Ummm...hello...is there anybody there?

This is Sarah. Mark and I are no so busy that we can't even manage our own blogs, let alone Easties or TVD.

However, I do have some good news: the lovely Patrick has asked if he can take over Easties Updates, so we've said that he can, with our blessing.

Take it away Patrick

THE APPRENTICE: WAITER! THERE'S A LOSER IN MY SOUP!
The producers have surpassed themselves. Every target of watercooler hatred is here. The dickhead sales managers; the "project managers" who spend their time in meetings or writing motivational speeches, and Vicky Pollard's cousin!

This week, evil ginger stringbean Ms Celeriac is first to the emailer phone (yes, I did used to work with someone like her, and the feeling was mutual), and gleefully passes on SirAlan's summons to the 4th floor of the Tate - some crazy metaphor about regeneration. SirAlan wants the candidates to "regenerate" the urban pub trade, with a day of gastropubbery in Islington. I note that La Celeriac appears to wear one of her nasty air-hostess type scarves even to bed. Does she have really awful prison style neck tattoos or something?

Strangely shiny mandroid Ian the Notloser is appointed project manager for the boys team - sorry, Renaissance. Kevin, who gets more like a walking Little Britain sketch every week, announces that he has eaten in a few Italian restaurants, so why don't they have an Italian evening. Refa says: "Yah! And let's all talk with Italian accents!" Quick! somebody call Boris Johnson and get this man onto his PR team! Notloser makes Kevin the head chef, because apparently he opened a jar of Dolmio once.

The Posh boys leap into action and go off to design their menus. Oh yes, the menus. Kevin discusses the menus with the kitchen adviser (appointed so that they don't poison the punters and sue SirAlan). Kitchen Adviser tries not to smirk as Kevin says: "Ummm...spaghetti bolognese...and carbonara....and mushrooms, baked in the oven...with salt and pepper...and perhaps we could puree that...yeah, I've had that dish in a restaurant." Sgt Simon's face falls. And LEE McQUEEN ISN'T HAPPY, (that's the rough one that Mark fancies, though Mark fancies him a little less now that LEE McQUEEN has started referring to LEE McQUEEN in the third person and threatening to Hulk-Smash every five minutes) and he tells NotLoser so in no uncertain terms. Well, he has a point: they've got posh menus, but ummm...no food. NotLoser tells Kevin to wave a spatula around or something while they sort out the menus.

The girls are going Bollywood because International Car Dealer Sara is Asian. (Venomous Claire sulks that curry is too "niche" - WTF, is she a time traveller from the 1960s or something??? and Saira later correctly points oiut htat she often wants to tell Claire just to shut the fuck up) Trouble is, she doesn't know how to cook, and buys the wrong spices. The kitchen adviser points this out to her, and she tries to bamboozle him with some flannel about cooking proper curries. The resulting proper curry looks a little like regurgitated tripe, and tastes worse. The girls split into two teams. Celeriac and the sales ladies flog tickets for a fiver each around Islington. Mercifully, they don't have to resort to flashing their knickers and snogging tramps like in previous years. Sara and Plump girl spend the afternoon learning to cook. By evening time, they're producing something edible, and the punters appear to have a good time, despite Celeriac and Lindi assuming that the customers want to be their bestest friends, and this will lead to more tips. Boy, these girls love their tips. The evening ends with some "Bollywood dancing" from a bloke they appear to have dragged out of the kitchen of a local tandoori house. The researcher who dug this one up deserves a medal.

I'm not quite sure what's happening with Lucinda here. Every shot of her makes look like she's about to break down in tears, and her outfits get slightly more bizarre with each episode...

There's trouble in the boys' kitchen. Yep. All that time spent on poshifying the menus, and they...ummm...forgot to go the cash and carry. So it's a supermarket sweep for jars of Dolmio, really expensive pizza bases, cheese and stuff. Sgt Simon tries his best not to cry, and shouts at NotLoser about logistics instead. Unlike the girls, the boys do open for lunch, but lots of peopel complain that their bolognese is nasty and bland. LEE MCQUEEN has to let them have it for free, and he's still not happy!

