Coronation Street Episode Review Friday 17 August 8.30pm

We’re back and Audrey is at the prison visiting Lewis. He wants her to know that he’s a changed man. He’s no longer motivated by money or having his ‘massive ego massaged’ (tmi Audrey!). He wants nothing more than a second chance with only woman he has ever loved.   Audrey is clearly beguiled by his smooth talk. ‘People can change’ she tells her disbelieving daughter later. You can’t help but feel that this will fall on deaf ears with Gail, a woman who hasn’t changed her hairdo for the last 15 years!

Back at the hospital Saira gives in and allows Rana to see her father but it’s too late. Believing she and Kate are finished Hassan takes his daughters hand in apparent reconciliation as he passes away, leaving Rana distraught and wracked with guilt that she lied to her father on his deathbed.  In another room Billy is visiting blind Josh offering hope and miracles. Unsurprisingly the biblically punished rapist is unwilling to accept this salvation. You can’t win ‘em all Billy!

Elsewhere at the Metcalfe’s the very un-mastiff like Paula is down-to-earth, business like and positive they can win the case which is only based on circumstantial evidence. If only doubting Tim felt the same way. In the Rovers Imran and Leanne are enjoying a very flirty interview for Rosie’s old job which culminates in an offer of a game of scrabble. Who knew that the way to Leanne’s heart was through word games? We’d love to know what her triple word score is.

That’s nearly it apart from Carla and Peter both protesting far too much that they are just business partners.  Peter drops a bombshell that rather than being a sleeping partner he intends to work at the factory fulltime, but of course this is just about securing his investment and Simon’s future and in no way about Ms Connor’s pillowy lips.  Has everyone got that?

That’s all from me chuck. I'm @mskelstar on twitter, give us a follow (I’m no relation to Lewis Archer!)

Coronation Street Episode Review Friday 17 August 7.30pm

Welcome to the first of tonight’s two episode reviews...

Carla and Peter are both announcing their presence as the new (old) owners of the factory. Carla has a 50p pay rise for Sarah (seriously why bother?) and some customary sarcastic put-downs for the rest of the team whilst Peter is buying them all cakes and free drinks. I don’t think you need to be Poirot to work out which new boss might be the good cop.

Imran is unrepentant in his support for Dodgy Duncan. ‘It’s not personal it’s just business’ he tells Sally and Geena, clearly channelling his inner Michael Corleone. Note to Street residents: if Imran ever offers you a trip in a fishing boat, just turn it down. But never fear Geena is on the case and has hired a ‘bull-mastiff with a law degree’.  It’s ‘Princess Paula’ an old schoolfriend of the Seddon girls who is now a specialist in fraud cases and is luckily prepared to work for mate’s rates despite presumably not having seen either of them for about 35 years.

Over at the hospital, Rana is still being barred from seeing her Dad by Saira DeVille. Desperate to see her dying father Rana pretends she has broken up with Kate and in a scene creepily reminiscent of Carrie is forced by her mother to ‘confess’ how sinful she is and how her relationship was ‘shameful against nature’.

The Platt’s are having a busy day. Audrey has had a visiting order from Lewis and Gail has a new job, (courtesy of Sarah) doing Gary’s admin. Gary looks about as thrilled as a vegan who’s been given a KFC mega bucket. As he tries unsuccessfully to work on his forced smile Gail gets an unwelcome surprise of her own. Lewis Archer has mysteriously transferred £40k into her account. What is the sly silver fox up to?

We'll have to wait until 8.30 to find out...

Henry VIII only had three wives…and other surprising facts about England’s best-known king

1. It’s a miracle that he ever became king
Henry VIII was the second son of his father Henry VII, the spare rather than the heir. His older brother Arthur should have been king, but he died suddenly at the age of 15. Had Arthur lived Henry was destined for a career in the church…which might have rather scuppered his later matrimonial adventures!

On top of this the whole Tudor dynasty had a pretty shaky claim to throne of England.  His father Henry VII was the son of a minor Welsh nobleman. His mother had royal blood, being descended from Edward III, but hers was an illegitimate line meaning she should have been barred from the succession. Henry VII seized the throne after the Battle of Bosworth and then married the daughter of Edward IV to sure up his position, but there were still a great many of nobles who had a much better claim to the throne than the Tudors.

