you're fired

wearing his spare cream-coloured xxxxl harrington jacket (the black one must be in the wash with weeping eileen's mazzy stains all over it) paul is being remarkably patient as a man whose partner is increasingly likely to be sliding down his pole with the quivering julie. julie gets more and more distressed by life as viewed from behind a tweed poncho. actress katy cavanagh has clearly been given a nearest and dearest dvd box set. her julie now seems an undeniable homage to madge hindle- the great blackburn comedy actress who played a permanently petrified lily tattersall in the long running hylda baker and jimmy jewel vehicle. madge was perhaps better known as alf roberts' partner in corrie. madge was, however, far more strident than the fretting femme frank spencer, julie. hanging about with the skittish sister she never wanted is making eileen nervous. on reflection, it's hard to see what eileen's tv problem is with paul returning to work:

a. she can nip down in julie's metro and have a gas with captain flack whenever she feels like, and
b. ok, you do lose the occasional toni, but most fictional firemen/women either slapstick their way through it- like the genius will hay in the 1940 film where's that fire? or avoid any danger 'through daft deliberation like robb wilton.

pugh, pugh, barney mcgrew, cuthbert, dibble and grub spent the whole of 1967- putting out the odd minor blaze of some mdf offcuts round the back of chippy minton's place, or brushing up on their band skills for a knocking off park concert every day at six. having spent most of this week landing unsubtle and unexpected smackers on eileen (surely an award for bravery beyond the call of duty right there) i'd say paul must be ready for the trombone.

with roy's rolls having become some rewardingly entertaining altamont-styled tinderbox, the arthritic dope smoking storyline concluded far too quickly. sylvia's toker in a twin set routine saw some exemplary work from stephanie cole. perhaps it couldn't have got much funnier than dennis asleep on the floor of the kabin - out of his mind on skunked-up brownies and surrounded by sweet wrappers. this attack of 'the munchies' seemed to have occured while manning the counter. norris was out haunting a painfully grieving dev. actor philip lowrie seems to relish the opportunity to really fly, man, as mischievous tale carrier, dennis.

while we're in the kabin, get us a quarter of bon bons, chuck.

but back to wayward septuagenarians skinning up like scousers: what have they done with stan- weatherfield's howard marks? probably down the one o' clock club dj-ing with primal scream. or consigned to the great pantheon of comic corrie cameos. it would have been easy to imagine a whole life and death for spaced out stan on the hallowed cobbles. just like the renshaw twins- identical old ladies who dropped into the salon for a shampoo and set a couple of times, or norris' upstagingly gossipy brother from another mother, horace.