Coronation Street

 

When I was a useless, substance-dependent student living in the North of England, my day wasn’t complete without six cans of Spar Lager, a pouch of Drum tobacco, a hangover that made me question my very existence and, if conditions would allow, a few wheezes on the bum-sucked spliffs a pal had rolled. On top of this, if it was a weekday around five pm, I would become sucked into the world of Soap Opera after waking up in a filthy bed surrounding by pornography and dried blood. I was the type of lad you could take home to meet your mother.

My soap opera crawl would start on the other side of the globe. An antipodean hour of festering shit beginning at Yabby Creek, waddling along Summer Bay and ending up in Ramsay Street via the international business park that is Paul Robinson’s Lassiters. After confirming that I would be closer each day to Home and Away and being reminded that I might one day find the perfect blend, I’d pop over to Chester.

Hollyoaks passed in a whirl of horrific acting, idiotic trendy boys and dead-eyed blonde girls who looked like they’d been reanimated by a pervert. Emmerdale came next and I literally can’t remember a single thing about it, apart from Seth’s fantastic moustache.

After that, and Christ only knows why, I would subject myself to the mind-hammering that is Coronation Street. Or ‘The Street’, if you are over 60, work in the tabloids or are a complete twat.

It has been ten years since I was in that dark, dark place and last night, more by harsh luck than judgement, I sat through an entire episode of Coronation Street. It was a harsh reminder that television truly does rot the brain.

Very little in Corrie had changed. Roy Cropper was still going out with a transexual who was played by a born-woman, defeating the point of the fact that he’s going out with a transexual. Tyrone is still fat and stupid, but is now hairy and fat and stupid. Ashley still speaks like someone’s treading on his little toe. Kevin still looks even weirder without a moustache than with one.

Betty is still alive. That was a shock. And she’s still rooted to the same spot in the Rovers Return, banging on about her fucking hotpot. Poor cow. She’s surely earned herself a stay at an above average retirement home by now so the producers should do the decent thing and pack her off to one. And throw away the key.

The biggest shock came when I saw Gail’s boy – the one who was about six years old ten years ago and seemed like the most amazing child actor I’d ever seen. ‘He’s got a bright future, that one’ I thought to myself, all those years ago. Last night proved me bang wrong.

He’s turned into one of the worst actors I’ve seen in my life. In last night’s storyline he’d left his niece alone with a doll which had ecstasy pills hidden within its plastic torso (a la Danny in Withnail and I). The little kid (Bethany, I think) obviously ingested a few of these embalmers and we were subjected to the sight of this former child actor hollering and banging the furniture in frustration in the most unrealistic soap set-piece I’ve ever seen.

Aside from this moment of high tension, the thing that got me was just how slow Coronation Street is. I suppose it’s a fair reflection of life in a Northern town that very little seems to happen for long periods of time, but Christ, it ain’t half boring.

Give me the crazy streets of Walford any day. I switched over at 8pm and there was Sean flushing Deano’s head down a lavvy, Ian Beale narrowly avoiding being run over by his dead ex wife and, the icing on the cake, Billy getting in a bit of a huff. God bless the ‘enders. All hail the Beasts of the East.

MFI advertisment

 

I think in the history of TV the MFI ads must stand as the worst pitched commercial advertising ever seen.

The three I’ve seen so far begin as if they’re an advert for The Samaritans / Childline / NSPCC / Sane etc., as they involve screaming matches between couples / families. Such is the vitriol of the performances they make for genuinely uncomfortable and, frankly, upsetting viewing.

The latest incarnation involves an elderly man being given both barrels by his screaming wife for not putting the toilet seat down. (If women put the fucking seat up after they’d been, none of this would happen, incidentally). The elderly man in question looks totally distraught as his spiteful cunt of a wife vents spleen in his face, to the point she seems just short of slamming his dick in the door and plucking off his balls.

It’s genuinely harrowing stuff and I was on the verge of tears when quite suddenly in walks an MFI rep walks in.

‘I see you’ve made yourselves at home already!’ he ‘quips’. The camera pans out and we discover that this whole argument has taken place in a showroom, yes, THAT’S how comfortable punters feel when in the lap of MFI goods, it means they carry on as if at home. Rowing. All of them having blistering fucking rows.

What does this tell us about MFI furniture? One thing only, that the people that buy it don’t just argue perpetually, they fucking hate living in the same house as each other to the point that it could easily end in a bloodbath, court and incarceration in prison or a high secure unit for the insane.

In order to redress the balance whilst maintaining the whole ‘made yourselves at home’ aspect I’d like you to indulge me with a more suitable version, if you don’t mind.