All of this made Henry VIII touchy and determined to rid his realm of anyone that may pose a threat. He ruthlessly ordered the executions of anyone who could have been a rival to him. One of the most brutal of these executions was the frail 67-year-old Margaret, Countess of Salisbury who was his second cousin. The poor woman, who was entirely innocent, lost her marbles when taken to the scaffold and refused to lay her head on the block. The amateur executioner ended up chasing her around the scaffold and hacking her to death, eventually severing her head after the eleventh blow. Proving that if you even had the tiniest bit of royal blood in their veins during Henry’s VIII your best bet was to get as far away as possible!

2. He wasn’t all that into sex
Far from the randy monarch chasing buxom maids of honour around Hampton Court, Henry was pretty prudish by the standards of his day. In fact, it’s likely that he had more wives than he had mistresses. Henry married six times (or did he, more on that later!) but there are only three women who are definitely known to have been his mistress, (other than those whom he subsequently married): Bessie Blount, Mary Boleyn and Madge Shelton. 

Henry was actually a romantic rather than a serial shagger.  He waited six years to bed his second wife Anne Boleyn and there’s no evidence that in that time he was sleeping with anyone else. Henry was looking for true love not just a quick bunk up.

Monarchs or nobles marrying for love in the 16th century was virtually unheard of. Royal and aristocratic marriages were arranged for purely dynastic reasons right up until the beginning of the 20th century. But Henry married at least four out of his six wives because he was in love with them. In fact, the one time he did what monarchs were supposed to do and married for diplomatic reasons it ended disastrously with Henry claiming he disliked the hapless bride on sight and then immediately falling head over heels in love with one of her maids of honour, who became wife number five!

3. He only had three wives 
The six wives of Henry VIII is the bit of British history we all know. There’s even a rhyme so that we can remember them all: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. And while it’s true that Henry took six different women down the aisle, he would have claimed that he was only married three times, and he may have had a point!

This is because Henry had three of his marriages – to Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves - annulled. Unlike a divorce where the couple choose to end their marriage, annulments essentially declare that the marriage never took place. So in legal terms, Henry VIII did only have three wives.

Of course, it really all depended on who you spoke to. His first wife Catherine of Aragon and her supporters maintained that her marriage was legal and that she was still married to the king up until her death, despite him repudiating her and marrying another woman. But Henry’s wives didn’t get a say in whether their marriages were null and void. In the Tudor court the only opinion that mattered was Henry’s, and if he claimed he’d only had three wives you’d probably be best agreeing with him if you wanted to keep your head on your shoulders!

4. He was a Catholic
After the six wives the other important part of Henry’s reign that we learn about in history class is how he broke away from Rome and turned England into a Protestant country. Except that Henry VIII still thought of himself as a Catholic.

Up until he decided that he wanted out of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry had been a staunch Catholic. In 1521 he’d written a book condemning the new Protestant teachings of Martin Luther and been rewarded with the title Defender of the Faith by the Pope. But that all changed in the 1530’s.

Henry wanted the Pope to declare his marriage to Catherine null and void but when the Pope refused he decided to take matters into his own hands. He passed an act stating that he, Henry was now the Head of the Church of England and declared that the Pope no longer had any authority in England. 

But even while he was picking a fight with Rome and stripping the Catholic monasteries of all their land and valuables Henry held very conservative views on religion. He didn’t want England turning into a Protestant country and in 1539 he passed the Sixth Articles which said that Catholic beliefs and services were to be followed in church.  This included confession, priests remaining celibate and holy communion. Three unlucky protestants who denied Catholic beliefs were burned at the stake.

All of which makes you wonder whether if Henry had got his own way over his annulment then would England still be a Catholic country?

5. He may have been impotent
As we discovered above Henry was never really a hit as a Casanova, much preferring romantic courtly love to a saucy romp, but this could also be due to him having problems in the bedroom department.

Anne Boleyn his second wife (in a remark that would return to haunt her) told her sister-in-law that the King could not satisfy a woman as he had neither ‘vertu’ [skill] nor ‘puissance’ [vigour].
In a later marriage to Anne of Cleves he was again unable to perform. Henry of course claimed that it was her fault, that her body was repulsive to him and that: ‘he could never …be provoked and steered to know her carnally’. There were various other excuses but they all added up to the same thing: Henry was unable to consummate his marriage. 

