CATCH-UP - Love Man

Music is the food of love, as anyone who's ever listened to Damon Albarn will testify.

Liz employed the power of music, namely that of Otis Redding, to persuade Vernon not to leave her. She cunningly supplied Lloyd with a tape of a musical history of her relationship with Vernon, to play in the car on the way to th'airport, where Vernon was bound for some hedonistic musical residence in Malaga, or Maguluf, or one of those Spanish places beginning in Mag.

It worked! By the end of the episode Vernon's hang-dog face was back at t'Rovers and all was right with the world.

Only not quite, because this is a soap, and if everyone was happy there'd be no reason to watch it tomorrow. So we still have Ashley and Claire at odds with each other, still have Casey worming her way into Ashley's affections.

And we still have Leanne making a right mess of the restaurant trade. She was even reduced to asking Carla to be a sleeping partner, with a £20,000 investment in exchange for a 30% share of the business. But, like a scene from Dragon's Den, Carla said she'd give her the £20k, but would want a 60% share. "Then you'd be me boss," fretted Leanne, her wonky eyes getting wonkier by the second. Carla said take it or leave it, Leanne decided she'd leave it.

In other news, I heard on the radio yesterday that Liz Dawn, who has played Vera Duckworth since almost the beginning of time (1974) will be leaving the show this year due to ill health. The end of an (V)era.

CATCH-UP - Women, eh?

Joanne's sick of being a yo-yo and she's putting her foot down. She's threatening to take Liam and Carla to a tribunal - her for unfair dismissal and him for sexual harrassment. "You think you're God's gift to women!" she says to Liam.

Look at him, you fool - he is God's gift to woman, and I, for one, am eternally grateful.

(Which doesn't make sexual harrassment right, of course, but he didn't, actually).

Elsewhere, Casey is making herself indispensable to Ashley. Sneaky mare.

And I forgot to mention previously, but Roger admitted to Janice the other day that he has no money - he gave it all to Leanne. And today Leanne made a right mess up of things in t'restaurant (she gives away free wine, and it doesn't take Gordon Ramsey to point out that this is financial suicide). The chef and head/only waiter have quit, and she is up excrement creek without a paddle.

CATCH-UP - Don't scare the Peacocks

Claire needs a bit of space, so she's packed Baby Freddie and his amusing halo of hair and gone to her mother's, leaving Ashley and Our Joshua to fend for themselves. At times like these a girl Needs A Friend, and since former bezzie mate Tracey "Murderess" Barlow is banged up, Claire turned to her new/old close pal "Head" Casey for sympathy-slash-support. Which Casey was very happy to provide, and her cheering up of Claire complete, she then went and visited Ashley. It seems that Casey may well have designs on the butch butcher - they were sitting a bit too close on one of the famously small Corrie sofas, and at one point Casey was actually stroking Ashley's arm! Yikes! He was only saved by the timely appearance of Our Joshua.

Meanwhile, Joanne has assumed the status of human yo-yo, as Carla sacks her one minute only for Liam to reinstate her the next.

And Eileen introduced Pat to her son and her daughter-in-law-to-be. They got on famously, but after Pat had gone Eileen dropped the bombshell that he was married. Sarah-Love and Our Jason were shocked.

CATCH-UP - Something for the weekend?

Maria Sullivan has an incredible talent as a hairdresser - people leave the salon looking exactly the same as when they went in. She achieves this by standing chatting to them and hovering a comb approximately 3cm from their head. After a while they thank her, pay her, and leave.

Nice work if you can get it, and even nicer when the head you're hovering over is that of Liam Connor. Liam really didn't need a haircut, having just had one last week, but the scriptwriters obviously noticed that two of the most attractive cast members had been single for too long, so Liam took the bold step of deciding to have his beautiful black hair trimmed at t'salon.

Elsewhere, Ashley was worried about Claire again as she went AWOL shortly before Freddie's first birthday party, and forgot to pick Our Joshua up from school. She'd been at the police station finding out if there'd been any progress on the hunt for the evil arsonist/baby snatcher. There hadn't (they should get that Scouse detective back, he was much better).

There's always a spectre at every Corrie feast, and at Freddie's birthday feast the spectre was Casey. She'd come ostensibly to apologise to Claire for the "horrible" things she said to and about her on their previous meeting. She's a cunning one, that Casey, and it wasn't long before she and Claire were curled up on the Peacock sofa having a good old chinny-wag and declaring that they each needed a friend and the friend they needed was each other. Meanwhile the other party guests were all packed into the conservatory, with Ashley ducking out in time to hear Claire giving him a bit of a slagging off to her new best mate.