Head Chef Kevin seems to have got on the wrong reality show, and thinks he's on Masterchef. He demands ciabatta for the bruschetta, and Simon nearly does break down. Just before service begins, the boys get an inspirational chat from Kevin, and then out they go to sell spaghetti. About half way through the evening there's a problem: they run out of food. Simple, says Head Chef Kevin; he cuts a pizza in half and puts it on two plates, until the look of utter disgust from the customer sends fey Michael Sophocles scampering back into the kitchen.

No, this isn't Masterchef, this is Little Britain, isn't it? (More Komedy Kevin moments: (1) Trying to pass off coffee as a desert. Yes, and why don't you offer a glass of orange juice as a starter too! (2) Saying he would be happy to pay £4.95 for a bowl of soup in Guildford. Because that's the way Kevin rolls... in Guildford)

Well, back in the boardroom, Nick and Margaret report that the girls made less money, but managed not to blow most of their budget in Morrisons, and are therefore the winners.

Ian takes poor Sgt Simon (for insubordination and scowling) and Kevin into the boardroom. Siralan seems to have a little man crush on Sgt Simon, and wants to see what else he can do. I'm sure he can do lots of things, Siralan. Lots of sexy sexy things! Kevin actually manages to make himself look a lesser prick than Ian, but makes up for it back at the house after Ian is let go. Oh well, Ian, at least you learnt a new word, eh?

Next week: Lucinda cries! Alex looks sulky! The boys shout! and LEE MCQUEEN IS as yet undecided about his mood.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: DEATH! SPLASH! HORROR!
Now, one of the things I forgot to tell you on Friday was that Yolande discovered that @@'s internet nonce was in fact Dasbo. So taken was she by the romantic fool's crazy technological shenanigans that she arranges a special lunch for Dasbo and @@, so that they can talk together. Dasbo declares his love in the time-honoured way of the teenage male: "Urrgh...like ya donneye? Hmph...". @@ is not impressed, and suggests he tries to express his feelings using the medium of...Scrabble. Now, many people have been wooed over a game of Scrabble, but I'm guessing not many East End teenagers. Yolande leaves them working out how many swear words begin with Q, and whether or not they can fit them on a triple word score, and joins TriniDad in the pub. She's all smug about her cupid work until TriniDad observes that the Dolescum track record on teenage pregnancies is hardly exemplary. Yolande: worried.

But you don't want to know about that, you want to know...who dies? Well, we return to the car. DC Peter is unconscious - well that's an easy half hour for all of us. Ben says his head hurts, and the grown-ups seem OK. Strangely, Billy was not catapulted through the windscreen at 50mph, and Fill sends him for help. As it is our last post, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that Hertfordshire has no mobile phone coverage at all. Billy trudges along until he spots a car, and runs toward it. The driver, seeing Billy's bloodstained head, thinks she has stumbled on the set of 28 Weeks Later, and speeds away.

Meanwhile DC Peter has convulsions (fine jerking there, DC Peter). Fill drags the Bealemeister out of the car, and they bicker. Except that the mechanic forgets that the car's brakes might not be in the best condition after somersaulting over a fallen tree, and the car putters down the hill, turns left at the bend, and slides gently into a handy lake. Fill immediately dives into the water. Suddenly I am reminded of the plight of the manatee. He manages to pull Ben to safety, and Ian manages not to say: "Don't bother with the gimp, save the Aryan and his pure seed!" Fill goes back for DC Peter, and pulls him out too.

Bradley and JoJo are friends again, and discussing her married boyfriend in the pub. JoJo gets a text from Dadley, which Bradley intercepts; but cleverly (unlike most EE strumpets) she doesn't list him in her phonebook as "Dadley- the married man wot I am shagging", so Bradley is none the wiser.

At the hair-patting salon, Fairy Bobby is wreaking havoc with the straighteners, the staff want to go home, but Babs orders fresh supplies of alcohol and demands more facepacks all round. DC Lucy looks slightly constipated and reaches for the phone. I think this is supposed to be that famous twinly intuition. Ian makes a pact with God for the life of his beautiful blonde boy. God doesn't tell him he's got the wrong number.