There may have been medical reasons for his failure to perform. In 1536, age 44 he took a fall from his horse and was unconscious for two hours. This could have caused a brain injury which would have had a detrimental effect on his sex life. His increasing weight gain was also a problem. After the accident his waist expanded from 32in to 52in! So even if he could have raised his flagpole, he was hardly every girl’s fantasy!

Why Heathcliff and Darth Vader are the same person

This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Emily Bronte – author of Wuthering Heights. The book is widely regarded as one of the classics of English literature and has influenced everyone from Sylvia Plath to Kate Bush…to Star Wars. Yep, if you’re struggling to understand Heathcliff in your English Literature class you need look no further than Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. He and Heathcliff are pretty much identical characters.

Brooding Romantic hero Heathcliff and the most terrifying villain of the Galactic Empire? Seems hard to grasp unless you know that our image of Heathcliff’s character has been heavily influenced by the numerous film versions, the majority of which are only interested in the love story between Heathcliff and Cathy and forget the rest of the book, where he’s frankly a bit of a shit!

Most film adaptations of Wuthering Heights end with Cathy’s death, after which hers and Heathcliff’s ghosts wander the moors, never to be parted for all eternity. Ahh how romantic! Except that Cathy dies about a third of the way into the book. Love story kaput.  After that Heathcliff spends the rest of the novel exacting violent revenge on all those around him and generally making everyone, including his and Cathy’s children’s, lives miserable, until he finally gets to meet her ghost again at the very end of the novel.

So, our notion of Wuthering Heights is much like (horror of horrors) only having seen the prequel Star Wars trilogy. The Heathcliff of the first part of the book and the film adaptations, most notably the version of the character created by Lawrence Olivier in the famous 1939 version, is basically prequel Anakin. Whereas the Heathcliff of the later part of the book savagely sadistic, vengeful, devoid of empathy and with all the charm of a constipated nightclub bouncer has more in common with Darth Vader. Same character.

Still not sure? Let’s look at the evidence.

1. Mysterious origins
Heathcliff is an orphan found on the streets of Liverpool and brought to live with the Earnshaw family. From the very beginning there is something ‘other’ about him, something evil. He’s described as a fiend; some characters even speculate that he may be the devil.

Anakin has no father. He seems to have just sprung into creation, possibly when Palpatine’s Sith Master Darth Plagueis figured out how to manipulate the force into creating life. If that’s true, then like Heathcliff, Anakin could be evil incarnate.

2. All-encompassing passion for a woman
Both Heathcliff and Anakin grow up and fall madly in love with a beautiful woman forbidden to them. Each end up pushing her away and eventually lose her to premature death. They’re both destroyed by this, completely unable to move on and become obsessed with the object of their passion returning to them.

‘I will do whatever you ask. Just help me save Padme's life. I can't live without her. If she dies, I don't know what I will do.’ Anakin Skywalker, Revenge of the Sith

‘Do not leave me in this abyss alone […] I cannot live without my life and I cannot live without my soul’. Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights (16:25)

3. Personality
Heathcliff practically embodies the code of the Sith. He is passionate, arrogant and proud, a man who hates as deeply as he loves.  Despite displaying a high level of intelligence and ability, he is self-destructive. He chooses exile out of a hatred for social institutions and norms.

The Darth Vader we meet at the beginning of the original trilogy has become an inhuman monster. He thinks of nothing but power and, like Heathcliff, his need to survive at all costs has driven out the space in his soul for other people.

Both men are cold, brutal and ruthless with a lot of anger management issues. Heathcliff never quite mastered the art of force choking but given the amount of physical violence he dolls out to his hapless wife and son you get the distinct impression he’d have been on it like white on rice.

‘That's not the plan. The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him; they crush those beneath them.’ – Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights (11.51)

Darth Vader: <after force choking Admiral Ozzel to death> ‘You are in command now... Admiral Piett!’
Admiral Piett: ‘Thank you, Lord Vader’
- The Empire Strikes Back

4. Ghostly redemption
Heathcliff believes in communication from beyond the grave and longs to join Cathy in the afterlife. Just a glimpse of her ghost is enough to make him give up on his obsessive revenge, and he dies soon after. 

‘I have a strong faith in ghosts; I have a conviction that they can, and do exist, among us!’ Heathcliff (29.24).

Darth Vader, whilst redeemed by the love of his son allows himself to once more believe in the power of unconditional love and when he dies is finally allowed to join the ghost the immortal souls of Obi-Wan and Yoda as they watch over Luke during the rebel celebration on Endor.

