Corrie Canuck

Ever wanted to have former Ken Barlow love-interest Joanna Lumley tell you when an email arrives? Sure you do.

You see, back in the day, when America Online went to the UK, Joanna Lumley was hired as the internet service’s official voice. You can download all her exclamations, like “Welcome” and “Goodbye,” here.

I couldn’t resist, I had to look up the Eurovision moments Sean was yakking on about.

Austria’s Schmetterlinge performing “Boom Boom Boomerang” in the 1977 competition

In 2000, the Netherland’s Linda Wagenmakers dress holds a special suprise.  Let’s see Madonna pull that off!!!

Jamie and Llyod kill some time at Streetcars doing that game that they do on Family Guy…‘Who would you rather be with..?  Jamie offers Llyod the choice of

Jody Marsh

or Vannessa Feltz

Lloyd chooses Vanessa, and I have to say I’d agree with him.   BTW, More pics of Vanesssa and her boytoy Ben Ofoedu can be found on his official website.

This week had Sean practically re-enacting his favorite Eurovision moment, so I thought I’d share mine with yours.  I know, I know, my Norwegian bias is out of control, but you have to admit Wig Wam rocks.

Now, here’s yer Flaming Nora update (now with 10% more Glacia content in italics.).

July 30, 2007

Hello me little muffins. Come in and sit down and without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.

If you’d like your weekly update with pictures and fun Corrie stuff, have a look at : http://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com

Sally flicks through Howard’s End which was as painful for Howard as it was for her Kev. “I remember Howard’s End. It was a telly programme about boats” he says when Sally starts her book-learning for A-level English. Kev was recalling Howard’s Way which was indeed a programme about boats, I always thought of it as a posh Coronation Street-on-sea. Sally also attempts The Tempest and picks through Pride and Prejudice while Fiz’s fella John the teacher offers his services to Sally if she wants some home tutoring at a reasonable fee. Janice belittles Sally’s studies and tells her she’s just a back street knicker stitcher and always likely to be so but it does start Janice wondering what she could do to be a better Battersby. Maybe buy some bitter butter? When John (Mr Stape to his mates) comes round to Sal’s for her first home tutor session, Sal’s got the kitchen table full of dips and crisps and Kev warns Sophie “Don’t diss the Stapester”. (This weekend I noticed that my 63 year old mother-in-law is now using ‘diss’ in conversation.)

Claire moves back in with Ashley this week, little knowing that Ashley and Casey have kissed while she’s been at her mums. Ashley suggests the Peacocks go to the pub to get p-p-pleasantly plastered but all Claire wants to do is lie in a darkened room and cry her eyes out. Watching this story drag on makes me feel much the same. Ashley and Casey are down to their grundies in the Peacock house while Claire’s out at a support group meeting Casey suggests she attends. It was just like a game of Coronation Street Cluedo with Mr Peacock in the conservatory with a piece of lead piping. Or was it a candle stick? Claire walks in just as Ashley’s considering taking off his tartan boxer shorts (we never got to see them; this is just a hunch) (We definately saw Ashley knickers here in Canada, white boxers. Did Canada get the naughty version to compensate for C-10?) and her hubby and the woman she thinks is her best friend manage to get dressed before Claire finds out just what’s really going on.

Paul starts his new job as chef at Leanne’s pizza paradise place in the precinct. She quizzes him on where he worked last and he admits he’s not worked for the last 18 months after having to do a runner from his last job when his boss found out he’d been sleeping with his wife. It’s so far, so good at the pizza place and Paul woos the punters with his pasta carbonara. Mind you, I did wonder why there was an industrial can of baked beans on the shelf in the kitchen, but maybe Spaghetti-a-la-Heinz-beanz is a north-west delicacy, who knows?