Vernon spent the night in t'cab office sleeping in that nasty armchair. He's not interested in getting back with Liz, and feels that people don't take him seriously. Violet also accused Liz of not taking Vernon seriously and said she always felt that Liz was stringing Vernon along for want of anything better. Liz was shocked by this, but later had to admit there was a grain of truth to it. Now she has asked Lloyd to offer Vernon a room in his flat, which she (Liz) will pay for secretly.

Janice and Roger went to Leanne's restaurant, and Roger was worried about the profit margins. Cilla came in asking for a job, and Leanne took great pleasure in showing her the door.

CATCH-UP - Don't go breaking his heart

A new face on the Street, and he's going to be Trouble.

We know this because his father is Terry Duckworth, good-for-nothing spawn of Vera and Jack. Molly has been getting in touch with everyone in Vera's address book, hoping that someone will relieve her and Tyrone of the burden of caring for the elderly twosome. When Paul Clayton turns up it looks like her prayers have been answered, but they do say be careful what you wish for. Tyrone is the only one who isn't fooled by Paul's devoted grandson schtick.

Meanwhile, Liz should also have taken more care about what she wished for. She wanted a bit of excitement and passion in her life, and lo and behold there was Derek. Only it turns out that Derek is an even more needy and weedy specimen than Vernon.

Having been dumped by his wife, Derek turns up at t'Rovers to have a cry on Vernon's shoulder. But while Vernon is busy elsewhere, Derek tells Liz he'll tell Vernon all about their affair - unless Liz agrees to keep seeing him. That's the thing with men like Derek, they have to have a woman at their beck and call, and it doesn't much matter which woman. The love of Derek's life was and is always going to be Derek, but that probably won't stop Mrs Derek having him back eventually.

But Liz wants none of it, so Derek tells Vernon what he and Liz have been up to, with times and dates. Vernon is devastated. He'd sold his Northern Soul record collection to buy a weekend in Paris for Liz (which would be commendable if we could conveniently forget that the reason he's so skint is that he's a lazy waste of space). He tears up the plane tickets (great news for the environment! But recycle that torn up paper, Vern), packs his little bag, and leaves.

In other news, Carla sacked Joanne. Don't really know why, don't really care.

CATCH-UP - Are you ready, boots?

Sally is 40. No, I'm not obsessed with the ages of the Websters (see Get Vell Soon) - this is relevant to the episode, because Sally had a birthday party. There was karaoke in t'Rovers, which was disturbing enough because we had to put up with Kevin singing Mustang Sally, and Sally's own take on These Boots Are Made For Walking. Earlier on we'd "enjoyed" a very free interpretation of Bridge Over Troubled Water by that queen of song, Gail Platt, which was enough to straighten Art Garfunkle's hair with the sheer horror of it..

In the midst of all this merry-making, who should walk in but Derek's wife? And in a state of some upsetment, too. Liz had no choice but to invite her through to t'back, where Mrs Derek sobbed that she knew that Derek was having an affair and was worried that he would leave her. He'd had affairs before, but this one was different - it was like he wanted to be caught out, hence it must be serious.

A mortified Liz put the hypothetical question, "If you knew the affair was over, would that make things alright?" Mrs Derek conceded that it might help, but how could she be convinced of such a thing? Liz tried to say that Derek had confided in her about his affair, but Mrs Derek wasn't buying that ("he doesn't tell anybody anything"), so Liz had to come clean about the whole sorry business.

I never thought I'd feel sorry for Vernon, but he's been really sweet in the last couple of days and he's going to be ever so upset when this comes out.

Get Vell Soon

Poor old Michael Le Vell (Corrie's Kevin) has broken 3 ribs playing football, according to ThisIsNottingham.

This proves once again that exercise is very bad for you. I have never once broken a rib in all my years of slumping on the sofa clutching the remote control - although as I get older, arthritic thumbs could well become an issue.

And speaking of age, who knew that our Kev is 42? He's wearing very well, I must say, apart from the ribcage of course. Maybe he could go to Gdansk and get some plastic Polish ribs, like Blanche did with her hip.

Anyway, I'd like to send Michael a virtual bunch of grapes and wish him a speedy recovery.