November 1, 2004
Hello and welcome to another weekly wonder flying
through the email and falling down behind your radiator next to that long-lost
purple thong you bought from Wilko's thinking it would make you look slim
and groovy. So now you know where to find it, dig it out and throw
it in the bin and do the same to the purple thong too. And so, without
any further ado, here we go with this week's Coronation Street update.
Sunita joins that long list of Corrie women sent to prison and jailed.
Let's think, we've had Rita in for alleged GBH on Chesney, Deirdre in for
being stupid, and yes, well, um, I'm sure I remembered some more when I first
started this paragraph. Anyway, Sunita joins them even though she pleads
'not guilty' to bigamy. Sunita's parents blame Dev's lusty liason with
Maya for their daughter ending up inside and he's beside himself with grief.
I love being beside myself, don't you? Such wonderful conversation and never
a cross word from me to I. Maya pops into the corner shop for a pint of
milk and a manic episode and Dev throws her out, threatening to kill her.
She then pops to see Sunita in jail, putting doubts into her mind that Dev's
behind the whole thing. Just when you think it can't get any worse
for our favourite jailed shop girl, it gets better, sort of. Maya and
Frankie have lunch together at the Clock. That place is like, so in,
and, like Delfines? It's so over. Anyway, Frankie starts to realise her mate
is a nutter and tells Dev about the cab driver they'd bumped into weeks ago
(weekly update reference GHA/455fh/12 available on request for a bag of sherbert
lemons) who recognised Maya after driving her to what she'd told him was
her wedding. Much Streetcars sleuthing goes on and Inch High Private
Eye-leen with help from Patrick find the fella. Unfortunately for Dev, the
guy won't help with enquiries, wanting nowt to do with the police and won't
get involved. Dev pleads with Leanne to remember anything unusually
matrimonial in her dealings with Maya but she's not what you'd call helpful
towards Dev although she could be, if she'd wanted.
It's sleek, it's clean, it's the Silver Stitcher machine, edging at the
speed of life at Underworld. Only problem is, Danny gets only one
of these new machines for the girls to use and they all want their own.
And as they fight over who gets to use it, they decide on a machine race
and then a gur-slur for some reason I still can't fathom. This meant attention
was diverted from Kelly trying to get into Baldwin's knickers - the ones
he was wearing, not the ones she was stitching. Hayley knows what's
going on and she's not best pleased but Danny and Kelly seem to be enjoying
themselves flirting across the factory floor. Elsewhere in the
factory, bingo virgin Sean is taken for a night out at the Mecca where it's
eyes down with two fat ladies and the rest of the girls.
Liz returns to the Rovers, takes up her old job and moves back into her
room only to move out an episode later when Charlie can't keep his hands
to himself. Shelly's still in denial and bitches with Liz behind the
bar, which makes great viewing for the regulars at the Rovers but is disappointing
for this telly watcher who's wanting something more, something better, in
a storyline for Shelley. Unable to afford anything else, Liz moves
back in with Steve and Karen, who are still trying, and failing, to conceive.
Trying to spice up his love life with Cilla, Les buys a second hand spa
bath from Charlie. It's huge, it's round and it takes three people
to lift it up the stairs but Les is convinced this will put the sparkle back
into that place wherever sparkles go (as opposed to sparklers which shouldn't
be put anywhere, just waved around in the air while you go "ooooooohhh").
Les does his back in trying to lift the bath and ends up in the Rovers on
whisky to numb the pain while Cilla, the floozie in the jacuzzi, makes merry
with Billy Arrowsmith the plumber as he installs the pipe work and gets the
bubbles blowing. There were some great scenes with Kirk and Chesney
sitting the bath eating tea and watching telly before it was taken upstairs
by the plumber, who says to Kirk: "I expect you lost a lot of modelling work
once Lowry died". Magic.
And that's just about that for this week.
Glenda
November 8, 2004
Greetings and welcome to another weekly update flying
into your in box a day earlier than usual because I'm out gigging tomorrow
night, working late the night after and by the time Thursday comes around
you'll have forgotten you were ever waiting for an update to come.
So here it is, in all its glory and wearing a new pair of shoes, this week's
Coronation Street update.