Blanche catches Liz smoking in the ladies loo in the Rovers and makes her confess all to Vernon. Steve returned from Spain this week and Liz had to come clean to her son about her fling with dull Derek while he was away and says he should be nice to Vernon because he’s forgiven her completely. “If it had been yer dad, he’d have belted the foundation off me face” she says to which Steve replies: “Just because he doesn’t hit you doesn’t make him a saint”.

Violet’s pregnant, with child, has a bun in the oven and is in the pudding club. Sean’s over the moon but he can’t keep his mouth shut and blabs all to Jamie. Jamie tells Violet she could have done a lot better than getting pregnant by the walking nightmare that’s Sean and she’s not pleased that Sean’s given away their secret and that Jamie knows.

Gail has another go at the Morton clan next door about the level of noise coming out of their shed. She sits down in the Rovers with the whole bleedin’ lot of them and Jerry gives her his mobile number, telling her to ring him and complain when the noise gets too loud.

Eileen returns from a dirty weekend in Scarborough with Pat and has to suffer the slings and arrows of guilt-inducing remarks from just about everyone. In the Streetcars cab office, she moans to Steve who moans back about how much he’s missing Michelle. Pat pops into the cab office to see Eileen but leaves his mobile phone and Lloyd and Steve egg Eileen on to read Pat’s text messages. She holds out long enough but when she caves in she gets a big shock. There’s a message from Justine who’s keeping the bed warm for him and messages for Carol, Sue and Fluffy Bunny too. When Pat pops back to pick up the phone, Eileen knocks him through the door with a mean right hook which is driven with extra power when he admits he’s not even married, he just tells that to all the girls he meets to keep them at arm’s length. So there’s Eileen, miserable at the switch and there’s Steve, feeling just as blue. What’s to do? They only go and book cheap flights on th’internet, pack their bags, jump in the back of a taxi and wave goodbye to an incredulous Liz as the pair of them head off to Malta together. “Separate beds!” they yell back at Liz.

Cilla’s sacked from the chippy when Mr Wong says he’s closing it down. She reckons it’s because of the competition from Jerry’s kebab shop and goes in there making her mouth go and then tells big fibs about food poisoning and dodgy meat to anyone who’ll listen. When Schemicel goes missing on Chesney’s 13th birthday, Cilla reckons the Mortons are behind the dogknapping as revenge for her badmouthing their food. The dog turns up later in the Morton’s shed. My guess is he’d probably gone in there to see where the noise has been coming from.

And that’s just about that for this week.

And that’s it for your Canuck omnibus.  Remember, you can watch this week’s Corrie online at http://www.cbc.ca/coronation/.  As of 9 am this morning it hasn’t changed over, but I’m sure it will in a bit.  Meanwhile, you can amuse yourself with the greatest glam rock band to ever come out of Norway.

Gå Wig Wam !!!!

I know that Vern and Liz’s song is “These Arms of Mine” but I just happen to like this one better. And I agree with Vern on this: They don’t make soul singers like they used to.

From Flaming Nora’s update for the week of July 23, 2007 (stuff written in italics was added by me).

There’s underhand dealings at Underworld when sacked knicker-stitcher Joanne (”Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty”) is paid off with a cheque for five grand. That’s after she threatens to sue Carla for unfair dismissal and Liam for sexual harassment, but Carla knows how Joanne’s mind works, offers her the cheque and sits back in her office chair to lick thorns and trim the heads of her roses. I bet she’s even got a screensaver on her PC that shows little kittens being drowned. Has Corrie ever had such a witch? (watchable though she is). Anyway, it was clear that Carla was going to win this fight, she was wearing bigger hoopy ear-rings than Joanne, it’s always a sign of a clear winner in a cat-fight on Corrie. The bigger the hoopy ear-rings, the better the bitch. And that, I believe, is Joanne’s exit from the show, sadly.

