Five Things We Learned In Corrie Last Week

Mea culpa.  I'd like to start this blog with an apology.  In previous missives, I've suggested that Mrs Crawshaw is a terrible, terrible deputy head, who's let Wethy High go to the dogs.  In the past year it's become a hotbed of pupil-teacher violence, upskirting, protests and date rape drugging, and her response has been to hand vacant assistant positions to passing sex workers.  It's now clear that Mrs Crawshaw has had a lot on her mind, as her husband has run off and she's an emotional wreck.  The school's still an absolute state but at least now we know why she took her eye off the ball.

It still doesn't excuse her nipping round to Coronation Street to try plying a junior teacher with wine.  We got a salutary lesson in how the apple can fall far from the tree, as Daniel was shocked by the attempted seduction and politely escorted her out.  When these exact same circumstances happened to his dad in the mid-90s, Ken leapt into bed with Mrs Jeffers and wrecked his relationship with Deirdre.  The Barlows are growing and changing, and perhaps are managing to control their wayward penises.

Home is where the drugs are.  Abi's new flat is quite nice, isn't it?  It's well decorated and has decent furniture and she's already put pictures on the wall.  Considering she's mainly been at the hospital this whole time she's made it quite homey.  The only problem is ex-lovers nipping round to go through her private property in search of illicit substances.  Kev did it the other week, and now it was Imran's turn to go through her pockets while she was in the other room.  He dove straight into that bin, too - not even a rubber glove.  That's a brave man.

Abi was outraged when he suggested that she might have nicked Laura's morphine for her own personal use, somehow forgetting that she was smacked out of her head barely a month ago.  She reacted like a Victorian schoolmarm being accused of exposing her ankle to the coalman.  This would be a lot more convincing if she hadn't managed to spot a bottle of morphine, in passing, in Kelly's hand, from a clear five metres away.  

Keep it in your pants.  A nation celebrated as Faye and Craig decided not to have children after all.  Thank goodness for that; now there's nothing to tie them together and they can happily split up.  Watching the two of them have extremely important and serious discussions about their future was like watching a little girl playing weddings with her Ken and Barbie.  There is something about Craig and Faye that is inherently childlike; they are both in their early twenties but they feel a lot less grown up than, say, Aadi or Amy or even Max.  When Beth gave them both a good talking to I half expected her to ground them for being silly-billies.

The two of them are now, presumably, looking for a pair of housemates for the salon flat now that Emma and Tyrone have moved out.  They couldn't afford anywhere on their own back in January and they've had a few weeks of Craig being on gardening leave in the interim so they must be desperate.  They'll have to put an ad in the window of the Kabin, as neither of them seem to have any friends whatsoever.  Craig only ever talks to his mum and Faye can barely remember who she's related to - did she even mention her pregnancy scare to her brother Gary?

Death pays.  A solicitor turned up at the Rose Gold Empire out of the blue, so you know what that means?  That's right, an unexpected windfall!  In this case, it turned out Rick had a nice £380,000 house that he'd bequeathed to his one and only child.  (Whatever happened to Daniel's £400,000 house that Denise gave him, by the way?).  This raised all sorts of questions.  Firstly, why didn't Kelly ever use this house that she definitely knew was vacant back when she was living on the streets?  Even if she didn't have a key any more she could've smashed in a back window and let herself in, knowing there was nobody to stop her.  The place was still full of mementos and furniture - she could've invited Stu round and they could've lived like kings.  Secondly, that private detective Laura hired with the specific purpose of finding all Rick's cash made absolutely no mention of this semi sitting vacant.  He must've been pocketing the money and not even bothering to do a quick search on 192.com.

It gave Kelly the cash to pay for the first of two funerals.  George had suggested combining them into one, saving time and money, but ignoring the somewhat unpleasant "facts" involving their deaths.  I'd like to put it down on record that if I'm ever murdered by my partner, I very much do not want to be buried with them for the rest of eternity.  I'll have a separate do, thanks.  The funeral went as well as you'd expect for a soap opera, with fighting, photographers, and a really unpleasant close up of some phlegm on a coffin.  Maria worried that attending such an event would damage her reputation.  Maria clearly doesn't know what her reputation is.

Time is fluid.  Speaking of the funeral, wasn't it handy that they were able to get hold of the one church and one vicar in Greater Manchester who didn't have something else to do on Good Friday, one of the holiest of Holy Days?  Both Craig and Billy acknowledged it was a Bank Holiday early on, then the show spent the rest of the time ignoring it completely.  There was a funeral, there was a social worker popping in for a nice chat with Imran and Toyah, followed by a major judicial decision, Adam went to court, Underworld held a business meeting... either Weatherfield is full of workaholics and employers willing to dole out time and a half or Corrie can't really be bothered with keeping track any more.  It used to be that if there was a Bank Holiday, Gail and Martin would pack the kids into the car for a day out, Vera would complain that she wasn't being taken anywhere by Jack, and Mike Baldwin would turn up in the Rovers in a Pringle sweater because he'd been golfing.  

None of that happened this Easter; in fact the pub was so deserted Jenny could lounge around on a banquette with her toy boy rather than pulling pints.  I know there's dramatic storylines to service, and they're probably nervous about tying the show into the calendar after the residents celebrated VE Day in June a couple of years ago, but I would like some acknowledgement that this show exists in the real world now and then.  Today is National Send Nudes Day, for example, so perhaps Imran, Ryan, Adam and Tim could spend this evening's sliding into my DMs and marking this special event.  

This week Jonathan Harvey liked one of my tweets about people in the show buying their booze from the Bistro and not an offie like normal people so frankly nothing that happened onscreen could beat that.  If you want to help me with my cripplingly low self-esteem by clicking a heart icon now and then you can find me on Twitter @merseytart. 

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