Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

It's that man again!  Stu is back and yes, he seems like a very nice man and everything, but he also seems... a lot.  His relentless chirpiness is starting to grate on me, and that's before he brought out the guitar for a hilarious improvised song...

...then stuck a naan bread on his face in a move which doesn't seem at all hygienic in a food preparation area.  Imagine looking up from your meal to spot the chef doing this:

You'd be carefully checking your korma for rogue white hairs.  His non-stop joy and wisdom is all a bit much for a dyed in the wool cynic like me - nobody's that nice.  Hopefully he has a lifetime of kicking dogs or snapping saplings or stealing floral tributes from gravesides in his past that will give him a bit of an edge, because right now he's so permanently adorable he's close to being a fluffy little kitten.  I'm all for goodness in Coronation Street (e.g. Roy, Mary, the much missed Wayne) but too good to be true is actually quite annoying.

Amy, Amy, Amy.  Sometimes you can just sense a disaster happening.  You can see, with clear insight, that your cake is going to collapse, or your car is going to hit that lamppost, and really all you can do is sit back and wait for it to be over.  So it is with Amy at the moment.  She's been mature and capable all week, carefully talking to Summer about her diabetes, studiously preparing her personal statement for her Uni application, and tearing Max's guts out in public for being a perv and leaving him hollowed out from the inside.  Max has now added "staring at upskirt pictures of schoolgirls" to his list of appalling behaviours, although perhaps the most disturbing part was when Summer took a very brief glance at his phone and immediately realised it was her.  Just how detailed was that photo?  

In short, Amy is being cool and sensible and marvellous, so we know it's all going to come crashing to a halt.  And who is this outside the hospital?

Yes, Jacob the Railings Boy is back, only this time he's got a broken arm and a beaten up face and so is catnip to Amy.  This is the girl who got pregnant by general scumbag Tyler, let's not forget; she loves a thug with a sensitive side.  I can see that UCAS form going unfilled as she explores the delights of snogging on a tram platform instead of getting those exams.  Much like her mother, Amy is a slave to her hormones, though if she feels like following Tracy's example and smacking Railings Boy over the head with a statue I doubt many people would complain.

Two become one.  I didn't have "Shona works in the Kabin" as one of my hot 2022 storylines, but she started on Friday, and I immediately became obsessed.  For decades, Rita was the sassy one behind the counter of the paper shop, doling out sarcasm and knowing smirks while her assistant (Mavis or Norris) twittered about and proved ineffectual.  As she enters her nineties, Reet has understandably slowed down and needs a week's notice before she can do a Paddington Stare to a shoplifter, so it makes sense to pair her with a livelier character to take over the role of bolshy sweet seller.  Shona assumed the part perfectly, packing off a tedious salesman with a fondness for rooibos and delighting Rita in the process.  She loves a stroppy young woman, does Mrs Fairclough (yes, that's her name, shut up) and the only sadness was we never got to see the two of them behind the counter together.  I presume this is due to Covid protocols, but with any luck Shona will quit working in the cafe and start in the Kabin with Rita full time.  I want to watch the two of them nursing cups of tea over the sherbet lemons and shamelessly gossiping about everyone who comes in.

Disappear the disappeared.  The classic* James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever contains a plot device where reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte - the movie's version of Howard Hughes - is spirited away by Blofeld.  Bond muses that he is:

The ideal kidnap victim.  Nobody's seen the man for five years - so who's going to miss someone who's already missing?

This line came to mind as the Street panicked over the missing Joseph.  Yes, it's all very sad, but let's be honest, Joseph's been in about four episodes over the past two years.  He might have been kidnapped in June 2020 and really, none of us would know.  It meant that even before he was revealed to be skulking in Hope's attic it was hard to worry too much - he was bound to turn up as if nothing happened.  Ruby, after all, made absolutely no appearances in this week's shows, so she could have been captured by human traffickers and be halfway to the Philippines by now and we'd be none the wiser.

Joseph had run away because he thought Chesney cared more about the quads than him.  Well duh.  I am ninety per cent sure Chesney only remembers Joseph exists when he is literally stood in front of him.  Remember that time Joseph was mugged and had his shoes stolen and Ches's reaction was basically "yeah, yeah, we'd best get home, the babies want feeding"?  He's very much an afterthought in the - I was going to call it the Winters-Brown house, but that sounds like something out of Downton Abbey - in number 5.  He probably gets fed once everyone else is done, like a dog.  Even when it came to searching for the boy, Chesney could barely drag himself out; it took him an age to go hunting for him, and when he did he namechecked streets like "Balaclava Terrace" and "Viaduct Street" which 60 years of Corrie has taught us are about a two minute stroll away.  The next morning Bernie had only got as far as the back of Underworld, almost as if they were all secretly glad there was one less mouth to feed and they were trying to work out if they could dump one of the less interesting quads in a skip while they were at it.

Hope and Joseph's scheme was eventually rumbled by Ian Anderson out of Jethro Tull, who paid them a hundred quid each to keep quiet while he returned the missing boy and claimed the reward.  This is another case where I can see it spiralling into a horrible nightmarish world of recriminations and mistaken criminality and I'm really not keen; I don't want to see Bernie painted as the Karen Matthews of Weatherfield.  I'm also really worried about Tyrone's tent which has been abandoned on that bit of wasteground round the back of ITV Studios Wethy Quays.  It looked quite expensive; I hope Joseph is going to nip back and grab it before it ends up being handed to someone at Billy's soup kitchen.

Calm down, Poirot.  Craig injured his ankle and decided not to bother with one of those fancy metal crutches in favour of the manky wooden one that was hanging round the salon flat.  He immediately unleashed his hotshot detective skills on it, deducing the height of the user and also working out that the letters scratched into it might be their initials.  In that one short scene he demonstrated more actual policing skills than he has in his years on the force.  Mind you, this is still Craig we're talking about, so even as he was licking the handle of the crutch to try and establish the alkaline levels in the sweat of the person who'd previously owned it he completely missed Faye and Emma in the same room exchanging guilty glances and vibrating with fear every time he mentioned it.  I look forward to the end of his investigation, when he'll gather all the suspects in the Rovers and proudly declare that the crutch previously belonged to Aadi and therefore he was under arrest, for some reason.

Ryan turned 30 this week, the same week I myself had a birthday.  This would be very nice if I didn't remember when Ryan was a tiny bowl-headed child and so his rapidly advancing years only pointed out how decrepit I am getting.  Please send gifts, Sanatogen and hearing aids to the author via Twitter @merseytart.

*Yes it is, shut up.

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