Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Calling Hot Daddy.  Sometimes people ask me why I still watch Corrie when it annoys me so much.  And trust me, I wonder about that myself sometimes; it's not really fun finding yourself shouting "why are you putting Faye's clothes in the bag at the gate?  Why didn't you do it in the house like a normal person?  And why would Craig care?!?"  Then Imran wears a tight t-shirt that hugs his pecs and bonds with a small child and I'm left whimpering under the coffee table in a puddle of my own drool and I realise I'm going to have to keep watching.  Imran's tender, masculine scenes this week seemed to be specifically designed to make me fall even more hopelessly in love with him, and I will continue to watch the show in the hope that one day he'll finally take his clothes off.  Of course, if Charlie de Melo wants to send me a private photo via Twitter, I will take it to the grave, and also to the bathroom, for about six minutes.

I'm not convinced that the Habib-Battersbys should be fostering, to be honest.  Toyah especially got extremely emotionally attached to the baby, even though she knew they were going to hand him back in a couple of days.  She seemed to buy half of Smyths Toys for a six month old who'd be perfectly amused by a Quality Street wrapper.  Perhaps she should start fostering someone a little less cute; Kelly appears to have been placed with social services, and she's really annoying - there's no danger of anyone getting overattached to her.  

Remember the good and bad times.  If I'm honest, I was disappointed with Ken's appearance in the 60th anniversary episode.  He was barely at the picket line - only turning up for a borderline tasteless homage to the Tiananmen Square protest - and he was an afterthought in the subsequent Adam-Peter bust up.  The World's Longest Running Soap Actor deserved better.  However, this week we got a scene which was far more suitable and moving as Ken recalled his suicide attempt back on New Year's Eve 1990.  Not only did we get mentions of Wendy flaming Crozier and Bet Gilroy, but it caused him to reflect on his life, and the good times he'd have missed out on if he'd gone ahead and overdosed.  What's more it was a story he'd genuinely never told anyone before, meaning it carried extra weight when he told Peter.  I really enjoyed it, though I was disappointed that Ken didn't really dwell on Bet's gloriously camp outfit.  Her stilettos clacking on the lino would be worth a soliloquy all of their own.

Incidentally, have ITV rented the hospital equipment for six months and really need to get their money's worth out of it?  Because Adam walked out one door on the ward and Peter walked in the other with barely time to change the sheets.  Peter is dying now, apparently, and I wonder if Chris Gascoyne has finally had enough of doing basically the same storyline over and over in a loop and asked the producers to write him out.  After a brief discussion with Carla about why she couldn't move back in - back into her own father's house - he went off to Scotland with Ken.  At no point did he get the urge to explain what had happened to Simon.  That poor lad is sobbing somewhere because he thinks his mum's in France and his dad's in Plymouth and actually they're both lying to him.  On second thoughts, maybe Toyah and Imran should foster him, because it seems nobody is taking care of him whatsoever.

Curses!  Foiled again!  Todd continued with his very boring reign of terror as he pushed Paul to the limits.  Again.  Tell you what, that Will must be an amazing young actor, with brilliant improvisational skills, if he can so comprehensively convince Paul that he's an abused child.  Never mind getting the odd tenner off Todd, he should be in the West End.  Paul ended up in a police cell, because of course he did, and Todd did a lot of smirking and underhand whispering and offering Billy a tender shoulder to cry on.  It turned out to be for nothing, though, because Billy and Paul had a long talk and came out stronger.  In a way I hope this is the way it continues to develop, with Todd as a sort of homosexual Dick Dastardley, constantly coming up with evil schemes that Billy and Paul blithely frustrate.  And if Billy could do another of his patented gay gasps, all the better.

The main thing that's distracting me from the tedium of this storyline is Ajay.  I was at school with a boy called Ajay, and it was pronounced Ay-Jay, while everyone here seems to call him Adjay.  No, it's not very interesting, but none of this is.  

Do the birthday bumps.  New Year's Eve was Nicky's birthday as he turned 40.  Finally.  He's been middle aged since about 2007 so it's nice that he's officially reached it.  He celebrated by mulling whether to stab his brother in the back by taking up Ray and Debbie's offer to move to a cheaper unit.  At no point did he ask where the unit was, or what the terms of the lease were, and he didn't consult with anyone except Sarah-Lou, despite the fact that Underworld is technically a collective now and everyone else would have a say in whether to move.  In the end he decided to stay where he was, making Ray and Debbie glower, and they had to try buttering up a planning inspector instead.

They brought in Dev as support.  Let's take a moment to mourn the loss of Dev's beard, by the way; personally I think he looked a lot better with it rather than without.  It lent him a touch of distinguished grey and made him look less like the oldest swinger in town.  Dev is pro the new development, because it'll bring him loads of new customers, and after Tyrone conveniently overheard him singing its praises the locals organised a boycott.  Maybe this will be the point where they all realise that the Co-op by the tram stop is larger and better stocked and cheaper.  I did enjoy Asha turning on her dad and calling him a Judas, especially when she asked what he did with his thirty pieces of silver and he said "spent them on your Christmas presents."  I am very much here for Asha becoming an anti-capitalist rebel, perhaps joining up with Nina and Toyah on their leftie protests and getting arrested for spraying PAY YOUR TAXES over a Starbucks.

Life finds a way.  Yay, Steve and Tracy and Amy are back!  And not only are they back, but they're back being fun, with Steve's very first appearance being a totally unnecessary shot of his shorts-clad backside wiggling at the camera.  This was of course merely the hors d'oeuvre before the main course of him running round the block with Tim while dressed as dinosaurs.  They took time out in the community garden to bond over their recent bereavements, but it was delightfully blokey, with none of that nancy-boy emotional stuff.  They didn't quite say they loved one another but you could tell they were thinking it.  More of this please, and less of Steve crying.  I never like that.

Also between Tim in a dinosaur outfit and Paul's unicorn onesie I'm starting to worry that I'm turning into a furry.

Seriously, Charlie, it's @merseytart.  My DMs are open.

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