Things are underhand at Underworld as the girls work overtime and things
get overheated. As the girls nip out to the Rovers, Kelly and Danny get
to grips in the gusset department but they're caught out as the girls walk
back in. Not wanting news of this to get back to Frankie, Danny tells
Kelly their little fling is over but son Jamie hears on the grapevine what
his dad has been up to and tries to bribe dad to keep things schtum from
his mum.
While Dev mopes about the shop and makes the place look untidy, Sunita's
mum is desperate to get her daughter out of prison. She concocts a
plan to persuade the reluctant taxi driver to identify Maya as the woman
who passed herself off as Sunita and the guy eventually agrees. In a showdown
at the Rovers, Maya's unmasked for her marital misdemeanours by Mr Duggan.
However, the police need her identified in an official line up so Dev and
Sunita's mum's plans were for nowt. As Dev howls at the moon down
at the cop shop, in walks one of the blokes that Maya has married, saying
he wants to give evidence against her. Maya ends up arrested, Sunita
is freed and there's hugs, tears and kisses outside of the prison when Dev
goes to collect her. Sunita insists on returning to work in the shop
but this doesn't stop the gossip that goes on around her and she agrees
to a few days off with a box of Tunnocks teacakes.
Cilla and Les' spa bath upsets Norris and Emily as the grinding, whirring
noise makes its way through the walls and into their nightmares. It
sounds like a washing machine that's got a bag of spanners on a final rinse,
or like a Tardis in need of a bit of WD40. And in order to get the
bath into the bathroom, the toilet is now in the yard.
Blanche gets the family onto a TV game show called Top of the Tree, and
drags all of the Barlows to London. They need seven people to qualify
to take part in the show so along with Ken, Deirdre, Blanche, Tracey and Amy
(who answered a question, correctly, about TellyTubbies) they rope in Liz
to come along, who also brings Steve. Now, Karen's gone away to Dublin for
the weekend to stay with Linda Sykes and she's took twenty seven pair of
shoes. Steve is aghast that anyone could need so many shoes or
indeed, how shoes could be so important to someone. Ah, what the heck,
one more time, shoes. So there they are, on the quiz show and they've won
six grand when Steve is in the spotlight to gamble the winnings for a car
that's worth seventeen grand and his star subject tonight, is, you guessed
it, shoes. Well, never. He's allowed a phone call and he chooses to ring
Karen but of course can't tell her why he wants to know about shoes, can't
tell her that he's on a quiz show or that he's in London with his daughter's
mother and his wife's arch rival for his affections. So Karen doesn't
realise her side of the phone call can be heard by the audience and she rattles
on about getting Steve's keks off when she gets home and how she's feeling
soooo fertile. "Er, Karen? Shoes?" Steve reminds her. Karen
gives him the right answer, the car is won and Steve swears everyone to secrecy,
Karen can't know what's gone on while she was away. In the London
hotel Tracy comes on to Steve and you can tell he's kind of tempted, his
taste does tend to run to tall, dark and manic. With Steve back in
Weatherfield and Karen back from Dublin, Blanche spills the beans to Karen
about the London trip which leads to much arguing in the flat and Steve
wringing hands and rolling eyes around in despair.
It's Sophie's 10th birthday and Sally throws a party but is only
interested in Rosie's friend Gemma from posh Oakhill School. Not happy
with the guinea pig that her parents have bought as a present, Sophie raffles
it off at the party, and who can blame her? Anyway, Gemma's parents
invite Sally and Kevin for drinks round at their place and Sally's in her
element because it's a right big house and the couple are down to earth.
Kev's not best pleased though when Sally whitters on about how one day they
too could turn out to be like the Davenports (for that was their name).
He tells her he's happy enough being a Webster, but it's clear that will
now never be enough for our Sal, not now she's had a whiff of the Davenport's
French patio doors.
Janice and Patrick finally go on their date but it turns into a bit of
a disaster when Neville goes missing. Patrick's dad Neville, a hulk
of a brute has escaped from the house but when Patrick catches up with it,
it knocks Janice over and scratches her chest. Personally, I think
there's something applaudable about a bloke that carries a picture of his
pet dog on his mobile phone, but Janice, perhaps more of a low-maintenance-goldfish-as-a-pet
sort of a girl, doesn't agree.
Jack bumps into his mate from his pigeon days in the Weatherfield Arms
and he blames feminism for making him get rid of the cree. The mate
from the pigeon society tells Jack he's looking for new members and would
like to recruit Jack back into the nest and under his wing "It would be
a bit of a coup". he says. "A coup?" says Jack. "A coup." says the fella.