Claire’s packed and left Ashley to his own devices when she moves in with her mum. She’s too scared to stay in the house for fear of someone burning her alive in her bed. But Ashley’s hoping for a bit of fire in the bedroom and starts cosying up to Casey, Claire’s nemesis. No one yet knows that Casey’s the fire-starter, twisted fire-starter. She wheedles her way in with Claire at her mum’s house and later with Ashley who’s home alone where there’s a gentle stroke of his hand across her baps. She made him some lunch, dear, do keep up. And before you know it, Ashley’s kissed Casey on the welcome mat after she spends the day looking after little Josh for him. And our neighbours were probably concerned when they heard the missus and I scream “NOOOOOOOO!!!!” in unison.

Leanne’s staff walked out of the restaurant this week, her chef and waiter have gone, leaving her in no doubt that they think her talents in the catering business are equal to those she had on the game. Leanne lies back and thinks of pizza margherita and how to repay Roger’s loan when Janice tells Leanne that Roger’s skint and needs his money back, oh dear. Best line of the week was Doreen and Rita in the restaurant having lunch. Leanne: “Would you like a drink, ladies?”, Doreen: “Yes please, I hate to eat on an empty stomach”. Leanne’s so desperate for cash that she even asks Carla Connor to come into business with her. It was just like Dragon’s Den (both the British and Canadian versions). Carla offered twenty thousand pounds for sixty per cent of the business but Leanne walked out in a huff. Paul takes Molly and Tyrone to the pizza place for lunch and is disgusted by the state of the food, and who can blame him? It’s all ready meals brought in from Freshco by Janice when Leanne finds out there’s no food in the fridge for the agency chef to cook up. Hang on, but isn’t Paul a chef? And doesn’t Leanne need, let’s see, what was it again? A chef? I see a plot forming, it’s a shame that Leanne and Paul haven’t yet.

Tyrone continues to feel pushed out at the Duckies when golden-balls Paul, son of Terry (he who cannot be rubbished in the eyes of our Vera) starts wheedling his way in to Jack and Vera’s lives.

Meanwhile at the butchers, Kirk is over the moon cutting and slicing and naming all 14 cuts of a cow: “I love being a butcher, me”.

Sally feeds her desire to learn something new and while Janice rubbishes her idea, Vicky supports her co-stitcher. Well, Vicky’s got a degree you know. Sally aims to start an English course and Kev’s as supportive as he knows how to be, although clearly disappointed his missus isn’t going to study advanced toasting and postgraduate knowledge of beans.

Vernon heads off to Spain away from Weatherfield and Liz. Lloyd tells him he’ll have a bevy of bikini clad beauties wanting to bang his bongos, but Vernon only wants Liz yet feels he can’t live with her. Ah, but it also turns out he can’t live without her either. Liz sneakily gives Lloyd a tape cassette made up of her and Vernon’s special songs which she asks Lloyd to play in his cab when he drives Vern to the airport. I did something similar for a girl, once. In 1989! I love how Corrie is so delightfully retro. This is VAs the cab drives Vernon away from the Street, the songs stir something in Vernon’s heart. He gets Lloyd to turn the cab around, and Lloyd drives Vernon back to the Street and into Liz’s waiting arms. Ah, bless. I do hope these two get wed, it’ll be camp central on national camp day. The next day they have a stilted conversation about free range sausages and Liz thinks free range isn’t all it’s cracked up to be but Vern thinks maybe the pigs were free ranging because they felt neglected. It’s all very weird and I have absolutely no idea what bearing it has on their current storyline.

In other news, Roy’s is officially carbon neutral as all his produce is not grown more than 2 miles away from the café, which strikes me as overly strict when most of the “eat local” folk suggest no more than 100 miles. Roy tries to get Ashley to do the same but Ashley’s mind is on other things, what with his impending extramarital snog and all. I hope he doesn’t stop ordering Irish sausages at Roy’s urging because those things are frakking awesome.

Sean’s coming on a little strong with the baby thing by rummaging through Violet’s pregnancy kits so he could buy the right brand. He’s also on a health kick so his swimmers will be in tip-top shape for their next outing. He does this by swearing off junk food and dusting his nuts.

