Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Chim-chim-chiminea.  Never have I loved a mention of seasonally inappropriate garden furniture more.  Basically all of this week could've been Sally and Debbie talking about a chiminea - a word that got more usage in Wednesday's episodes than it had in the entire history of the English language - and I'd have been perfectly happy.  You had me at "singeing your dado", Jonathan Harvey.  Two women exchanging passive aggressive barbs about a piece of garden furniture?  That is absolutely in my wheelhouse, and please take my five pounds for your Kickstarter to turn it into a play.  The addition of Kirstie Allsop (replica) furniture and Sally's swinger hot tub were merely dobs of whipped cream on a delightful gateau of campery.  It was a shame that Geoff had to go on a wrecking spree and send that chiminea to the heavens; it was even more of a shame that we had to see Geoff thrusting his hips to Mr Boombastic first.  

Now Sally has decided to leave, because having her garden furniture smashed up by her father in law is the straw that broke the camel's back for her time in Coronation Street.  Not when her husband ran off with Natalie Horrocks, not when her boyfriend abused and beat her, not when a tram fell on the Street and killed her husband's best friend's wife who turned out to also be the mother of his child; no, it was her outdoor buffet being ruined that was a bridge too far.  Tim seems less enthused but that's probably because he's afraid they'll move to somewhere without net curtains and he won't be able to wander round the house "hanging loose".

Football is rubbish.  I live with a gentleman who absolutely adores soccer.  He was a Liverpool season ticket holder, he subscribes to the sports channels, he actually cares about this sort of nonsense.  So I have deep sympathy for Sean trying to bond with Dylan even though, deep down, he knows that all sport is awful and a waste of time.  Bless him, he's trying his best, swotting up on footballer names and attempting to play FIFA, but really he should just quit and instead work on making Dylan realise that's it's a lot more fun watching live theatre.  There is nothing more tedious that twenty two men running around a pitch for ninety minutes and just lazily kicking a ball.  Honestly, who cares?

I will admit this is a difficult task given that Dylan is such a football fan that despite living in London his entire life he's able to recognise and appreciate James who plays for lower-league nobodies Wethy County.  Either he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of English football teams of the writers have once again forgotten that Wethy County is meant to be a bit rubbish.  The fact that James is somehow a salaried full-time football player would seem to hint at that - even though he also lives with his mum in a backstreet terrace - but the fact that they charge £150 for a corporate hospitality night proves it.  Nobody is going to pay £150 to see Wethy County, no matter how many vol-au-vents and glasses of prosecco you chuck into the pot.

Once bitten, twice... oh we're doing that again.  The heart wants what it wants, I suppose, but it's very hard to sympathise with Michael at the moment.  A few months ago, Grace turned up with a kid, said "hey, it's yours!" and demanded that he bond with it.  Michael then learned it was a lie.  Now Grace has turned up with a foetus, said "hey, it's yours!" and demanded that he bond with it.  Nope.  Leaving aside the fact that she pulled this trick once before, would you really want to have a child with someone as manipulative and duplicitous as this?  Say thank you very much and ask her to contact you once the DNA test has been done.  Until then cast her from your mind.

Go big or go home.  Now, call me a dashingly romantic sentimental old softheart, but I was deeply unhappy to learn that Debbie Webster was going to be a baddie.  I don't mind new characters turning out to be rotten.  People with a bit of history in the show exposing a disgusting side though - that's a little upsetting.  I still haven't got over Jim using his dead daughter to try and fleece Liz, and to be honest there's a large part of me that wishes Tracy Barlow hadn't murdered Charlie.  Debbie was a good character played by a great actress and I'd have liked her to simply be a hard-nosed businesswoman and that was it.

However, I soon changed my mind when I realised that Sue Devaney was going to be playing Debbie as the most evil human being on earth, at which point I clapped my hands and giggled.  Suddenly Cruella de Vil is striding the cobbles and I am absolutely here for her calling Sally "vapid" and putting down Abi and insinuating that Ray suffers from premature ejaculation.  She's adding a much needed hint of camp to the demolition plot, which is good, because that's the only way it makes it entertaining.  This week the Ray-Roxy double act managed to add one more house to their roster of purchases, which just leaves:

• Number six
• The Kabin
• Brian and Cathy's flat
• Rita's flat
• The salon
• The hairdresser flat

So, you know, still half that side of the street.  And this is without the fact that apparently they're not interested in the terrace, so the luxury hotel Ray has planned for the site will look out over a load of two up two downs.  At least we learned they have "pre-application approval" this week, so it's a 100% certainty they'll be able to slap a load of glass and concrete on top of Underworld.

Dev is a Baaaad Dad.  Asha and Aadi have had quite a good life as far as Corrie kids go.  Brought up in relative comfort, only a couple of house moves, just the agonising death of their mother to deal with - next to, say, Max, that's a bucolic childhood.  Dev hasn't noticed that his kids have hit puberty, however, and still treats them like children, claiming he's learning how to be a father as he goes along.  Which is weird because I remember when he was bringing up the awesome Amber and she turned out to be an absolute marvel so really he's already proved he's great at being a dad, if you ignore the other 527 children he has scattered around Greater Manchester that we've all forgotten about.  

He did however pull a blinding Dad move by asking his kids what they actually wanted which confused and scared them.  Teenagers don't know what they want, they only know how to rebel, and giving them actual choice makes their brains fritz and they have to go and hide in their room to try and work out how you're tricking them.  Dev further destabilised Asha's burgeoning relationship with Corey by inviting him round to dinner.  If a dad shouts at a teenage girl's boyfriend, that boy immediately becomes the sexiest human being who has ever existed.  If he politely chats to your dad about Seve Ballesteros over a curry based on your late mum's recipe he couldn't be less sexy if he tried; Asha's horrified face when Corey hinted they should have sex wasn't because she wasn't up for it, it was because she was imagining her rebellious hard man in a Pringle sweater and plus fours.

Like Kevin, the author has a famous chilli, though his is famous for being so bad it got a cease and desist from the Mexican embassy.  The recipe can be gained via Twitter @merseytart, but don't say you weren't warned.

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