On New Year’s Eve, 1960 May Hardman died of a brain tumour on the stairs of her house, her cries having gone unheard. Christine, May’s daughter, suffered a bout of mental illness and almost threw herself off the roof of the factory.

Then for more than 20 years it was home to the unlucky Stan and Hilda Ogden, who eventually sold the house to the Websters, despite Sally initially having trouble getting a mortgage due to an old debt. In the late 90′s, the Websters would break up briefly over an affair of Kevin’s. A few other affairs later, they remarried and eventually sold the house to the Peacocks, who were having financial troubles.

Ashley Peacock would die in the tram crash of 2010 and the house would be refurnished and purchased by Lloyd Mullaney and Cheryl.

Cheryl’s ex-husband Chris is currently dealing with a brain tumour.  Will he also expire on the same stairs as May Hardman? Eh, probably not but if I were looking to buy on that street I’d go for one of the flats at Victoria Court and not a place with so much history.

But damn, if the show didn’t go and make me like her for about five seconds last week when she and Sylvia were savouring the epistolary delights of Becky’s correspondence from Crete:

“…only Chalky and me ain’t been gettin’ much sleep on account of the all the bangin’ nightclubs what are everywhere.”

“I’ve written shopping lists that are Shakespearean sonnets compared to that,” Sylvia remarks.

Good on Audrey for sticking up for Marcia/Marc like that.

Brian and I are in the same boat: Reading ABC books to children and making sure we add, “Of course, in this country, we say ‘zed’.” Tell that to me three year old, Brian.

Was Tommy Duckworth wearing a Liam Gallagher t-shirt?

Dennis is such a great addition to the senior cast that it seems like he was there all along. And I’m glad Sylvia warmed up to him.

In the end, Gary didn’t turn into Charlie Stubbs but he did manage to scare the life out of Izzy. I’m glad to see Anna and Faye helping him out through his latest bout of mental illness.

And what in the world did London do to Amber?

With that in mind, I’ve decided to add my own contribution to a current mash-up trend where quotes from one source are attributed to another source (my current favourite is Ron Paul Swanson which is funny if you watch Parks and Recreation and too much CNN).

And with that in mind and given that Downton Abbey is an insanely quotable show, I give you, Coronation Abbey:

Seven years ago today this lovely little blog was started by our dear Jacqueline. A few other milestones have been passed in the last little while as well. We had our 3,000th post (now at 3,012) and our 20,000th comment. (now at 20,025) Thus far there have been 986,843 views of our blog from all around the world. Three cheers to John who is minding the store mostly on his own these days.

Just a few thoughts on tonight’s episode:

Didn’t Ken take out a loan against his house to pay for Tracy’s trial?

Amy Barlow is turning into the little girl from “Outnumbered” with her debate skills.

Gary is turning into Charlie Stubbs.

Not only does Gail clean up after David at home, she cleans up after Nick at his work.

There is a reason Sally has never been made supervisor. Because she’s now insufferable. Frank couldn’t have known.

“Don’t tell anyone about James” is code to Tracy for “Go to the Rovers and tell everyone.”

Anyhow, I recently learned that Cherylee Houston, who plays Izzy, was on an episode of ‘Little Britain’:

I could only find the clip in German but the gist of it is that Andy says “I don’t want that one.” before pushing her to her doom. As you might have guessed, the actress uses a wheelchair in real life.

I’m hoping 2012 sees her move to the street for more story lines.

Note: “They see me rollin’” is derived from a popular internet meme from a few years back. The explanation can be found here, which is where I always go when I see a joke on the internet that I don’t understand.

Tonight, Lloyd, who is moving into Number 13 with T’Cheryl, announced his intentions to display his Northern Soul record collection. T’Cheryl objected, siting the tattered sleeves of his vintage records. One record Lloyd mentioned was “I Spy For the FBI” by Luther Ingram. So I had to go Google the tune. Good song.

And that 0% credit card you got, T’Cheryl? Yeah, that’s gonna bite you in the bum real fast.

So who here figured James was bad ‘un all along? Good luck getting that twenty grand back, Sophie.

I love some malapropisms, me.

As of tonight’s episode, the Canadian broadcasts of Coronation Street are exactly six months behind. It’s been years since we’ve been that close to the original UK broadcasts and it may be tempting to discuss current stories as we’re getting that much closer to seeing them here.

However, many of our readers prefer not to be spoiled and are happy to watch the stories unfold as they are broadcast on CBC. If a major plot point is revealed in the comments section, we will go in and delete that comment. I should point out that these spoilers are rare and the vast majority of our readers refrain from them because you’re all lovely. It’s just every so often, we need to reinforce the rules.

On occasion there will be exceptions, such as the death of a cast member but in general, we don’t discuss things that will happen six months from now.

It was way back in 2007 when Debbie mentioned in the comments that Elsie Tanner’s maiden name was Grimshaw. I always thought it was odd that particular piece of information just sat there on the shelf, not being used. You had a woman named Grimshaw living in the same house that a woman named Grimshaw also once lived. I thought it was obvious that she simply has to be  related to Elsie. And now, finally, the writers have decided to make that little piece of information official.

Will it have a big impact on any future plots? Not really, I imagine  but I do like it when the show takes its own trivia and continuity and actually does something with it.