The Mortons find out Gail made an official complaint about Darryl’s unnaturally proficient guitar playing but Jerry’s turning into a softie and doesn’t want to press the issue with her. Jodie calls him in it and says Darryl should play his guitar any time he likes. The 875 other Mortons are in agreement with Jodie, except for straight arrow wannabe cop Mel.

In an echo of Deirdre’s romance with Samir Rachid, Corrie viewers will soon see Gail Platt falling for a younger man. After getting lost on the Moors, she meets a sensitive pop singer from America who helps her to phone home and from that fateful encounter, a romance ensues. The upcoming storyline will be sure to twitch everyone’s net curtains.

To see a photo of Gail and her new fancyman, click below:

(more…)

Lloyd made reference to his dog Neville, who was named after former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who they happened to be studying in school the day he got his new dog. Mister Chamberlain is infamous for declaring ‘Peace for our time!’ after meeting with Herr Hitler in Munich in 1938. Of course history proved poor Neville wrong, as Herr Hitler was not good at keeping his promises.

Very quickly, to give you all a brief background on the Duckworth’s grandson Paul.

Jack and Vera have a very, very bad egg son named Terry.  Terry was involved with Andrea Clayton, who got pregnant by him and gave birth in 1986.   She ran off to university when the Duckworths (even Terry suprisingly) offered to support her and the sprog (I mean Paul) because she just didn’t want to be a Duckworth. 

As many wayward children on Corrie, Paul ended up needed a kidney so Andrea returned to the street in 2000 to ask Terry to donate one.  Terry initially says yes, but backed out of it at the last moment (also running away with a £ 25,000 cheque from Jack).  Enter grandma Vera who ends up donating one of hers to the young child.

So now he and Vera’s kidney are back as Weatherfield’s answer to Jamie Oliver.

And for the record, the Duckworth’s have two more grandchildren by Terry:  Tommy born Sept 9, 1992 (mom Lisa) and Brad Armstrong born Feb 14, 1997 by mom Tricia (ugh!) Armstrong (sorry, one of my LEAST favorite characters).

I’m going to try and get their character profiles up tommorow or Wednesday so that you guys have a picture of the whole Duckworth family saga.

BTW – just a word of warning if you do a google search for Paul Clayton, becareful in the Wikipedia entry because there are some spoilers.

Here’s your update from across the bond by the lovely Glenda (aka Flaming Nora). Once again, her current update blog can be found here (and of course you know that it’s the current episodes so spoiler, spoiler, spoiler).

Glenda, has a wicked sense of humour and as I was going through her updates, I came across this bit announcing Leanne’s restaurant opening:

Leanne’s pizza place in the precinct opens for business. The standard menu is £50 for a half hour, £350 for an overnight stay, £20 if you bring your own cutlery and any extras to be negotiated with Miss Leanne herself.

Have I mentioned my super crush on Glenda? Anyway, here’s your update from Sunday’s omnibus. I did add a few things and comments, but those will be in italics so you can tell Glenda’s original work.

July 16, 2007
Don’t come in and whatever you do, don’t sit down. In fact, it’s probably best if you left, right now. I’ve got a nasty cold and I’ve been off work all day. So it’s up to you. If you come in, I’ll be asking you to put the kettle on and mix me up a Lemsip. Or you could stand by the letterbox and I’ll shout out this week’s update to you through the front door. Except I won’t shout because I can’t, in fact I can hardly speak as my throat is so sore. But enough of this moaning. Without any further ado, let’s crack on with this week’s Corrie update as I’ve got up off the sofa and pulled myself together for long enough to write it.

