If music be the food of love, play Daydream Believer. Does anyone honestly believe Carla can play the recorder? Nobody that glamorous spent their childhood banging out Annabella, Annabella, Have you seen my new umbrella in front of a bored parents' evening. Even as a five year old, I'm sure she was wearing stilettos with her school uniform and smoking Player's No 6 in the sandpit to ensure she had a deep husky voice in adulthood. The other kids were larking around on the climbing frame, and she was busy painting her nails with Crayola and batting her eyelids to get the older boys to buy her Haribo. I hope she won't cave into Peter's pressure to perform, not least because he pulled that recorder out of the attic at number one, and who knows how long it's been up there. It was probably Tracy's originally and the minute she blows down it the desiccated corpse of a long dead spider will come shooting out the end. (I did like it when Carla asked Peter if he knew that "old song" Daydream Believer. Fun fact: Peter Barlow is two years older than the Monkees classic).
**** Tha Police. This week, Alya finally snapped and threatened to shove the business end of a broom right up Geoff's backside. No doubt Monday's episode will begin with the police turning up on her doorstep and arresting her for GBH, because they only investigate nonsense, not real problems. Weatherfield Police really are the worst. There's Ginge up there, who's shown a remarkable lack of interest in Paula Wilcox vanishing off the face of the earth; she only interviewed Geoff because she thought she might get a free naan bread out of it. How about checking Elaine's phone? Seeing where the sim card was last picked up? Or simply going round to her house and knocking on the door? No? Too much effort?
Then there's Blondie here, who decided to interrogate the victim of a hit and run. She barked questions at Sarah-Lou throughout Monday like she was auditioning for Broadchurch and at no point did she ask her anything about the car that hit Gary and sped off. Number plate? Colour? How about the fact that she actually saw the driver? Nah. Instead she was far more interested in Sarah-Lou's private life, her telephone habits and trying to get to the bottom of why Gary would be on a road that's exactly halfway between his house and his work. And even then she couldn't really get much of an effort going; Sarah was burbling out incredibly unconvincing half-truths and flat out lies and she didn't bother following up. The real crime in these episodes was clearly committed by the detectives themselves, as they both had impeccable haircuts that they definitely didn't do themselves in lockdown. Slip a stylist a tenner for a non-socially distant blow dry, did you girls? Honestly, you can't trust anyone.
There's a face from the past (not that one) under the viaduct. Sally nipped under the railway bridge so she bellow private information at Paula Wilcox from two metres away, all the time wearing her Gwen-from-Eldorado marigolds, and we got a shock. Yes, that weirdly photoshopped poster of Chesney and Gemma is still up! This is despite them comprehensively trashing their reputation and being dumped by Freshco. Either the supermarket's promo team is particularly lax or they've left that one up deliberately just to annoy Gemma. I bet while she's been stuck at home with nothing to do except vlog there have been at least six updates where she does nothing but lay into Freshco for making her look like a blow up doll. It'd be a better use of her time than wandering into the pub and making Abi feel rotten for wanting her kids to have a better life. You was dumping your kids on a bus and fantasising about shoving them in the washing machine a few months ago, love, wind your neck in. Someone needs to get under there and pull that poster down. While they're at it, they can nip round to Victoria Street with some weedkiller:
Look at the state of that pavement! Never mind "nature is healing", it's starting to take over back there. A few more days and you'll need a machete to hack your way through to the tram stop.
Jenny delivers. With Rita in quarantine, she turned to her sort-of-daughter to keep her topped up with provisions. Hotpots? Yes. Vodka and tonics? Naturally. Rice wine vinegar? Erm... I'm not sure what Reet needed that for; it seems highly unlikely that the legendary Mrs Fairclough (you heard) would be making herself a stir fry. She seems like much more of a pie and potato kind of woman. I suspect she'd actually run out of booze, and was too embarrassed to ask Jenny to get her another litre of cheap red because it was only an hour and a half since she got her V&T. As it was, Jenny forgot to get the vinegar anyway, so she'll be deprived. She'll have to ask Ryan, who has also transformed himself into a delivery service during the crisis. He was taking prescription medicines to elderly ladies. I bet they're thrilled when they see him come down the path, and manufacture all sorts of odd jobs for him to do in the hope he'll get all sweaty and take his top off. Faye was also doing her bit for the community, delivering the food from the restaurant, though how she was doing this without a car or even a moped I'm not sure. You don't really want a congealed korma. Perhaps she's a very fast walker.
Craig's half the man he used to be. While most of us have spent lockdown in front of the telly, cramming Magnums into our mouth and counting the walk to the wine rack as our once a day exercise, Colson Smith has put us all to shame by losing what looks like ninety per cent of his body weight. He still has that sweet round face and sticky out ears, it's just now they're perched on top of a rake-thin body. Let's have a look from the side, shall we?
Blimey. Sensibly they didn't try to explain away his new appearance in-universe, as the only possible reason for such a severe and sudden weight loss would be extreme plastic surgery or perhaps a bout of norovirus. I hope this doesn't change his personality. Remember Molly Dobbs? She was a jolly, chunky young girl, charming and lovely and fun, until she lost all the weight and started running marathons. Next thing you knew she was leaping into bed with Kevin Webster and breaking Tyrone's heart. Don't drop your niceness along with your trouser size, Craigy.
Apparently Kirk can guzzle a bag of pork scratchings in 14 seconds. What can you swallow down in record time? Let me know on Twitter @merseytart. Keep it clean.
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