Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Underworld is another country.  The factory used to be such a simple affair.  A big open space full of sewing machines, with an office in a glassed off area to the side.  There was a mezzanine above, and Kirk's packing department was somewhere off to the back, but otherwise, you knew where you were.  Now though?  Now Underworld is a puzzle box, a series of interconnecting rooms that go on forever.  There's this office, with Bethany and Sarah-Lou; is this the office we've seen Nicky run the company from, or is this the sales office, which is ostentatiously marked with a big sign?

If Bethany is there to set up the sales office, who are those people in there fiddling with laptops? 

Who are those ladies in the background, and why are they on the set of a 90s daytime discussion programme?

Surely those horrifically deep stairs aren't Health and Safety approved for use in an industrial workplace?  Who decided to make the kitchen so huge Bethany has to walk across camera to get to the fridge?  Where have all the lockers gone?

In a week of episodes set in and around the factory, this was the only sewing machine we ever saw.  Presumably Izzy, Sally, Sean etc are all queued off to the side waiting for their turn.  Underworld is doomed to failure - again - if Alina Pop!'s crack sales force are arranging thousands of pounds of deals that can only be made one pair of pants at a time.

There can be only one.  In the battle for Number One Coronation Street, I am firmly Team Tracy.  She spent virtually her entire childhood there, she lived there with Amy, her late and much missed mother lived there for decades.  Peter, on the other hand, has only ever moved in as a last resort, and grew up in the maisonettes and then, when they burned down, in Scotland.  It's got no emotional attachment for him whatsoever, and it seems unfair that he'd decided to force Tracy to overbid for no reason other than pure spite.  (Also, when he was particularly annoyed with Tracy, he called her his "stepsister", which is a bit gross given that Ken adopted Trace and always treated them as siblings).  As Tracy pointed out, he's pushing retirement age himself; go and find a nice quiet flat somewhere so the McDonald-Barlows can continue the family tradition.  Plus Tracy has all sorts of wild ideas for redecorating which might mean we finally say goodbye to that terrible wallpaper in the back room (Ken tried to blame that wallpaper on Deirdre this week, but I refuse to believe she'd be that dull).

(Also, a word of advice Peter: if you ask a lady to buy a house with you and she pulls this face, maybe don't splash out on those His and Hers towels just yet).

Love is blind.  My mum has been watching Corrie since the start, but this is the angriest I've seen her get about the show since they made Gail into a simpleton.  She was enraged that Abi would allow Kevin to sell the garage to save her own skin, absolutely furious, and to be honest she has a point.  The show glossed over it pretty quickly - it was bang, Ray wants the garage, and by the end of Wednesday twenty-odd years of Webster's Autocentre was gone - but yeah, that's a hell of a sacrifice to make for someone you've been going out with for a week.  Especially since Kev's other idea for demonstrating his love for Abi was the world's smallest pizza.

I don't quite understand why Ray wants the garage, other than to wind them up.  The arch with Gary's shop in it, fair enough - you can knock through and add more space for the Bistro.  Though I'm not sure who'll be visiting the restaurant at the end of the Street now the locals know it's run by a pervert who has personally made life hell for a number of their neighbours.  Will Eileen really be saying "yes, ok, Ray sexually harassed dozens of women and blackmailed and betrayed my friends and colleagues, but their New York Cheesecake is just too good to resist."?  The main garage though, is separated from the arches by Viaduct Street, so unless Ray has very accommodating mates on the Council, the Bistro will never make it over there.  Still, it's good to have a proper, old-school villain on the Street, one who's just a ruthless scumbag and who hasn't murdered anyone or psychologically tortured their wife with a dead chicken.  (That's the only mention Geoff's going to get this week, by the way, because if I tried writing anything else it would just devolve into a mass of swear words and incomprehensible keyboard smashes).

The best things in life are free.  The Street's relentless hounding of Daniel and Bethany - which consisted of Peter mildly objecting to them snogging in public, Craig being a bit off (Craig's back, by the way), and Beth being her usual bulldozer self - made them decide to pack everything in and flee to London.  How exactly they can afford this I have no idea.  Bethany's been offered an internship, so unless this is some kind of special internship where you also get paid, she's got nothing, and Daniel's an out of work waiter living off fresh air yet somehow also raising a baby.  It didn't stop him looking for flats for a thousand pound a month on the internet.  Being a resident of the North, I don't know much about prices in That London, but I'm pretty sure a two-bedroom flat in Zone 5 within easy walking distance of the Overground would be a little bit more expensive.  Hopefully they'll go soon, because they're both getting on my wick - Daniel with his upsetting beard, and Bethany with her great literary career which consists of an article about herself, a story where she wrote down events in her life and changed the names, and a blog post about Ray.  A writing career she only ever seems to want to pursue when Daniel is literally stood behind her shouting at her to type.  Go off and join EastEnders, and hopefully you'll end up being shot in a gangland fight outside the launderette or something.

Make me a hen for a day.  If I'd been a resident of Weatherfield, I'd have had to go to Adam's stag do because I was cursed with male genitalia.  Which is a shame, because Sarah-Lou's hen do looked much more fun.  Which looks like a better night to you - necking shots in Speed Daal while Ryan plays soulless techno, or having filthy chats with the ladies of the Street to a soundtrack of Gail and Audrey belting out absolute choon No More Tears (Enough is Enough)?  Ok, Imran got his spoons out, but really, there's no contest.  The hen party had everything, from Liz admitting she had an HGV licence in sex, to Leanne asking for an espresso martini and getting fobbed off with a filter coffee with a shot in it, to Carla very kindly dealing with Mary's sadness over never having a proper wedding.  Stick a bunch of the Street's women in a room together and it's always TV gold.  If only Bethany hadn't come in and ruined everything.  Maybe Jenny would've done What I Did For Love (yes, that video again), and Sally could recreate her triumphant solo from Coronation Street: The Album and have another crack at Never Can Say Goodbye.  Maybe this time she could manage it in the right key.  It would've been amazing.

If someone at ITV Studios wants to send me Underworld's blueprints so I don't have to be permanently confused, my Twitter handle is @merseytart.  Thank you in advance.

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