The Mystery of Ken Barlow's Kitchen.

As I said in my first post, there are myriad inaccuracies in the wonderful world of Weatherfield, which we choose to ignore. The programme’s so great we can afford to let them off with the occasional mistake, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t notice them.

For me, it’s just one of the additional bonuses of being a Corrie fan.  It’s like a retro-version of the hidden treasure features – or ‘easter eggs’ – that you find in computer games.

As you go along you get better at spotting them.

Today’s starter, to get you interested, is quite simple, but it hides in plain sight.

The mens toilets in the Rovers Return are in Ken Barlow’s kitchen.

Not noticed? Allow me to illustrate, using train-spotterish knowledge accompanied with diagrams and plan views.

Coronation Street is terraced. Always has been, always will, no matter how many forms of transport are thrown at its dwellings.

As if I needed to tell you, that’s the Rovers on the left. Ken and Deirdre’s Love Palace is tucked up flush against it at Number 1.

A plan view serves to confirm that no gap exists between the two buildings and look, there’s Dev on his way to his acting lessons.

When you go inside the pub, you get an impression of how tiny it is, raising the question of how people have managed to conduct illicit affairs and nefarious business deals at the bar, whilst their victims are no more than three feet away, but that’s for another time.

If you look along the right hand wall you can see the jukebox, which – like the fruit machine – only needs to be emptied of cash every fifteen years. Further along are two doors, the first is to the toilets and the second to the cellar.

If you go through that first door, you would expect to be confronted by a scene like this, where Steve Mcdonald pulls one of his trademark gurns whilst he and Michelle try to pull Ryan back from the brink of a 5 second coke habit.

Instead, the architectural evidence conclusively proves that you’re far more likely to encounter this bucolic scene, leaving you only a sink, the kettle or Deirdre’s teapot to deposit your processed Newton and Ridleys, whilst Ken tries to get those trousers a bit higher and Deirdre ponders on how long it is before she can mainline another Berkeley javelin.

Coronation Street has never been just a soap opera. For the ardent observer, there are far more fiendish puzzles hidden within it's scenery and dialogue than can be found in the Da VInci Code.

You can't beat The Street

It’s never been fashionable to like Coronation Street.

Lots of people I know would never admit to watching it and will always be sniffy about it if it comes up in conversation, before betraying themselves with extensive knowledge of the storylines. I’ve got no such hang ups. I’ve been Corrie-out for years now and it’s very liberating.

I’ve been glued to the soap since the big hair days of Elsie Tanner and Bet Lynch. As a kid, I’d watch it with my mum, any subtlety concerning sexual shenanigans going right over my head, but guaranteed a big pay off of an annual punch up between Ken Barlow and Mike Baldwin. Invariably, this was over an exposé in the Weatherfield Recorder, causing our resident cockernee to issue his regular, finger wagging threat.

“You print anyfin’ baht me in that raaaaaag of yours, there’ll be twabble, Barlow!”

The thing that differentiates Corrie from any of the competition is that it never takes itself too seriously. Despite dealing with heavyweight issues like murder, adultery and the goings on at the Red Rec, there are always a few laughs to be had. The cleverness of the writing means that the two worlds blend well, unlike Eastenders where you’ve got incestuous murderers or panto characters like Minty trying to mix with each other like oil and water.

As well as just enjoying the Strasse for its longevity and cherished place at the heart of British culture, I love spotting the ever present inaccuracies and general strangeness on display. These are things that would be met with a furrowed brow in real life but are readily accepted within the soap, with tacit complicity between the cast, crew and watching millions. Things like:

• If Coronation Street is terraced and Ken and Deirdre live next door to the Rovers, why doesn’t someone attempting to use the pub toilets emerge in Ken’s kitchen?

• When having conversations, everyone sits well within breath smelling distance of each other.

• There is never a request for anything brand specific. The Rovers is the only pub in Great Britain where a shout for a ‘pint’ isn’t met with the response, ‘of what?’ by the bar staff. The closest anyone ever came to narrowing things down a bit was when Mike Baldwin would ask Rita for a packet of, 'my usual cigars.'

• How the fuck has Weatherfield got a Crown Court?

• Why does everyone drink their brews from empty cups? Some of the less able actors find this difficult to cope with and tend to oversup, then chew whatever their pretending to have in their mouths.

•Why are all affairs or clandestine business affairs conducted at the bar of the Rovers, usually within clear earshot of the victim or cuckolded husband/wife?

• How does a street containing a handful of houses sustain two shops selling broadly similar goods, Dev's and Rita's, when their only customers are their immediate neighbours?

The recent arrival of Sky Plus has allowed me to spot and rewind the occasional continuity errors, like pints of beer consumed in record time or hairstyles changing within the space of a sentence.

The peak example of ours and the cast's ability to turn a blind eye to inaccuracies, is the collective amnesia demonstrated about past plot lines. This allows murderers/robbers/ex-wifes/hated former partners/spurned lovers to all share communal space without recourse to immediate brawling. The character who sums this up perfectly is Gail. Never one to keep her own counsel and as judgmental as fuck, I find it impossible not to comment when she’s lecturing someone with a moral superiority she has no right to claim. A brief scan of her past should mean that the instant response she should be given by anyone she’s looking down on is:

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Gail! You’ve got a bit of a nerve. You’ve been married four times, once to a serial killer. Only one of your husbands has survived marriage to you. You carried out a five year feud with your mother in law. You’ve been divorced twice. Your daughter got knocked up when she was thirteen. You’ve had punch ups in the middle of the street with Eileen Grimshaw and the Barlows, mother and daughter. You’ve had to attend parenting classes because David was such a gobshite at school. You were going to have your perfectly sane mother sectioned. You’ve been banged up on remand and when you finally managed to get a decent job you betrayed doctor/patient confidentiality and got sacked, so fuck off, right!!”

This speech is applicable to any character with more than two years service with the notable exception of Emily (though it is the opinion of some conspiracy theorists that she had some involvement in the murder of Ernie. They say that hers is the shadow at bottom right).

I never miss it. It has it’s occasional dips in form, but as the t-shirt I once spotted on Market Street, Manchester said.

“You can beat your meat, but you can’t beat the Street.”

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.