Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Sarah-Lou had a good idea.  Mark your calendars; make a note.  This week Sarah-Louise had her first good idea in... well, forever.  She intervened to break the impasse between Nicky (50% shareholder of Underworld) and the factory workers (50% shareholders of Underworld, if you include Paul and Dirk and all those anonymous extras who were given bits of the company but apparently aren't allowed to meetings).  Once again, I lolled back my head and waited for it all to be over.  The factory exists for one reason only: it allows the ladies of the Street (and Sean) to get together and gossip during the day.  That's it.  Nobody watching actually cares about its finances or its structure, and we certainly don't want episode after episode of discussion about voting rights and business plans.  Besides which, it long ago stopped being a business that made sense in these days of globalism and fast fashion; in reality, those bras would be stitched together by six year old children in the Far East for eightpence a day.

The problem, Nicky explained in front of Gail's rarely seen back wall, was that they'd discovered that robots in Milton Keynes could do the work of Beth and her cronies just as well and for half the price.  Rather than saying "ah well, more profits for less work then, hurrah!", the factory folk took this as a personal affront and demanded the right to stitch knickers until their fingers bled.  What they should have done was walked out and let someone else do the work while they reaped the profits, like real shareholders do.  Instead Sarah-Lou popped up and proposed that Underworld became a boutique underwear company that sold directly to consumers over the internet, plugging its "Handmade in Britain" credentials.  That's actually a good idea Sarah-Lou, well done.  Just don't get Sally to write the copy for the website - her little soliliquy about "we don't just make clothes, we make dreams" made me wonder what she was doing while she stitched.  Now employ fully-trained fashion graduate Alya to put together exclusive designs and you might be onto a winner.

Dress for the job you want.  Paul went for his first counselling session this week with this chap, who may be the most counselly-looking counsellor I've ever seen.  You thought Toyah and her handwoven cardigans and veggie support group was a bit on the nose?  Get a load of this bloke, with his sensitive curls, his chinbeard, and his thick rimmed glasses.  You just know this fella has told at least one of his girlfriends that "actually, I'm a massive feminist" right before he tried putting his hand up her polo neck.  Still, Paul seemed to like him, which is lucky because I assume he's gone private and is paying through the nose.  If this was the NHS he'd get an appointment somewhere around May 2037, by which time he'd be under the wheels of a tram.

Having said that, Weatherfield's healthcare seems to have plenty of slack in it, what with this being the waiting room in the surgery of a Friday afternoon.  Jade and Hope just wandered in and got admitted; I'm thinking of transferring to that practice so I don't have to get up at 6am to phone an automated helpline in the vain hope of getting to see a doctor before my tickly cough develops into leprosy.  (Please note that this is a fictional world, and not the real state of the NHS, and bear that in mind when you vote the week after next).

Adam has morals.  I know; I'm as surprised as you are.  But he flatly told Michelle that there was no way of getting her hands on the Bistro, what with there being laws and everything, and no amount of wheedling and pleading eyes could persuade him to change his mind.  Well done Ads.  While you've always been undeniably handsome, your lack of scruples has been a bit of a barrier to true sexiness, so now you're fully on your way to being drop dead gorgeous.  Certainly Mary seems to think so.

Naturally the Exalted Queen of the Universe was simply furious that someone had dared to tell her "no" and decided to proceed with her plan to ruin Robert anyway.  She agreed to marry Robert in eight days, which is a bit sudden, but was apparently necessary for that whole "Robert's 50th birthday party" plan I thought they'd dropped months ago.  This came as quite the shock, mainly because not only is Robert only 48, his birthday's in October:

Even the venerable Corripedia has been forced to update its records on his date of birth with a shrug of "I guess he's fifty now?"  (If they're going to age anyone by a couple of years, then they need to make Jack older, as he's supposed to be nine but he's about three inches shorter than Kevin and his voice is breaking).  Ah well, I'm sure Michelle will find some way to get revenge, and we'll all pretend we care.  She's very much a go-getting kind of girl after all - as she spat on Friday, "I don't need a man to fight my battles".  No, but you quite like men to pay for them, don't you?

Get with the zeitgeist, Tim.  Steve tried to persuade Tim to wheel Tiny out of the stables with some plastic antlers to earn some cash as a reindeer, but Tim absolutely refused.  While he didn't mind his horse dressed as a unicorn, as they were species-adjacent, crossing over to pretend to be a member of the moose family was far too much.  It's 2019, Tim, get with it; identities are fluid.  Amy's off being Fat Sam in a gender neutral production of Bugsy Malone.  If Tiny wants to be a horse, a reindeer, or even a Giant African land snail, that's entirely up to him, and we should embrace his search for his true self and support his voyage of self-discovery.

STAPE!  Yes, we finally got to the bottom of why Jade would willingly spend time in that poky house with that awful brat Hope; she's John Stape's secret daughter, out for revenge.  It doesn't really make sense - did Jade become a teaching assistant in Birmingham to specifically get to Hope, or is this a massive coincidence?  Did John have a whole secret first family he abandoned, because that's not really the kind of behaviour that inspires loyalty from betrayed children?  How old was he when he fathered Jade?  Still, let's leave all that aside, because with any luck it means Jade is going to go full Hand That Rocks The Cradle on number nine.  Sadly, it doesn't look like she's going to be rigging up greenhouses to slice Evelyn to pieces, or spitting astonishingly offensive disablist slurs at handyman Seb, but is instead going down the "fake child abuse to get Hope taken off Fiz" route.  To be honest this doesn't seem like that cruel a plot.  Hope is such an entitled pain in the backside I'm pretty sure her mum and dad would happily wave her off to the children's home and then change the locks.  If I'd sulked and screamed until I got my own fireworks party my mum would've set fire to my Lego in the back garden and chucked an aerosol into the flames to make the bang and frankly I'd have deserved it.  Write Hope off as a bad investment and devote all your attention to Ruby, who's adorable and clever and doesn't make you fear for the future of the human race.

As the nights draw in, it's time to think about the festive season.  But not those previews of the forthcoming Christmas storylines because they look horrible.  Instead send presents, greetings and tasteful selfies to the author via Twitter @merseytart.  

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