So, the scene opens with a man in his mid 20’s lifting up a short skirt of a pretty young brunette of the same age…

‘You fucking want it don’t you, you bitch’
‘Uh, fuck me daddy, fuck me where it hurts’
‘You fucking dirty whore…’ he says as he unzips his fly and gets out his throbbing tool.
‘Oh, fuck me so hard inside…’
Man spits on engorged weapon a shoves his member into her arsehole
‘Uh, you fucking like that don’t you. Bitch’
‘Make your balls slap hard against my cunt, daddy’
Man proceeds to bang away like a belt fed mortar.

Rep walks in

‘Jesus! I see you’ve made yourself at home’
Rep gets out dick and starts masturbating as he approaches the rutting pair.

We now have a dialogue free scene for a full 30 seconds punctuated by grunts and groans. Then suddenly…

‘I’m going to cum in your arse so fucking hard you’ll taste it (bitch)’
‘OH. MY GOD!’

The rep yells ‘Jesus fucking Christ’ and spunks all over the young ladies face just as the man withdraws his engine, shit flies out all over the mans thighs and whilst the rep is slapping his spent cock over her ecstatic face the man pisses over her back.

I was thinking that MFI could appear with each letter formed respectively of urine, semen and excretion?

Perhaps that’s pushing it a bit far.

Rome

 

Thank fuck for that – Rome‘s back. This episode kicked off straight after the events of the final episode of the first series and, for the uninitiated, here’s the lowdown on the runners ‘n’ riders:

Lucius Vorenus – Local politician. Tried hard to be the family man, found out his wife had been carrying on with her sister’s brother, tried killing her with a big knife, she jumped out of the window and died.
Titus Pullo – Big violent bastard. Killed loads of people last time around, ended up as a gladiator, killed more people, fucked loads of women, killed more people, fell in love with a slave-girl, found out she was carrying on with someone else, killed him.
Julius Caesar – General/Dictator. Subjugated the Gauls, had Vercingetorix strangled in the Forum, got up to political shenanigans, had epilepsy and worried about baldness, fucked shrivelled-up hag Servilla, pissed her off, got murdered by her son and his mates.
Mark Anthony – Caesar’s mate. Fucked (well … raped) anything that moved, killed people, machinated, fucked Caesar’s neice Atia, smirked a lot, shagged random peasant girl against tree in front of whole waiting Roman army.
Atia – Tits-out MILF sex bitch. Plotted to gain favour for her son Octavian, offered up her daughter to become sex play-thing of Pompey, became sex play-thing herself of Mark Anthony, was given gift of black man with enormous penis, enjoyed penises in general, a sex version of Nadia Sawahla.
Servilla – Lesboid shitbag uber-bag hag. Fucked Caesar, fucked Atia’s daughter, got shunned by Caesar, plotted against Caesar, convinced her son Brutus to kill Caesar, dabbled in Roman equivalent of voodoo, not even a GILF.
Octavian – Caesar’s nephew and Man Who Would Be King. Struck up unlikely friendship with Titus Pullo, helped Titus murder Vorenus’s wife’s sister’s ‘usband, shagged his first woman in a brothel on the insistance of his mother (MILF extraordinaire Atia), witnessed Caesar having a fit.
Octavia – Atia’s crappy daughter. Told to become plaything of Pompey, became lesboid plaything of hag un-GILF Servilla, not at all ‘sporty’ considering what her mother gets up to between the sheets.

So there you go. This episode showed the aftermath of Caesar’s and Vorenus’s wife’s deaths. All manner of stuff happened. In one scene Anthony, randy as a bull, woke to find Atia changing into her funeral garb for Caesar’s funeral and demanded a fuck out of her. Atia told him to behave himself, so:

“I’m not getting out of this bed until I’ve had a fuck,” replies Anthony, grabbing his balls.
“Oh for …” says Atia. She turns to one of her servants and says, “Go and fetch that German slut from the kitchens.”

Later we see said German slut, starkers and breathing heavily, as Anthony dresses for the funeral with a big smirk on his face. I don’t think the German girl had a choice in the matter. But then, on Anthony’s previous form, most women don’t seem to get a choice in the matter (and women think they ‘ave it hard nowadays).

Meanwhile Vorenus, who has cursed his kids for not telling him about his wife carrying on with her sister’s brother, discovers they’ve been taken prisoner by a local money-lender. With Titus (who’s now married to the aforementioned slave-girl whose t’other half he beat to death in series one) in tow, he tracks the money-lender down, kills every man, woman, and child in the money-lender’s tavern, then corners the money-lender.

“Where’s my fucking kids?” he roars (or words to that effect), covered from head-to-toe in blood.
“I took them in payment for your many slights against me,” replies the money-lender, “I fucked ’em, killed ’em, and threw their bodies in the river.”

At which point Vorenus, failing to see the funny side, cuts off the money-lender’s head.

Loads of other stuff happened during the course of the show involving politics, funerals, the validity of Caesar’s will, Roman stuff and what-have-you. I imagine the gratuitous tit-shot/brutal violence ratio will be ramped-up as the weeks roll on (it did last time, so fingers crossed). I fucking love this programme. Rome … seig heil!