That's all folks. Thanks for reading.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN PTIII: SCOUTING FOR BOYS

It's morning on Albert Square, and the Bealemeister has forced the bodysnatched Devil Child Peter to spend the night with him under canvas on Loser's Bench. It must be some tribute to his standing in the community that the local coppers didn't burn the tent down and cart him off to the cells, or maybe he claimed that he was a persecuted minority or something. PJane stands with her hands on her hips and shakes her head, before noting that a night in a tent with Fill Mitchell is infinitely preferable to the sight of Babs getting her wig patted all day. She also tells them that their tent has mildew. Ian tells DC Peter to get the tent dried at the launderette, and try not to get bodysnatched on the way.

Wee Ben is bouncing around the house, packing sleeping bags and trying not to look pleased at the thought of a Cruestella-less weekend. He even refuses to kiss her goodbye! Cruestella says nothing, but her eyes say that he will pay. Oh yes. He will pay.

Billy comes along for some unspecified reason, and is plonked in the back with the boys. Ian bigs up DC Peter's running ability (must be all those pagan sacrificial ceremonies) and manages to imply that Ben is doomed to failure in life because he's deaf or something. Billy too, is upset by Ian's social darwinism, but Fill knows that it's all about survival of the fattest, and merely turns puce.

Dadley reassures Tanyette no. 1 that nothing will change when Tanyette no.3 comes into the world, and offers to go to the scanning session with Nurse Tanyah. He calls JoJo to babysit. JoJo tries to point out that most mistresses don't have to babysit their lovers' offspring while said lover buggers off to the hospital with his pregnant wife, but agrees to babysit anyway. Tanyette no. 1 says: "Oh no, not JoJo, she's common." Dadley says that JoJo has been through a lot: dead dad, mad mum, irritating brother, two ginger boyfriends...and that the Tanyettes should be nice to her. The Tanyettes look thoughtful and later interrogate JoJo about her dead dad. Tanyette no. 2 bursts into tears and says that her life would end if their dad left them. JoJo looks 'troubled'.

Enough of that. Back to the camping. Once we have all got over the sight of Ian Beale in shorts (put it away, Patrick), we find them in a field somewhere in Herts. Fill wants to know where the pub and satellite sports channels are, but Beale says they're doing it the Iron man way, with real fires, wiping their bums with nettles and making flagpoles out of two bits of bamboo and some string. Fill groans and gets the tent out. Ben says he wants to sleep with DC Peter so that they can torture dormice together or something. Only the Beale tent has shrunk in the wash, so they can't get it to go up properly. DC Peter and Ben have been watching far more Ray Mears than is healthy for young boys and set about making a shelter out of old tree bark and discarded Tescos bags. While they're hunting for wood or rabbits or something, Fill gets a campfire going and cooks some sausages.. Only he does it too close to the tent and...DEATH CAMP INFERNO HORROR!...nahhhh...the Mitchell tent burns down, taking the sausages with it.

So far, so pathetic. Meanwhile, at the hairpatting salon, Toddler Bobby has decided to dress up as a fairy princess, prompting raised eyebrows from Babs, and continuing bitchiness, especially when Fairy Bobby starts chucking moisturiser at Bab's wig. The one time they need a psychotic child torturer, and Cruestella buggers off to do some lawyering or whatever she does these days.

Fill packs up to go home, but Ben pouts and says his dad didn't want to go camping all along, and now he's ruined it, and he hates him, and hates everyone and wishes he was dead etc. Back in the car, Ian starts on the verbal and Fill drives like a normal country person would drive - about 20 miles over the speed limit. More shouting. Oh no! A tree has fallen into the road (as they do on perfectly nice, sunny, wind-free days). Fill swerves to avoid it, and the Range Rover somersaults about 40 ft along the tarmac and goes crash. Oh noes! Who will survive the DEATH CRASH HORROR?!

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN PT II: WHEN TWO TRIBES GO TO BORE
After Monday night’s vague enjoyableness (maybe I am kidding myself and just have fond memories of Mickney falling over a lot) not much happens on Tuesday.