They hatch a daft plan to get Jack's pigeons reinstalled at number nine by
pretending that the Duckie's house has been chosen to open as a museum of
industrial life. Vera falls for it, for now.
And that's just about that for this week.
Glenda
November 15, 2004
Greetings and welcome to another weekly update.
Some days it's celebrity central, living in London, it really is. I've stood
next to Richard Branson on the Picadilly Line. I've passed Alexei Sayle,
Ruby Wax and Ricky Gervais in the street on my lunchbreak and I've eaten
tapas at the table next to Rankin' Roger. This week I walked past the
actor who plays Tommy Harris. He looked much like himself on the telly
and was easy to spot, unlike the time I spotted Thelma Barlow looking glam
and gorgeous on Tottenham Court Road and looking nothing like Mavis at all.
I live in hope that one day someone will spot me, come running up and ask
me, all kind of nervous and excited: "Aren't you that Glenda one that writes
them updates for th'internet, lass?" and I'd smile and sign autographs and
waft away in a breeze of Estee Lauder and Eau de Tunnocks. Ah well, I can
but dream and so here we go again with this week's Coronation Street update.
Not content to wait until summer 2007 for her day up the aisle in a confection
of a frock that looks good from the back, Claire convinces Ashley she wants
the wedding brought forward. They decide on December 25th for a perfect
Christmas Corrie celebration. I can see it now. As they're smooching
at their wedding reception in t'Rovers feeding Fred's pork pies to each other
and drinking champagne from tinsel-rimmed fluted glasses the camera will fly
outside to Maxine's bench where snow will be falling and an undernourished
urchin sits and shivers, holding out a tin cup and crying for a storyline,
a bit of dialogue and a bag of chips.
Karen finds out in the most cruel way that Steve was on the game show in
London with the Barlows. Steve tries to stop her from seeing the show
on TV but she walks into the Rovers just as it's on the screen with everyone
gathered round. Humiliated in front of everyone, she tells Steve she
can't trust him and throws his stuff out of the window along with Liz's bits
and bobs too. Liz takes herself and her bits to the Barlows who put
her up and put up with her as she camps out in the living room and dries her
thongs on the toaster. It fair puts Ken right off his crossword. Liz's
delighted that Karen's had enough of Steve, she thinks Tracy and Steve should
be together instead. Things get tense for Karen who goes round to the Barlows
to give Tracy what for. "It's about time that pug-faced mardy mare felt the
weight of my hand!". And in a wonderful scene on the street both women are
there in their huge hoopy ear-rings and flicked-up hair, as mad as each other
and Steve hasn't a clue, or a hope. Karen finally decides she
wants Steve back and they talk about moving away from Weatherfield until
she realises, duh, that she won the car for the Barlows and by rights it
belongs to her and Steve. And now she's going nowhere until she gets her hands
on her prize.
Charlie's started being demanding of Shelley and persuades her not to go
on a night out with Sunita. She does what she's told and his dominance of
her continues in a most unpleasant way. This is all going to lead to a domestic
violence storyline which, I dunno, soaps and drama series say they do these
things with best intentions at heart and there'll probably be a helpline at
the end of the programme - but to call it entertainment? I tend to
disagree.
The Duckworth's get a letter from the North West Conservation Society to
say their home has been picked as authentic and chosen to open as a museum.
Vera's all a flutter when she hears cousin Prince Charles will be doing the
honours and opening their humble abode to the public. There's only one problem,
to be truly authentic they really need a pigeon loft in their backyard. It's
all a plan of course by Jack to get his pigeons back in the yard but Vera
still hasn't seen through the scheme yet.
Les and Cilla's bath times are becoming even noisier and Danny joins Emily
and Norris in protesting to Les who pays no heed. Danny has a plan to turn
off their water and blames a breakdown in the national grid. But peace
and quiet doesn't last long and the whirring, grinding spa bath is back in
action as soon as Les phones the waterboard and they tell him to unstop the
stopcock.
Elswhere in the Street, Kelly decides the only reason Sean's gay is that
he hasn't met the right woman yet - and she decides the right woman is her.
And that's just about that for this week.
Glenda
November 22, 2004
November 29, 2004
By Glenda
Young , writer of
Coronation Street Weekly Updates
for the internet since 1995.