Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Never again.  Look, I've put up with a lot of nonsense from Corrie over the years.  Reg Holdsworth's waterbed. 1980s Susan Barlow.  Magic sinkholes.  The one thing I will not tolerate, however, is serenading.  Nope.  It makes my insides cringe so thoroughly my internal organs actually implode; I'm writing this with no functioning kidneys because they collapsed through sheer embarrassment, leaving me praying for a Moroccan waiter to get murdered on a towpath..  If Stu had tried to win me over with comedy doggerel I'd have pushed that guitar so far up his rectum he'd have been able to pick out Stairway to Heaven on it using his teeth.

Me too, Yasmeen, me too.  I'm glad she wasn't won over by his song and found it utterly charmless, though I'd have had more respect for her if she'd shoved Stu's face in the samosa fryer.  She finally let him stay, as well as inviting both Alya and Zeedan back to number 6, so who knows where they're all sleeping.  Maybe she thinks that as a former Gentleman of the Road Stu won't mind kipping on the patio.

And can we scold the writers for claiming Ken helped write that song, in the week that Sir Bill Roache turned 90?  You wait months for Ken Barlow to get a storyline and it's playing Tim Rice to a tramp Andrew Lloyd Webber.  The utter disrespect.

What are you doing for Hepatitis Day?  The Only Nurse In Wethy General, Aggie, is now in gastroenterology, which is handy for plot purposes.  I'm surprised she wasn't doing double duty with paediatrics so that she could tend to Max at the same time.  She's run up against the villainous Mr Thorne, who has a nice line in evil sneers and reinforces Corrie's firm belief that anyone with a posh accent is an absolute scumbag.

He was utterly horrible to Aggie the whole time and we never want to see that; she's the only good Bailey, Mr Thorne.  Go and abuse James or something.  The only moment we slightly sympathised with the demonic surgeon was when he completely failed to give a monkeys about Aggie winning a Golden Heart award.  He knows how worthless those things are.  Aggie got hers for letting a man die, for pity's sake.  At least she took absolutely zero of his nonsense, grassing him up to the authorities on only her second day and forcing Alan Bennett to go without a vital operation.

Mr Thorne swore revenge in the car park, telling Aggie he'd make her life miserable when he was restored to duty.  Save your breath mate, by the time you get back Aggie will have been transferred to orthopaedics to help care for Aadi's swollen hip joint.

Other facilities are available.  When you take a drug, it goes into your bloodstream.  From there it ends up in your hair follicle and finally a strand of hair.  As that hair grows, it retains a record of the drug use, like the ring on a tree.  Hair strands can be chemically tested and give a full and comprehensive history of the individual's drug use, typically for up to six months.  This is why the Family Court recommends using them; they are comprehensive, virtually impossible to fake, and are a single test instead of, say, forcing someone to pee in a cup once a week.  After all, you could give a clean test on Monday morning, take a load of smack in the afternoon, and it'd be out of your body by the following week.  The Family Court would take a hair strand test as valuable evidence in proving whether or not an individual is using drugs, and certainly a far more reputable source of information than, say, some random man rushing into the court and shouting "I done saw her buy some drugs miss!  I really did!  Promise!"

I'll just leave that information there.  

The HRT is on me!  As part of its commitment to every plotline involving a medical problem of some kind, this week Corrie grappled with the menopause.  However, it did it through the medium of Faye discovering that she has entered menopause early.  This feels like a strange choice.  Have we ever seen an ordinary, middle-aged woman on the Street go through menopause?  It's a universal experience and yet I don't remember it ever being even discussed by the characters.  Beth turns 48 this year; wouldn't it be interesting to see her grappling with the end of her fertility and her movement into the next phase of her life, rather than tackling it via an obscure condition that affects far fewer women?

Anyway, Faye can no longer have children, and she was deeply upset about it.  She thought it was punishment for giving Miley up when she was 13 - sorry Faye, it's actually the universe's punishment for you naming your daughter after Miley Cyrus.  Even Sarah-Lou was savvy enough to hide the pop princess name in the middle so Bethany Britney wouldn't get too many people laughing at her at registration.  Craig promised that he wouldn't leave her and suggested alternatives like adoption and surrogacy.  Cool it, kids, you're in your early twenties, you've barely been going out a year (and for most of that time Faye was locked up), maybe you should see how this relationship goes before you start painting the nursery.  On the plus side, this means Faye has absolutely no chance of accidentally getting pregnant, so at least that boring storyline won't rear its head again.

Observe the masters at work.  Sometimes you want drama and action and scenes of romantic entanglement on a back room settee in Corrie.  And sometimes, all you need is Dame Maureen Lipman giving a random Jonathan Harvey monologue that does nothing except make you laugh.  Here it is in full for you to enjoy again, though good though the speech was, it was taken to the next level by our Mo's natural comedy gifts:

She used to work in Fowler's Fashions, didn't she, on that parade where I used to live.  Do you know if I close my eyes I can still smell the cubicles?  You went in there for a skirt and you came out with scurvy.  Who died? [George: Her husband]  Ah, led her a dog's life... it's alright Cerberus.  He was carrying on with that - don't tell me - that Betty Caligari from the book bus.  Gave a whole new meaning to the term "mobile library" that did.  I wouldn't let my kiddies get on.

It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, and let me tell you, in a sane universe the way Evelyn dismissively said "yes, probably someone else" should get Maureen a Bafta.  There were other fine contributions from Bernie and a black dough croissant and Mary's Canadian Air Force star jumps but once again Evelyn is the comedy queen.  

Now Max has been expelled from Wethy High, he's going to need a new place to do his GCSEs, and I have a list of suggestions for him.  I hear the schools on the Falkland Islands are really good.  Contact me via Twitter @merseytart, David.

---

---

All original work on Coronation Street Blog is covered by a Creative Commons License