It’s Sally’s 40th birthday and there’s karaoke in the Rovers with Kevin belting out Mustang Sally: ride, Sally, ride. Yes, most people have. “I love her so much, I married her twice” Kev announces in his speech before Sally takes the microphone for a spot of Nancy Sinatra. She’s got the mother of all hangovers the next day and takes the day off work which doesn’t go down well with daughter Rosie, who’s now management at Underworld, you know. Sally muses on the mid-life direction her life is taking her. Instead of it leading from house to factory to pub to corner shop she wonders if there’s more. Oh yes, Sally, much more.

During the festitivies, Der-ick’s wife Linda shows up to talk to Liz. They go to the back where Linda tells Liz that she’s worried about an affair that Der-ick is having and that she’s afraid he’ll leave her. Liz tells Linda that she know the affair is over because Der-ick told her that it was. Linda wonders how Liz knows seeing as Der-ick is so closed mouth about these things. Liz tells her that she knows because she is the other woman. (Now, didn’t Linda one day see Liz walking out of the apartment building awhile back? And once she figured out that Der-ick is keeping a fancy woman there….I would have thought she would have put 2 and 2 together…which is why I thought she came into the Rovers in the first place.) Anyway, Linda storms out of the pub, presumably on her way to confront Der-ick.

Speaking of Underworld, Carla sacks Joanne this week as she was last in, first in. Well, sort of. She was last in most recently and that’s good enough reason for Carla to get rid. Liam, who knows Joanne’s knicker seams a bit better than Carla does, reinstates her at the factory.

At the Rovers, Derek breaks Vernon’s heart by telling him the truth about him and Liz. Vernon had only gone and proved how much he loved Liz too when he sold all of his record collection to buy two tickets to Paris. “I’m sorry” says Liz but that’s not good enough for Vernon this time and he walks out with his bags packed, splitting up their Liz and Vernon mugs in the Rovers back room.

As Vern stomps out, Liz tells him to not leave, but instead, yell at her. He stops in his tracks and says, ‘Do you want me to hit you, like Jim did? Sorry Liz, I’m not going to be that man.’ And for a moment, the skies opened up and Glacia saw Vern in a whole new light…he was kind of…I don’t know…not gross. Seriously, he never looked better. That line alone won him points with me.

He spends his time sleeping the cab office and moaning about life in the café to Roy. Liz finally finds him and begs him to take her back and try again. She even asks Lloyd If he’ll take Vernon in to his spare room and look after him there, as a mate.

Jack and Vera’s grandson Paul Clayton (a posting on who Paul is to come) arrives on the Street and Tyrone’s not best pleased. His antenna for a bad ‘un twitches when he spies Paul and it hasn’t stopped twitching all week. Paul gets his feet under the Duckworth table good and proper, he’s a chef and cooks up all manner of fancy meals for the Duckies. “It’s real steak pie with a lid on” enthuses Vera while Tyrone watches on, starving himself rather than eat anything made by a son of Terry Duckworth.

And it’s little Freddie Peacock’s first birthday and a party’s in full swing at the house.

Haley and Roy show up a bit late because they left the gift buying to Becky, who bought Freddie a firetruck….so yeah, they had return it. Meanwhile, they also brought the Robot cake that Roy made even though Becky points out that they way the arms and legs of the robot are positioned, it looks like a homicide victim. Call CSI – Cake Shooting Investigation. (Okay, yeah, whatever, I’ve been sick all weekend.)

Claire’s nipped out for a new cushion, as you do, when the party guests arrive and Ashley’s frantic with worry. Casey turns up with a pressie for Freddie and Claire unburdens her soul to the woman who tried to burn her house down. Ashley storms out with his confused face on, followed by Kevin Webster with one much the same.

And that’s just about that for this week. Now then, where’s me hot Lemsip?

Glenda Young

The past week’s storylines involving Liz’s affair with Derek and Eileen’s “bit o’ fun” with Irish Pat put me in mind of this song:

Sarah Slean – “Get Home”

God, next I’ll be doing Degrassi-style YouTube montages of dramatic moments set to Coldplay.