Which all in all makes you wonder how they got the casting in the prequel trilogy so wrong.

Imagine if they’d have got the sort of actor who usually gets the role of Heathcliff to play Anakin. Tom Hardy and Michael Fassbender are only a few years older than Hayden Christenson, either could have played the role as a true Byronic hero. A proud man unwilling to bow for anyone, wrestling with his internal conflict rather than a petulant teenager having a strop because the Jedi wouldn’t let them play with their toys.

Just imagine that, remembering prequel Anakin not as a whiny little shit who ruined Star Wars, but as a great tragic hero for our generation. Really George Lucas, what would Emily Bronte say?

Coronation Street Episode Review - Friday 3 August

Published on 4 August at https://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com/ 

It’s the day of Aidan’s inquest and the Connor clan are steeling themselves to relive the terrible ordeal and anxiously wondering if Eva will show up with baby Susie.

She makes an entrance, late but perfectly accessorised, mother and child in matching pink and with the devoted Adam in tow.   He clearly didn’t get the pink outfit memo and has rather let the side down in a boring black shirt.

Johnny is the first to speak and gives a harrowing account of finding his son’s body, but it’s Eva who makes sure there isn’t a dry eye in the house.

‘He thought he was setting me free, which only made me love him more’, she sobs.

Meanwhile at the back of the room Adam clutches baby Susie and you see the realisation dawn that Aidan was and always will be the love of Eva’s life. As she pitifully tells the inquest that she loved Aidan with all her heart he knows that he will never be able to compete.

Over at the Rovers Gemma has dealt with the Dubonnet mountain by inventing the Uber-Duber, (a cocktail which appears to be at least palatable). It’s a better idea than Henry’s one – start a Rovers Instagram account. There’s only so many images of hot-pots and Liz McDonald in spandex that the internet can stand. The cocktails sell like…err…hot-pots and before long Mary is on the Karaoke murdering ‘Sex Bomb’. When a fight for the microphone breaks out between her and Gina (I always had her down as more of an Ed Sheeran fan), Gemma’s years of experience of being kicked out of pubs comes in handy as she breaks up the fight, earning a nod of approval from ‘old-hand’ Liz McDonald.

It should be Gemma’s moment of pride, but a fall is lurking around the corner in the form of a public-school educated scoundrel. Watched by Chesney, Henry takes a furtive phone call and then skulks around the back of the pub to meet with a posh looking woman, (who we presume is his fiancée), to assure her that he will let Gemma down soon. Posh fiancée seems remarkable nonplussed that her betrothed is playing at pub with an ex-girlfriend, but that’s the ruling classes for you. To misquote Oscar Wilde: ‘They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility!’

Daniel offers the empty shop to Brian in light of his impending fatherhood, which will mean he’ll need a proper income rather than low-paid jobs like waiting tables…oh no hang on... It may be too late though, Brian is looking after a clearly besotted Joseph in a camouflage den and seems to have found his true calling as a Bear Grylls themed childminder. Looks like Dan-aed might be stuck with the shop. I hope the moths in the freezer trick worked!

Meanwhile Sean is trying to deal with the aftermath of the mugging by making flippant remarks and pushing away anyone who tries to help him. He brusquely refuses Craig’s offer of help and pretends he doesn’t know Carol. It’s only as he frantically tries to wash the clothes he’s slept in and hungrily devours a thrown-away pizza, that his dire circumstances dawn on him.

As the inquest ends Peter appears, apparently for no other reason than to stalk Carla and be cruel to Toyah, the man is such a charmer. Away from Eva, Adam confesses to him that he doesn’t know how he can compete with a dead man ‘He’s only going to grow more perfect’, he muses.

‘Don’t waste your life wishing for something you can never have’, Peter tells Adam. Hmm pot, kettle Mr Barlow, isn’t your current raison d’etre to get an unwilling Carla to have dinner with you?

Back at Coronation Street, Tracy, Abi and Beth have their glowsticks at the ready as they head off to an acid house party in Blackpool. Abi appears to be dressed as Ian Brown and wastes no time in mocking Beth’s choice of outfit. As acid house raves finished in roughly 1992 I’m wondering if all of them might have got this very wrong and maybe need to remember that they’re all pushing 40 and would probably feel a lot more comfortable in a nice Boden shift dress.

