Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Gratuitous nudity is preferred.  We saw the return of an old favourite this week, as Chesney came downstairs in search of a clean shirt and ended up exposing his torso to the viewers.  Corrie has been doing this for decades as a way of shamelessly peddling naked male flesh, though this time they added a 21st century spin by having Gemma doing a live feed at the same time.  This meant someone Ches trusted broadcast his exposed body across the world wide web against his will; it was Karl Marx who said that "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce," but I don't think even he would've realised the cycle was so fast nowadays that Asha's horrible story from back in the spring was now being replayed as a laff riot.  Chesney worried that his nipples would be all over the internet.  Sorry mate, but the minute there's a flash of skin, perverts immediately screengrab it and share it on the dark web a thousand times over.  Rule 34 exists for a reason.  I bet there's already a thread on FamousMales devoted to you, and I'm sorry, that's just how 2020 works.  The only solution is to wear a full burkha at all times and stay well away from webcams.  (Out of respect for Our Ches, we have edited our usual header photo to preserve his modesty).

Here comes the bride.  Who gets married in the middle of a pandemic?  Or rather, who gets married with all the trimmings in a pandemic?  I understand that you might have a rush job if, say, you have a terminal disease, or you want to keep someone in the country.  But since a wedding is at heart a big family party, what's the point in having it without the do?  If Maria and Gary were really that desperate to rush down the aisle why not just slip to the registry office, instead of bothering with morning suits and buttonholes and all the accoutrements?  Not least because that would've saved us the awkward sight of Maria of all people in virginal white.  I'm not sure what their hurry is anyway; they've been together about fourteen minutes and only got engaged because she was pregnant.  Kirk and Beth had their marriage annulled years ago but haven't rushed to recommit, even though they are devoted to one another, while Tyrone and Fiz have been engaged for ages and still haven't bothered getting hitched.  If you hang around Maria, you can have Audrey and your parents and all your friends at the wedding, and it might be with someone who isn't Gary.  It'd be nice if she finally had a fiance who wasn't (a) secretly in love with someone else or (b) a murderer on the sly.

Up the women.  Let's be honest, Bernie was kind of awful in her first stint on the show, despite Jane Hazlegrove's best efforts.  It's good to see that she's redeemed herself, and this week she was all kinds of fun, not least because the writers have remembered that she is at heart a feminist-slash-hippy.  I am very much here for her writing "BIRD" on her mask because she wants to hold up a mirror to the patriarchy; this is a woman who named her children Gemini and Apollo, let's not forget, and I like her a lot more as a star child than an amoral grifter.  See how good characters can be when they're actually nice, producers?  She then continued her Grizzly Momma credentials by warning off Vanessa, though I have to admit I never quite worked out which of the Posh Women was Vanessa and which one was Imogen, so I couldn't remember if this was the sort-of nice one or the one who thought she was all that even though she lived the other side of the ginnel from the Rovers.

Stay strong.  This week, my mum looked me square in the eye and said with a slight quiver in her voice, "they're not going to split up Tim and Sally are they?"  Truth be told, she's still not got over Kevin diddling Natalie Horrocks and destroying the Webster family back in the 90s, and she really doesn't want to see Sally sobbing again.  I have to agree.  Tim and Sally are an absolute delight and I want lots of storylines of them getting inappropriately randy at family functions and hilariously clashing over soft furnishings; I don't want them wrenched apart by appalling relatives.  I'm holding onto the fact that even though Tim apparently doesn't want to remarry Sally, he still hasn't left number 4, though this may be down to the fact that he's really quite lazy more than he has a love that will never die.  With Faye now apparently on Team Yasmeen, though, we can only hope it's a matter of time until Tim comes round, and more to the point until he remembers he has an envelope with Elaine's address on it in the cab office.

I mean, in the real world, that envelope would've been chucked away weeks ago, but I think the last time that cab office was cleaned Vikram was on the switch so it's probably wedged under a festering egg sandwich somewhere.

You're gonna be a star.  Dev is back from lockdown, and sporting a very fetching beard that gives him a vague air of 70s heartthrob David Essex.  I was pretty sure he was going to launch into Hold Me Close throughout most of his scenes as the residents expressed a general astonishment that he was now a beardy-weirdy.  The best comment of course went to Sally, who assumed he'd done it for charity.  Especially fun was when he talked to Steve, all the while smearing his chin with beard oil, because of course Dev is the kind of man who conditions his facial hair.  I hope it is here to stay as it gives our favourite grocer a certain dignity and twinkly charm.  Also, if the facial hair epidemic continues multiplying at this rate, the only men left in the Street with clean chins will be Harry and that fibreglass paperboy outside the Kabin.

It occurred to the author this week that Abi named her two sons Sebastian and Charles which is far more upper-crust than he expected.  He's now wondering if Lexi is short for Her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandra.  If you have an alternative suggestion please let him know via Twitter @merseytart.

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