Soap update

In EastEnders last week there were several sights I never want to see again, most of them involving Heather. Heather rocking out to air guitar on a broom, Heather brandishing her underwear in the caff, Heather being snogged by Minty and, mostly, Heather pole dancing with a mop. Having failed to fall in love with Heather (what, even after the mop-dancing?) Minty well and truly breaks her heart when she catches him inspecting the airways of a trolly dolly during a game of spin the bottle. Underwear back in its carrier bag, a gutted Heather moves back in with Shirley and arranges to have their marriage annulled. You’re better off with George Michael, anyway, pet.

Shirley, re-united with Vinnie Monks (played wonderfully by Bobby Davro) is going all out to be a doting partner. Watching Shirley trying to be nice is like watching a pig try to play the piano, so it’s a relief to us all when she loses her rag and chucks some cabbage over Vinnie’s head. Probably not the first time Bobby’s had veg thrown at him either. Over at the Queen Vic, Roxy Mitchell is up the duff and trapped between a rock and a hard place re the baby’s parentage: “It’s either your sister’s ex or the local nutter,” clarifies Christian helpfully.

Local nutter in question, Shaun Slater, is still mooding it around the square, throwing threatening looks at passing litter. His temperament doesn’t improve when his mum, Mad Slater (aka Cherie Blair) invites his confused ex Roxy around for a family dinner then burns the strudel and throws a mowie. Shaun responds, as one would, by forcing his mum into his grandad’s new black cab and locking the doors. “Sean is not the daddy type,” Christian is heard to say as we watch Sean driving off crazily, his mother’s hands beating the windows in her marigolds.

I’m bored with Sean’s brooding, though. It’s been dragging on way too long. If he frowns any more, his eyebrows will have to take up residence in his socks. So I’m pleased that, after his cathartic taxi journey, he has decided that he is the daddy type after all. Can’t wait for him to find out it might not be his.

Taxi for Mitchell!

Over in Emmerdale, Jo is relieved to find that the ecoli outbreak came from a supermarket and not, as suspected, her goats. Oh the glamour.

Meanwhile pregnant Katie Sugden fears that fiancé Grayson has been deceiving her when she discovers he has been having secret meetings with his ex-wife, Purdy, to whom Katie was meant to be a surrogate. (Keep up) I can’t help but feel that this is what you get for mixing with people who sound like Siamese cats.

Anyway, after some sort of King Solomon style trick, Katy discerns that it is, in fact, not her but the baby Grayson really wants, which is shocking on many levels, not least because it sounds like a plotline stolen directly from EastEnders circa 2007. Katie decides to bide her time, so we’ll have to wait for her to sprog before we find out how she’s going to take revenge on the pair. Let’s hope it doesn’t involve a big knife.

The knives were definitely out on Coronation Street last week. The ill-fated house swap with the Websters has drawn out Claire Peacock’s malevolent side, to the exasperation of her husband, Joe Pasquale -voiced Umpa Lumpa and purveyor of choice meats, Ashley. Sally’s malevolent side, of course, has long been on plain view but even she is out-classed by Claire’s peculiar brand of evil, as she trots around with her clipboard, all moon-faced innocence, slagging Sally’s taste in white goods and leaving lives destroyed in her wake. Party to quite a bit of Claire-related craziness in his time, poor likkle Joshua is going to go the way of David Platt, make no mistake. Best reserve him a cell in Weatherfield prison immediately.

In fact, there will be one going spare since Paul ‘firestarter’ Duckworth has decided to eschew five years at Her Majesty’s pleasure and depart the street, unlike Vera’s stone cladding which, it seems, is here to stay despite builders’ best efforts to remove it. As Jack pointed out to new, stricken owner Molly; “it does help you find the house when you’re drunk.”

Over at the Rovers, Liz is struggling to remain faithful to absent hubbie Vernon as she’s wooed by dapper bookie Harry under the guise of ‘just good pals.’ “What’s up with two friends meeting up for a bit of a nosebag?” asks Harry, adding a new euphemism to the Weatherfield vernacular. Watching Liz trying to resist a man is like watching a bear try to fasten a bow tie. Eventually she decides to ward off temptation with a blown up wedding photo of herself and Vernon, in much the same way one might use garlic to fend off a vampire. One photograph might not do it, Liz. I’d get it on beermats if I were you.