The Tanyettes find out about Tanyah’s be-bunned oven and bicker, carry on and act authentically bratty. Dadley takes out a big life insurance policy on himself and Nurse Tanyah jokes about greasing the stairs so she can make a claim. I hope that isn’t foreshadowing as any fule kno that the only way to kill your husband on EE is to batter him with a novelty canine-themed doorstop.

GADawn hangs around outside the cop shop waiting for her precious Mr Smarmypants to be released. Meanwhile Chez Dolescum, Keef and Mickney start squawking about how Smarmy is an evil wife batterer who can never darken their doors again. When GADawn finds out she tells them all to shut up and hustles Smarmy into the kitchen. I am finding GADawn wholly dislikeable at the moment, even when Dr Fox is pushing her down flights of stairs. Smarmy goes to see Dr Fox at the surgery but she summons Naomi and Smarmy runs away at the sight of strapping black lesbian. He goes back when Naomi has left and Dr Fox is all “so what are you going to do? Hit me again?” Smarmy makes an evil/ambiguous face. Hmm, maybe EE is trying to mess with our expectations and make Smarmy the baddy, but I think the message the audience is going to get is more like “No wonder he’s beating his wife when she’s so crazy!” And this is the same show that once ran a v good wife beating storyline with Psycho Trevor and Drippy all those years ago. Sigh.

@@ is all set to meet her Cyber-nonce. She tries to borrow some clothes from Chelski but Chelski says no and calls her “Ugly Betty”. @@ borrows them anyway (even though she looks stupid) and gets Yolande to braid her hair up. @@ then takes her sad little picnic to the park and there are some “tension building” hedge-cam shots of the nonce staring at her through a shrubbery. Yolande and the Bennetons are all “ohs noes, Where has @@ gone? She is probably being abducted by paedophile scum right now!!” but it just turns out to be Dasbo, who couldn’t think of another way to say he lurved @@. Awww. @@ runs off in a strop.

DVDLi makes Mickney put on a suit and practise being charming to ladies and then is all jealous when he does it. Oh whatever. Wake me up when he’s chained to a barrel with Atkins or Pat approaching him with a strap-on.

Dot does her peace brokering thing and arranges a tea party for the Mitchell/Beale feud to be resolved. Fill is very late and Ian prints out a list of all the Mitchell wrongdoings which he wants them all to sign so he can scan it and put it on his myspace page or something. They are all bickering (or else standing in the background saying “rhubarb rhubarb”) until Ben remembers that the whole row was over an unpaid for saveloy at the caff and an unpaid for drink at the Vic. They try to get comedy mileage out of the word “saveloy” but my heart is dead to such blatant pandering. Ben offers to pay for the items if it will make the madness stop. Ian and Fill are shamed into making up, shake hands on it and then the blokes and kids agree to go all camping together and the women agree on a mass hair-patting session. As they all leave, the Bealemeister makes a face like “Yes, Mitchell, we’ll go camping! Camping in HELL!!!”

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN PT 1: PIMP MY SPIDE
Dr Fox makes squirrelly faces and pops more pills. She has got a black eye but I’m not sure if Smarmy gave it to her or she has been busy with the felt tip pens. She phones in sick and sits in a corner rocking and thinking about her barren womb, before putting on a severe black suit/dress thing and going to the pub. Naomi pops out of the plot cupboard long enough to see her, and ask what’s wrong. Dr Fox says she walked into a door ahem ahem and then starts crying. Naomi insists that she kalls the kops. They get a young Asian copper we have never seen before who goes to question Smarmy. Smarmy and GADawn are all indignant like “what is that crazy bitch up to now?” Smarmy is dragged off to the police station while Dr Fox watches and says “gibber gibber” and GADawn is all “Why I oughtta…” and tries to run over and batter her.

@@ is supposed to be revising but instead is spending all her time in one of those “chat rooms” on the “internets” that the young people seem to enjoy so much these days. Yolande sticks her oar in for some reason and is worried that her chat-friend is one of those cyber-nonces like on Chris Morris. @@ says that she is sure that he is a nice boy her own age and agrees to meet him. We see a back shot of the mystery paedo and it could possibly be Dasbo but it’s hard to tell for sure.

