, if it wasn't tea time, Kevin doesn't know how to talk to his children.  It's a wonder the Webster girls aren't the size of a house.     

Having seen Sinead spending much of Wednesday's episodes with her legs in the air and doctors queueing up to take a peek, @merseytart is very glad he's a man.

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