Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

You'd better come home, Speedy Gonzales.  David continued his adrenaline-seeking ways, running all over the place like a B-movie version of The Flash.  At least put some spandex on, Dave, make a show of it.  This week he riled up a load of scallies by fiddling with their bikes until they gave chase.  I don't know why he bothered.  If he'd just carried on loitering on a playground staring intently at passers by without a child of his own a frenzied mob of outraged parents would've soon been chasing after him with camera phones trying to put his picture on a PEEDO VIJILANTE Facebook page.  Instead, he got threatened by the lads, who chased him into a suspiciously deserted factory-slash-warehouse.  Here we got an appearance from one of my favourite incidental Corrie character tropes, the Member Of Staff Who Absolutely Refuses To Get Involved In The Drama.

This security guard saw a bunch of thugs barrelling into a restricted area on private property and couldn't even bring himself to shout "oi!".  Never mind actually doing your job; phone the police then head back to the CCTV room before your mug of tea gets cold.

Changing places are nice places to be.  Are Weatherfield County actually any good?  I really don't know.  On the one hand, their stadium was played by Gigg Lane, home to poor doomed Bury who thrash around in the lower leagues.  Also, their number one striker is Tommy Orpington who is - and how can I put this politely? - not exactly fresh out of the academy.  Kirk may have reckoned they were about to have their best league finish ever but that could be fourteenth in the Diadora League.  On the other hand, look at that changing room!  Admittedly my sum total knowledge of changing rooms is (a) the chilly brick cell at my high school with its stark wooden benches and tepid dribbling showers and (b) the output of a certain publisher that specialises in sport-themed art movies for homosexual gentlemen.  None the less I find it hard to believe that a bottom-rung football club would splash out on wood-effect cladding and special booths with feature lighting and - and this is the kicker - towels in the Wethy County colours.  That's a really unnecessary expense, fellas; even Liverpool use plain white ones, and their players use crumbled fifty pound notes as handkerchiefs. Maybe nip down to Dunelm and get yourself some basic plain towels and spend the money you save on a decent forward, eh?  Worse still, the players don't seem to understand how you use them.

This man seems to be wearing the towel while still in the shower.  That's just daft.  We were getting a glimpse into the behind the scenes at County because James was coming out to his teammates using the tried and tested "yeah, I may be gay, but I don't fancy you" method that's been seen in a dozen TV shows.  Nobody cared apart from that one man the rest of the team laughed at, of course, and James's worries about being dropped by the manager for vaguely threatening that bloke in the street a couple of weeks ago proved unfounded, so clearly homophobia in football has been defeated.  Hurrah!  (Also, Ray sacked the nasty manager of the Bistro, so racism is dead as well.  Double hurrah!)

Book now to avoid disappointment.  Did you know there's a version of The Odd Couple written for two women?   Felix becomes Florence and Oscar is Olive.  I only bring this up because we were treated to the rare sight of Liz and Gail having a chat about Eccles cakes in Wednesday's show and my imagination wandered.  Imagine Helen Worth as the uptight one and Bev Callard as the slob; stick that on at the Manchester Opera House and you'd have a hit on your hands.  I'd be first in line.  It's odd how little we see of Gail and Liz together, considering between them they've got about 70 years experience in the show.  You'd think people who'd been neighbours that long would have loads to talk about but the closest they ever got to a conversation was Gail ordering a white wine when Liz was behind the bar.  Mind you, I was surprised to see on Classic Corrie that Liz was the midwife at Rosie's birth in the back of Don's taxi and she's barely said two words to Sally in the intervening decades.  Maybe they're both too embarrassed to talk to one another since Liz has literally seen up her nancy.

Gail had a rum old week all round; she failed to persuade David to join her power walks with Audrey - if there are any Corrie writers reading, I would very much like to see this happen please - and then she copped the blame for Shona's escape.  Sarah-Lou said "mum's lost Shona", which makes David's wife sound like a spaniel who vanished on a stroll round Heaton Park, but more importantly, no she didn't.  All Gail did was point her in the direction of the garden - the therapist woman didn't advise her to lock all available exits because Shona was a flight risk.  Poor Gail, trodden upon by her awful kids once again.

Prison is not great for family reunions.  So yes, Shona's back!  Yay!  Admittedly she's still got amnesia which caused her great consternation when she saw how old her son was.  I absolutely agree with her; I find it hard to believe that someone as young as Julia Goulding could have sired Clayton as well.  Was she in primary school at the time?  Fortunately, after a few minutes of chat, Clayton dropped the act and proved he was an unpleasant little brat.  Now this may come as a shock to you, but I am not a qualified mental health professional, but I still can't help wondering if taking Shona to see someone who actually stabbed her in the past and not telling her about it was very wise.  I know she's got amnesia so you can pretty much get away with telling her anything but it seems unprofessional; there was a very good reason why Shona didn't want to see Clayton any more, and there's no harm in reminding her of it.  I hope she regains her memory soon so she can return to number 8 and go back to being lovely; I especially hope that her memory comes back via the method suggested by Sarah-Lou and David, where they crack her on the head and see what happens, because that would be pretty hilarious.

Those tech giants keep innovating.  This week we learned that Voggle, the venerable search agent favoured by the Street's residents, has branched out into video hosting.  You can't keep a good company down.  Unfortunately it sounds like they endure the same problematic commenters as YouTube in our world because the very first comment was about the size of her breasts.  Accurate.  Gemma was happier to hear from CaesareanSue1981 who found her vlog tremendously helpful - so much so, Gemma decided to make another video.

Unfortunately she got Chesney in as a cameraman and he filmed it in portrait.  I cannot tell you how irritated I am that we are in about the eight hundredth week of lockdown, pretty much all our television programmes and adverts have been filmed by amateurs on their phone, and yet people are still doing it in portrait and making it look rubbish on a widescreen telly.  Come on, Ches, use a bit of nous.  If nothing else this is an inconsistent format point for Gemma's page because the last video was in widescreen, though given she called it "Gemma's Vlog" I don't think she's exactly acing it with the branding.  (Now never make me write the word "vlog" ever again).

This week we got appearances from Tiana, Oliver and Harry, meaning it was a hat trick of Usually Invisible Children.  But who is the most invisible of the three?  Let me know on Twitter @merseytart.  (Actually that's a trick question: the most invisible child is Jake, who is less visible than a particularly shy chameleon).  

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