Steve catches the girls and plays a guilt trip on Tracy about her missing Amy’s (actually cancelled) violin concert. She’s so relieved to be ‘let off’ that she agrees to him getting a County season ticket. 1 nil to Steve. For now.

Back at the Rovers Eva is saying her goodbyes. She and Johnny reconcile, both finally accepting that neither of them is to blame for Aidan’s suicide. Eva tells him he will always be Susie’s Granddad and invites him to come and visit whenever he likes. It’s all looking like a fairytale ending for our pink princess until Adam tells her he needs to talk to her. He can’t live with knowing that it’s Aidan that she really wants. She tells him she needs him, but his mind is made up. When he says that she doesn’t love him as much as she loved Aidan she can’t deny it. They part as friends but turns out that the hardest goodbye is yet to come.

As Eva hugs her two sisters Toyah all but begs her and Susie to stay, leading Eva to explain that her attachment to Susie is the main reason she’s leaving. As Toyah hands Susie back and watches her and Eva get into the taxi you can almost hear her heart breaking.

‘It’s just me and you now babes’ says Eva to her little girl as they leave the Cobbles.  Good luck Eva. May your laugh echo around vineyards of France!

Why Jenny Bradley-Connor is ten types of terrific

Previously published on 31 May 2018 at https://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com

Right I’ll come out and say it – Johnny Connor you don’t deserve Jenny! A controversial view I know as most Corrie viewers enjoy the Connor/Bradley partnership, but I think that Aiden’s suicide has exposed the major flaw in their relationship - that Johnny doesn’t realise how lucky he is.

Obviously we’re now seeing Johnny at his absolute lowest ebb, and that is understandable. His grief at the loss of his beloved son is vicious and all-encompassing and poor Jenny is on the sharp end of it, unable to do or say anything right.

Most of us are at a loss for words when we try to console someone. No doubt Jenny hoped that whatever she said Johnny would understand that it came from a place of love and caring, but he doesn’t. He can’t. When he hears her platitudes: ‘He was a lovely man’; ‘If this can just save one life,', it enrages him. When she tries to talk about her own experience of losing a child he thinks she is invalidating his pain.

The worst thing for Jenny is that she is probably treating Johnny the way she wanted to be treated when she suffered the loss of her own son. Without getting all ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’, I imagine that when Jenny lost Tommy she wanted to talk about her pain and be listened to, to feel that she wasn’t alone. Whilst Johnny, an old-school man’s man just hears empty words which don’t fix anything and so takes refuge in anger, a large bottle of scotch and Liz McDonald’s cleavage.

So yes, we could argue that we shouldn’t be judging Johnny by his current actions but I think that even before Aiden’s death he was showing a distinct lack of appreciation for the radiant Ms Bradley-Connor.

On more than one occasion he’s seemed embarrassed by his wife, telling her off for drinking too much, shushing her when she talks too loudly.  This is quite outstanding behaviour when you consider that Jenny is nearly 20 years younger than him…in the words of Alan Partridge: ‘back of the net!’. Plus, she’s loyal, attentive, wears lovely fitted dresses and has immaculate hair. Really Mr Connor if you think Liz McDonald is going to be a more dignified partner you’re very much mistaken! Have you seen those red spandex leggings?

It’s true that Johnny is a step up from her Jenny’s beau Kevin Webster, but mainly because he can use words of more than one syllable and is able to purchase a different jacket in 30 years, so I don’t think he should go resting on his laurels.

Maybe Jenny and Johnny can work, I hope so. It would be good if they could come through this and emerge as one of the great Corrie power couples. But I fear that Johnny’s drift towards Liz in his hour of need is a bad sign and that like so many Corrie men, he won’t realise what he had until he loses it.

Still, if the worst comes to the worst I’m going to really enjoy the incomparable Jenny Bradley facial expressions as she takes him for everything he has at the divorce courts!

We need more Carla drama

Previously published on 23 April 2018 at https://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com 

Is anyone else feeling a bit disappointed by Carla Mark 2?

The Carla we knew and loved was a glamorous, strong, independent, successful businesswoman who could ferociously hold her own. Self-destructive yes, vulnerable at times, but a true drama queen and survivor in the mould of Elsie Tanner and Bet Gilroy.

