Stick with what you know. Let's be honest, Ken and Claudia (KenDia?) were never that convincing as a couple. She's an international glamourpuss with effortless style radiating out of every pore and he's... Ken Barlow. I think they only put them together because Bill Roache has it in his contract that every few years he has to have a fling with a 1970s sexpot; after Joanna Lumley, Stephanie Beacham and Rula Lenska, I presume his next girlfriends will be Caroline Munro and that Asian girl off the front of the Mastermind box. It was no surprise to see the end of their relationship and the end of Stillwaters as Ken's home, with him turning up at number one and telling everyone he was back for good. That was very presumptuous, wasn't it? I wish Tracy had told him to sling his hook because she was turning the front room into a home cinema.
Hopefully this isn't the end of Claudia in the show. In fact, now that she hasn't got Ken being all ethical and principled by her side, I hope she reverts to being the superbitch she was when she was a guest star. Far too many of her sharp corners were filed off over the last few months - she paid for Peter and Daniel to have therapy! - so with any luck the break-up will make her bitter and cruel again. I look forward to her returning to sitting across from Audrey in the Rovers, both of them pretending to be friends and calling each other darling, while slipping in veiled insults about their dress sense and their station in life. (And we're still waiting for that Rula & Maureen fly on the wall documentary, ITV).
There's never a policeman around when you want one. Speaking of Stillwaters, Ken exposed Charles as the filthy thief he was, which lead to a grand total of... zero consequences. Apparently the residents were simply happy to see him slink out of the room without demanding any reparations for the thousands of pounds he'd fleeced from them over the years. I'd advise them to call the police, but as usual Weatherfield nick was being worse than useless. When no crime has been committed, they're straight in there, locking up nice middle aged ladies from the Street on the flimsiest of evidence. When, say, a website is hosting a video of an actual child in a state of undress, they shrug their shoulders and hand over a pamphlet called So You've Been Groomed. They made no effort at all to get the video taken down on the grounds that Asha "willingly" posed for it; first of all, she's under sixteen, so I'm interested in the legal basis for their evaluation that a child could give consent to be exploited in this way. That sounds dangerously like "she was asking for it" to me. Secondly, there are YouTube videos that get blocked because they use ten seconds of a Taylor Swift song in the background - you could at least try to contact the websites and point out they're hosting illegal images. I suppose they're short of man power; next week they're going to arrest Oliver for being notorious hijacker D B Cooper and they need all the officers they can get for the raid on Victoria Court.
Keep a Connor handy. There's something right about seeing Carla behind the bar of the Rovers as a temporary landlady, isn't there? Admittedly, she's a little bit too classy for it, but let's be honest so was Annie Walker. It's a far better fit for her than Sinead's leftover beard oil business. I love Jenny Bradley in the pub - no, I'm never calling her Jenny Connor, stop asking - but seeing Carla pulling pints was a joy. She was kind of useless at it though, even though she'd worked in the Bistro for months, which lead to lots of unsubtle face pulling from the cast as she handed over pints that were 80% froth.
Carla was having to take over because Johnny and Jenny had legged it to France to avoid Scott and his terrible name. Apparently he's here for four weeks, so either Johnny is going to have to outstay his welcome with Eva or he'll have to come back and face the music. Wouldn't it be funny if we never found out? If Scott quietly left the Street before Johnny returned and that was the end of it? I know they'd never do it, but I'd sort of love it if they did, and we spent years trying to work out what the secret was.
There are no second chances. This will come as a great surprise to regular readers, but I am a very judgemental person. If you act horribly to someone I like, I will never forgive you. It's a tremendous personality trait when a friend gets dumped - you'd best believe I will immediately put them on my hit list, and will enjoy spending years being rude about them - but it's less good when it comes to, say, vulnerable teenagers. Kelly tearfully confessed to Gary about sending the video of Asha to all and sundry and I remained unmoved throughout. Yeah, you'd best be upset, I thought, having spent a week watching Asha being psychologically destroyed. It didn't help that part of Kelly's sob story was that she'd been bullied at Oakhill School for not being posh enough. Rosie Webster went to Oakhill and her dad was a mechanic and she was a Goth for half her time there and she didn't end up as a vindictive cow. I'm not entirely sure why they've brought Kelly back, because there are already loads of teenagers in the show right now and they actually live there. It's starting to look like Hollyoaks. In fact this storyline reminded us that even Max is now going through puberty, which was quite a shock.
Do you think they deliberately make him walk a foot behind David so he doesn't overshadow tiny Jack P Shepherd? I fear this whole thing isn't going away any time soon, and Kelly will no doubt uncover Gary's dirty secrets at some point. To be honest if he sticks her in a grave next to her dad I wouldn't be too upset. Told you I was judgemental.
All the chat about Uncle Albert Tatlock was delightful this week, particularly Emma trying to work out exactly how she was related to him, but I'd really like that photo of him as a lollipop man to be the last remnant of him on set; that big ugly sideboard in number one is really depressing. Hey Tracy; send me a message via Twitter @merseytart and I'll put do some interior design work for you. My fees are very reasonable.
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