Unsung heroes: Neil...

Never has one man's face told such a story...

​

Coronation Street has never shyed away from it's more eccentric, sightly crackers or downright deranged characters (Tony Gordon, that Irish nurse who stalked Martin Platt, Don Brennan..) - but the newest one is rapidly becoming my favourite...

Yes, I am talking about the cuckolded Neil. The poor man. After working away in various danger zones to make sure his family had a nice semi-detached and garden, matching settees and cushions (the sort of house where you know they have a proper dinner service and cutlery...) he returned home to find his wife Andrea shacked up with him from Red Dwarf, and no idea she appeared on Dancing on Ice...

​

After having her head turned by a history course, a few nights out in the Rovers and a heart attack from space-invader turned cabbie, Lloyd - she decided this was the life she'd been craving. Yes, really... No amount of Michelle's eye-rolling, sarkiness from an increasingly bitter Eileen, nor Steve's gurning could stop these star-crossed lovers.

So, Neil was binned off. And, doesn't seem to be taking the news all that well. He's promised to give up fishing, sacked off his job (this time in the Philippines with a car!) and is becoming a fantastically unnerving, but really polite stalker. Happily asking, 'Ooh, what film are you watching?' - when asked to not stand outside his estranged wife's new home all night. Randomly interrupting her dates with tales of her pregnancy cravings, and leaving all his luggage at the airport when he legged if off a flight to 'win' her back... Or just grind her down (no jokes at the back, please).

My personal favourite has to be his bonding with a children's clown sent round as a wind-up by Steve and Lloyd in response to 'pizzagate'. In an ironic twist, the clown's wife had just left him too...

The clown and Neil penciled in a second date and will be, 'meeting for a pint soon'.

​

Good on you Neil - and may your campaign of (quite literally) killing them with kindness continue! 

Size isn't everything...except when it's chipboard.

When gormless couple Tyrone and Fiz decided on a loft conversion, they knew they could rely on on the honest, yet painfully dim Jason to go a good job - mates rates too. Get in!

Behind the scenes,  the strings on Jason's business were being pulled by the nefarious forces of Tony and Todd. Especially Todd, who this time around is less the rosy-cheeked, sexually-confused Ken Barlow in the making and more Hitler-haired Iago...

In order to keep costs low, drum up business and make plenty cash - Tony gave Todd the job in admin/PR or something? Anyway it's involved Todd  trying to con Norris into getting a new roof, cold calling old ladies and offering to send round 'his best man for the job', oh - and picking on Gary a bit...the last bit seems seems a fair perk of the job to me though. 

But, tricky Todd has come unstuck with his over-cocky sneering and gift of the gab... When the workshy gobshite was sent by two experienced builders to buy the materials for the loft conversion (no, I have no idea why either...), he made a bit of an 'executive decision'. Rather than buying the right thickness of chipboard (I cannot remember the exact dimensions - neither could Todd), he bought a smaller size and pocketed the change. Now, I don't blame him for doing it (hopefully he put the money towards moving out of his mother's already overcrowded house) - but you'd have thought Todd would know that sometimes - size is everything?

Even Tony, who we know is a bad 'un because he's flogged hooky hairdryers to the two murderers warned Todd that that the chipboard would be unsafe, (especially in a house whose inhabitants seem to exist on pie, chips, bacon butties and lashings of ale). And even Gary (onetime soldier, who emotes by crying outside the shed at his Mum's or hitting people with a plank of two-by-four) voiced his concerns...only to be threatened with the sack by naughty Todd. 

So the floor was laid and thus the scene was set - for tragedy. Or rather, daft bloody Tyrone went up to a unfinished loft conversion after being explicitly told not to for safety reasons. Father Dougal and the big red button all over again...

So Tyrone has a bust hand, but no indication of any sense being knocked into him. Fiz is being her usual sympathetic self; moaning about her lot, picking at Tyrone and drinking pints while he's on the Orange Juice... All this whilst Tony's chucking money at them, so they don't claim on their invalidated insurance. 

One half of that dreary couple sure ain't as thick as they look...