I know that the writers are trying to do something a bit different with Carla. To not have her treading the same ground of rowing with Tracy, dealing with a commotion at the factory and having an on-off relationship with Peter, but that’s the Carla we fell in love with.

Carla Mark 2 has no home, no business to run and no defining struggle. I’m not sure I can even count her latest fight with Michelle, mainly because I’m struggling to think of a character that Michelle hasn’t had a barney with at some point! Michelle could start a fight in an empty room. This is a woman whose default setting is furious indignation, so it was only a matter of time before she got around to Carla.

The relationship with Roy has been very sweet and enjoyable but it seems to have reduced Carla to a teenager who sneaks boys out of her room hoping her ‘dad’ doesn’t catch them. There are people in this world who don’t function without a bit of excitement and melodrama, taking that away from Carla is like making Grace Jones eat a pot noodle whilst wearing a onesie.

There is an obvious solution of course – reuniting her with Peter. Peter and Carla are the Burton and Taylor of the Street, there’s even a physical resemblance with Carla’s dark gypsy looks and Peter’s brooding charm. Like Liz and Dick they’ve endured scandal, alcoholism, infidelity and bitter separation. But through the fighting and pain you always felt that theirs was a genuine passion.

The Burtons married and divorced each other twice. ‘I am forever punished by the gods for being given the fire and trying to put it out,’ the actor wrote, around the time of their first separation. ‘The fire, of course, is you.’ Theirs was a love-affair that didn’t have a before and after; it was all during or in-between.

Peter shares Burton’s tormented alcoholism, if not perhaps his eloquent delivery and Taylor according to those who knew her ‘needed the bracing reality of a good fight’. Sound familiar?  So come on you two, it’s time to put aside these frivolities with Toyah and the latest toy-boy. We need you back together laughing, loving, fighting and drinking and. We need some Carla drama!

Toyah...it's a mystery

Previously published on 9 April 2018 at https://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com 

Poor Toyah Battersby. It feels like she doesn’t belong on the Street. In a world of hotpots and kebabs, she doesn’t eat meat. Amongst the false eyelashes and deep cleavages, she dresses with the sort of modesty that would make a Jane Austen heroine look a bit slutty.

Toyah is clever and dedicated, she actually put some time and effort into training as a therapist, rather than just rocking up at the Bistro or the factory with a burning desire to wait tables or stitch some knickers.  But there’s no outlet for her principles and intelligence in Weatherfield. Her attempts to bring the Rovers into the 20th century (21st would be a bridge too far) by offering, horror of horrors, a vegetarian option was met with derision all round. And her professional training has so far only been put to use in mediating (unsuccessfully) with Liz over some cleaning chores.

Then there’s Peter. Nearly twenty years older than her with more ex’s than Rod Stewart, is he really the best this educated woman can hope for? I’m not even convinced that he truly loves her. When he was being quizzed by Carla the best he could find to say is ‘Toyah keeps me grounded’. I’m sorry…she ‘keeps you grounded’? Not ‘she’s the love of my life’? Not ‘I think about her every waking moment’? Not ‘I’d run stark naked through a swarm of angry bees just for one of her smiles’. Ok maybe the last one is going a bit far, but he did confess to a murder he didn’t commit for the love of the fragrant Ms Connor. 

Finally, the Eva/baby storyline, which makes no sense at all. Yes, we know that Toyah desperately wants to have a baby, she went through rounds of costly and heart-breaking IVF with her husband Toby. But there’s the problem – if having a baby that is biologically yours isn’t an issue why didn’t she and Toby adopt years ago? Or why not adopt a baby legally with Peter? Why does it make more sense to secretly adopt a child and then pass it off as your own? We all know this is going to end in tears, and they won’t be new-born baby ones.

So please let’s give the lovely Toyah a storyline that actually fits with her character. Maybe she could challenge Sally for Mayor on a Green Party ticket? Or she could start up her own vegan shake bar?  Better still let her set up her own practice at the medical centre dispensing therapy to the residents of Weatherfield. God knows they need it! What with Craig’s OCD and Gail’s gullible belief in vengeful husbands from the other side, she’d never be short of clients. The Barlow family alone could keep her in work for about ten years!

Millennials! Step away from the porn.

Last month I went out for after work drinks with a group of millennial's from my office. Rum and cokes flowed, people relaxed and let their guard down and that’s when one of the group, let’s call him Nick, casually stated: ‘I have a lot of friends who do porn.’

