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Oliver Cross: Chemic Tavern Soaps Disapproval Subcommittee and garden parties
Woodhouse resident and YEP columnist Oliver Cross discusses the Chemic Tavern Soaps Disapproval Subcommittee's Coronation Street plotline moan.
The Chemic Tavern Soaps Disapproval Subcommittee, on which people who don't like particular plot lines have to fold their arms under their bosoms and give everybody Annie Walker looks, has become very exercised about the distressing Coronation Street affair between Kevin and Molly.
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The general feeling is that Molly, who entered the series as a charming, sympathetic character, has started acting like some nutter from Walford – and actually not acting very well; she doesn't make a convincing vamp, although when it came to being homely and fresh, she was as perfect as a newly-baked Eccles cake.
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I also have an additional problem with the bust-up bound to ensue between Kevin and Sally. The sight of Kevin snarling and shouting makes you think he should really be cast as a full-time motor mechanic saying only things like 'We'll have it ready by Tuesday, Ken' and not getting at all involved in the drama, so you wouldn't want to strangle him so often.
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Sally I'm ambiguous about. She is one of the most full-rounded characters on Coronation Street (which means on television); we understand her rough background, her resultant tendency to snobbishness, her motherly determination, her suppressed anger at Kevin's thick-wittedness, her intelligence and spark. It's just that, like many real-life thoroughly admirable characters, I don't like her very much and with no good reason (well, possibly the pitch of her voice), for which I am rightly ashamed.
Incidentally, the Chemic Tavern Soaps Disapproval Subcommittee unanimously approves of the relatively new butcher's boy, Graeme.
He makes up, in comic-turn terms, for the recent absence of the magnificent Blanche and maybe when they are both back and Kevin, Sally and Molly have all moved on, possibly due to a mass strangling, we can get on with enjoying Coronation Street again.
Kitchen hitch to party plan
Many people have asked what's happened to my annual summer garden party because by now it should be well into the planning stage and I should be announcing new policy initiatives daily.
However, Lynne and I – to be honest, more Lynne than I – are in the process of planning our new kitchen, which is difficult to coordinate, timing-wise, into a viable party strategy going forward (notice how
I've started talking like a manager, which should tell you things are about to go very wrong).
For example, which is the best option, we could hold a 'laughing at our ludicrously outdated kitchen fittings and smashing them up with a lump hammer' party just prior to the refurbishment.
This, by garden party standards, would be very much business as usual, apart from the lump hammer, but the drawback is that having completed the demolition stage of the refurbishment, we might find ourselves sitting amid the rubble awaiting delivery of an essential specialised tap-washer from Germany (problem No 48 with new kitchens – they are far more complicated than they need to be) and wishing we had asked our guests to hold back a little.
The other scenario, which is holding the party soon after the refurbishment is completed, is even more dreadful because it would involve Lynne and I looking extremely smug while showing our guests round some of the dullest kitchen fittings in the land (because we haven't got the money to be very experimental) and telling them not to touch anything because we've just had it done.
'This is the fridge. It's got four temperature settings and – check this out – a special compartment for storing eggs. Now let's move on to the taps. See how smooth they are – on off, on off; it's quite literally completely like clockwork.
'And now on to the star of the show, our specially-installed 1.3m high compartment for storing exceptionally long spaghetti packets or French loaves. We can't wait to start using it!'
The new-kitchen party will not, of course, include any food or drink because that sort of thing makes posh kitchens look very messy, which is why it's a fact that the more elaborate and valuable kitchens have become, the more their users rely on takeaways, eating out or starving themselves.
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Saturday 19 May 2012
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