The maryjane is not growing well in the plot cupboard so DVDLi wants to pimp Mickney’s ass out to the matrons of Walford. Mickney is not eager to spend his working days with a ball gag in his mouth and gets a job at the Kwik E Mart with Trini Dad instead. He accidentally throws away a load of non expired yogurt (DVDLi tricks him into it – apparently Mickney is too thick to convert months into numbers…) and then has a hilariously shit sequence of accidents that ends up destroying half the stock. Back to the man-whoring for Mickney.

Nurse Tanyah and Dadley discuss the baby and also getting out a business loan. Exciting!

The Mitchell slash Beale feud rumbles towards its Tragic! Deadly! Conclusion! Wow, it’s like Romeo and Juliet but retarded. Cruestella tries to apologise directly to DC Lucy but Pjane sees her and tells her to get lost. Cruestella runs home and cries like a big gimp – not so easy picking on someone over the age of 10, eh Stel? – so Babs goes and has a row with Pjane and accuses her of being an unfit mother or something. Pjane tells Babs to do one and says “Oooo! I’m really scared!” in a sarcastic voice when Babs threatens her with something. Later on Ian goes to the laundrette and discovers that Phoney has shrunk all his woolly jumpers – he takes this as a sign of Mitchell eviltude, rather than Phoney’s incredible stupidity and has a huge row in the laundrette with Fill, Billy, Babs and Pjane. Dot wheels out a few biblical homilies and squeals ”Think of the children!” Just as Stupid Plot Baby and Baby Janet both start crying. Yes, think of the children as they – spoiler – plummet to the bottom of the canal in a deadly death crash horror of death!!!!!

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

I am sorry to say that after 610 posts and 5 years of blogging that Sarah and I have decided to call it a day. Though we have had a lot of fun over the years, we both have busy lives and other writing projects and are struggling to muster much enjoyment in watching/writing about the show as the quality continues to decline.

We'd both like to thank everyone for reading and for commenting over the years. We will still keep posting stuff at TV Dinners (see link to the right) and may even cover EE there, if we ever feel like it.

Before we go, we are going to cover Aqua-Fill Death Crash Special Week with a separate post for each night, just like the old days. Then we will each write a bit on what we have especially liked/hated over the years and then we will ride off into the sunset.

Enjoy the final week and thanks again.

Mark and Sarah xx

SOMETHING KINDA "OW"!

Smarmy and Dawn have one day to get out of their love shack – Smarmy goes to draw out some money to get a deposit on a new place but Dr (Crazy like a) Fox has already emptied their joint account. She says she did it to help Smarmy so he would realise that GADawn is just a gold digging vixen. Meanwhile Dole Scum Keef has some money of Dawn’s (benefits or something, I dunno) but he has spent it all on cans of Special Brew. The love birds have to move in Chez Dole Scum. Later on GADawn has a dramatic confrontation with Dr Fox and the Dr pushes her down a flight of stairs. Heh.

The baby is OK and Dr Fox is all contrite and tearful, not wanting to be grassed up to the fuzz. She pops some pills (yes, Dr Fox, that’s all you need with your robust mental state – more drugs!!) and asks Smarmy round to patch things up. She gives him a list of their assets so they can share them out but then starts putting sexy moves on him. Smarmy notices that the nursery is still set up and there is a big circle on the calendar marked “the day my baby is born, bwa ha ha.” He realises that Dr Fox is still loony tunes and has to fight his way out of the apartment.

Dasbo and @@ fall out over Gus (??? Does Dasbo fancy him too, I don’t know…) and then @@ starts chatting online to a mystery boy. This will be Important For Later.