No one seemed be at all perturbed by this revelation, it’s possible that they were all just better at playing it cool than me. As I spat my drink over the table I spluttered ‘WHAT??!!  What do you mean – do porn?’

‘Oh yeah’ Nick continued, using the same offhand tone you’d use to discuss borrowing a phone charger, ‘I have friends who film themselves having sex and then upload it on a pay-for-view channel.'

As I mopped up the Cuba Libre sputum from the table it was clear that I was having trouble processing this information.

Nick helpfully explained: ‘I suppose it’s just a way of monetarising your life, like if you have a driveway you don’t use you can rent that out, or if you have some power tools you can rent those out, it’s exactly the same thing.’

‘But…’ I stuttered ‘someone you know could see it?’

‘Yeah s’pose’ he shrugged ‘but no one really cares anymore.’

And with that he downed his drink and changed the subject, leaving me sporting the sort of blank open-mouthed look that probably wouldn’t look out of place on one of his mate’s home movies.

But once I’d composed myself and left the bar, it set me thinking – was he right? Am I hopelessly behind the times and does no one really care anymore?

Worryingly I suspect that the truth is more unsettling.  If you are a millennial you had your formative years on the cusp of the expansion of the porn industry, with a seemingly endless source of x-rated material available to you. This, combined with the ease of making and posting videos with your smartphone, effectively normalised something that was once taboo.  Porn has become such a social norm that flashing your fandango to a paying audience is really seen as no different to lending someone your panel sander.

And maybe millennials and their peers are so inured to this that they really don’t care, but that doesn’t mean that nobody else does. I don’t know if Nicks friends realised that their badly lit naked antics were never going to go away, someone would find it and judge them. They wouldn’t be able to put their amateur adult movie past behind them and get jobs as primary school teachers because let’s face it, no one wants you reading Harry Potter to a group of impressionable 7-year-olds if half of their dads have seen someone waving their wand in your chamber of secrets.

That doesn’t mean that anyone over 35 is a judgemental  prude. But we had to work a lot harder to see anything even remotely resembling filth, and this made us regard pornography with a sort of reverence. Instant gratification was just not possible with a dial-up internet connection - excruciatingly slow and noisy, it screeched at you like a disapproving banshee.  You had time to cook your dinner before a single horizontal slice of naked flesh had downloaded, giving you ample time to ponder whether you really needed to see Tommy Lee’s wedding tackle or whether your time wouldn’t be better spent writing a novel or learning Cantonese.

If you were lucky you might be able to get hold of a naughty DVD but even that was a potential minefield. I still have anxiety about the time I found a copy of soft porn ‘Flash Gordon’ spoof ‘Flesh Gordon’ in my local charity shop and was subjected to an interrogation by the elderly bespectacled man at the counter.

‘You do know this is an adult film?

‘Yes.’

 ‘You realise this isn’t the one that’s on the television.’

‘I’m aware of that, yes.‘

‘This is not a film for children.’

‘I don’t have any bloody children!!’ 

I hadn’t meant to raise my voice to the nice, bespectacled man who was merely trying to protect the honour of my imaginary children. But by now there were a queue of respectable people forming behind me, one of them most likely to be my old headmistress.

‘Ahh Kelly, so what have you done with your life? U-huh…oh I see, buying masturbatory material from a charity shop. You’re not even classy enough to go to a regular sex shop like the rest of us. It’s fair to say you’ve let me down…you’ve let yourself down...’

I panicked.

‘Just let me buy my soft-porn and leave here like the cheap pervert that I clearly am!’ I shouted at bespectacled man, as I threw my money on the counter and ran from the shop.

No, I’m not proud of myself.

But having to work hard to get your freak on made you have a bit of patience, even a bit respect for it. The trouble with pornography being so readily available today is that it gives us a tendency to see it as just another easily acquired commodity and the people in it as just ‘things’. From there it’s a natural next step to viewing your own sex life, (which in your 20’s should be full of secret, shared, joyful moments), as just something else to trade when your student loan needs paying off.

I’m not saying we need to return to the days of dial-up modems and furtively acquired copies of Razzle but dear Millennials please stand still and take time to smell the lube.

Have all the sex you want, in as many different ways and flavours as you want. Experiment sure, but don’t feel that you have to be a part of an industry that has tricked you into believing that your happy valley has no more value than a cordless drill. Because you’re wrong Nick, people do care.