Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Tip your servers.  Being a waiter is a difficult enough job.  Complicated orders, demanding chefs, minimum wage.  What you really don't need is a bunch of overprivileged diners coming in and putting on stupid voices.  Apparently Todd and Summer and Billy used to amuse themselves with "accent nights"; firstly, I wish we'd seen some of these onscreen, because I guarantee a lot of them were hideously offensive.  I bet Jamaican night was appalling.  Secondly, get a Playstation or something, this is the most tedious way to spend an evening short of asking Ken Barlow his opinion on Love Island.  Honestly, that poor waiter who had to put up with Billy's terrible Bertie Wooster accent while asking stupid questions about the water, with the rest of the family giggling behind their menus.  I hope he gobbed in their lasagne.  The Spellman/Grimshaw/Mayhew family sounded absolutely nightmarish all round as they reminisced about their hilarious times together.  Paul's face speaks for us all, I think:

Todd eventually tried to make up for his absence with tickets for something called "Sam Fender", who I believe is a musical performer popular with the young people.  Yes I had to Google that.  Apparently that's all it takes to win Summer round after you've kidnapped and abandoned her.  Meanwhile, let's all breathe a sigh of relief that "game night" in that flat means Cluedo and Monopoly and Scrabble, as given Paul and Billy's rampant horniness, there was a real possibility it was Strip Twister or Pin The Tail On The Homosexual.

If it's yellow, let it mellow.  Living with Toyah sounds like a bit of a nightmare, as we discovered this week that she wants Ryan to stop flushing the toilet after he's had a pee.  Yes, climate change is a very important issue, but nobody likes to wander into the loo and find a bowl full of stinky widdle.  She didn't tell him herself, by the way, but instead demanded Imran do her dirty work.  I suppose we should be glad Toyah at least conceded that number twos require a flush and wasn't making them all use a composter on the balcony.  I bet she's the kind of flatmate who inspects the recycling bin for stray plastics and turns the heating off because of polar bears and demands house meetings to discuss how SOMEONE and she's not going to say WHO put a Rustler's Hot Dog on her vegetable shelf so she's spent four hours scrubbing the fridge out to decontaminate her vegan area from meat infestation OH ALRIGHT IT WAS RYAN I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY WITH YOURSELF.  Toyah also had another week of talking about her extensive counselling experience, using a professional anecdote to try and help Leanne through her dark days, and giving advice to Gail on how to deal with bereaved parents.  In fact she had so much good, thoughtful wisdom, it once again raised the question of why she doesn't do it for a living, rather than flogging knickers over the phone.

Smile through the pain.  I long ago lost interest in the story of Johnny and the security guard.  He seems to spend every waking moment dwelling on it now, which is funny, because he didn't seem that bothered about it for his first five years on the show.  However, it did lead up to Jenny and Johnny spitting passive aggressive rudeness in front of an increasingly awkward Lee and Daisy, so I'm willing to forgive it.  Both of them got lathered on wine and unloaded truth bombs out the side of their mouth, smirking the whole time, and it was great.  It was another of those times when talking about stuff that's happened to characters in the show makes them sound insane; this week was full of them, with Tim once again bringing up Yasmeen getting locked in a magic box, Toyah talking about Leanne giving birth in a lift because Darryl the rat ate through the electrics, and Steve mentioning that time Nicky Tilsley got stuck in quicksand.  I'm not sure why any of this would make Daisy want to move into the Street - maybe she lives for the drama.  

Unfortunately the evening was cut short when the police turned up to arrest Johnny.  Apparently Mam from Jonny Briggs had grassed him up, which is weird, because I thought that Scott was going to do that weeks ago?  The only person he seems to have dropped in it was Emma, and he did that about three minutes after getting arrested; when it comes to Johnny he's kept quiet.  Perhaps that's because, as we learned this week, Scott gave the security guard a good kicking after he got sideswiped by the car.  How handy that the reason for Gareth's descent into alcoholism wasn't so much the fractured rib Johnny gave him, more the cruel and unnecessary beating he got from his accomplice.  How convenient that Scott was so much worse and that Johnny shouldn't really feel that bad after all.

The numbers don't add up.  Ray tried to buy number 6 off Geoff on Wednesday and I didn't understand any of it.  He offered a low price, plus cash on top - but is that just for his half of the house?  Is it for the whole house?  Why is he bothering with the cash bit?  Why was Alya pleased he was selling up, because surely she wants him to sell his half to Yasmeen, as if he sells it all to Ray that basically makes her homeless?  I really don't understand, but please don't explain it to me, because I don't care either.  All I know is that Sally will be thrilled, because she only wanted to sell up because of Geoff hip thrusting to Mr Boombastic next door; now he's moving away she can take her house off the market.  Apparently this hasn't occurred to Ray and Debbie.  

Incidentally, if Debbie is so keen to keep her mad scheme from the residents of Coronation Street, why doesn't she do her work somewhere other than on her brother's kitchen table?  Jack could wander in for a Coke while she's in the loo and spot the artist's impression of the skyscraper that'll be overshadowing their front window.  Go to a Starbucks or something.  

Emma is like a diamond: multi-faceted.  Emma was disappointed in her lack of knowledge about her new family as she nearly poisoned Amy with a cauliflower cheese.  To get round it, they played a game where they had to name three facts about themselves and guess which one was false.  Unfortunately she forgot the rules of her own game and told three true facts - viz:

1. something involving a spoon and three days in hospital, which I think we need to hear more about immediately;
2. she has a tattoo.  It's somewhere on her person that means she couldn't show it easily, but it's not anywhere too intimate because she offered to show Simon a photo, and surely she wasn't about to flash a picture of her nancy;
3. she won the Under 12s Cross-Country Championship. 

Weirdly, that last one sounds the most out of character for Emma, which I think points up what a treasure she is.  Imagine playing this game with Nicky Tilsley.  Even his outlandish lie would be something tedious like "I once stood on the right on an escalator".

If Shona doesn't get another bop on her head soon that knocks some sense into her I'm going to go round to MediaCity with a polo mallet and do it myself.  Give me a reason not to on Twitter @merseytart.

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