There is flu going round and Bradley, a Tanyette and Tanyah all succumb to it. JoJo looks after Bradley but is then annoyed when Duckface barges in with a klingon wordsearch book or something for Bradders to do. JoJo hassles Dadley to divorce Nurse Tanyah and move in with her. He arranges a rental of a showflat with horrid tan coloured fur wallpaper (that’s what it looked like to me) and gives her a vomtastic yellow nightie thing to wear. It is Dadley’s birthday and Jojo demands that she spends the evening with Dadley in the Fur Flat. Hateful Dadley engineers a row so he can ditch Tanyah and re-explore joJo’s ladygarden, even though Tanyah has cooked a nice meal and bought him a watch and made a cake etc. Tanyah is understandably annoyed and goes on a rampage of suspicion – finding evidence that Dadley is playing away. She marches down the street (past JoJo, who makes an excellent “gulp!” face) and starts laying into Carly, even though Dadley was just trying to sell her insurance. Of course, if I found my partner was cheating on me, I’d be more interested in talking to my partner than the bit on the side, but what would I know? I’m not a badly written soap opera character. In the aftermath, Tanyah announces that she’s pregnant. Gasp!

They have a discussion and Tanyah wants to get an abortion as she doesn’t trust Dadley. Dadley tells a story about how when he was a kid, Jim beat up a black mate of his and then locked him up in a coffin! Don’t ask me. Tanyah accepts this bizarre anecdote as an excuse for his shiftiness and they agree to keep the baby. Meanwhile, Bradley finds the telltale yellow nightie and JoJo says she is seeing some other married bloke who in no way resembles Dadley, oh no.

Ian complains to some Polish (though the accent is more like French/Boratistani) builders that they are too noisy. They tell him to sling his hook so he goes into dickhead overdrive and starts filming them for his dossier to the council and refusing to serve them at the caff. They mock him by taking photos of him with their phones and later have a five way gang bang with Parkwife.
The tiresome feud between Ian and Fill continues re the late license application. Fill gets the Polish Builders to brick up Ian’s gate so Ian pours cement down the Vic toilets so they have to shut the pub and get plumbers in. When Ian refuses to pay for the damage, Fill goes round and tries to drown him in a bowl of washing up (“Fairy liquid may be kind to your hands, but has does it feel on your FACE, Beale!!”). Fill is rescued by Pjane, or possible baby bobby, all of whom are harder than Ian. The womenfolk get involved too when Cruestella sees DC Lucy drinking alcopops in the park with a bunch of hoodies and grasses her up to PJane, who tells her to mind her own business. They spend a lot of time telling each other that this isn’t finished yet – no, it’s finished next week with a shocking Death Crash Tragedy tm every soap mag ever.

EE: THE WRATH OF BEALE

Poor old Bradders. First he dumps JoJo for Posh Totty. Then JoJo dumps him even after he dumps Posh Totty and tries to get back with her because JoJo's secretly schtupping his dad. And the only other single non-pregnant woman under 50 is Duckface. Fortunately they share a passing acquaintance with the work of Gene Roddenberry. Well, when I say 'passing', I mean Preeti can quote entire episodes of Deep Space Nine (the one that nobody likes) at the drop of a hat. Bradders starts to wonder if a lifetime of Vulcan salutes and nanobot jokes is really a good price to pay for getting his end away. Duckface goes into major stalker girlfriend mode. Bradley: sad.

Meanwhile JoJo is 'raising the stakes' with Dadley. This means not turning up in the Queen Vic toilets when summoned for a quickie, and going out with people her own age (I think)

Deano sulks about his mother being a skanky ho again. @@ moons over Gus. Make it quick @@, he'll be off on his suspension soon. The Bennetton family conspire to send Parklife and Mrs Goggins on an Easyjet flight to nowhere (or was it Tallinn?) because as usual, nobody bothered to book a honeymoon. Atkins is told to get out of Walford (again) or something. Her revenge is to tell Chelski that she shagged Parklife and Goggins knows! Chelski says she's not picking up the pieces of Mrs Goggins' broken heart yet again, and packs her bags. Then somebody suggests they all go down the pub and Chelski decides to stay.

Over at the Vic, Cruestella reminds Ben that his happiness and well-being are entirely up to her. Fill and Ian start on the Stupid Feud of DOOM that will apparently end up in the death of a Devil Child but we don't know which one (stupid soap mags). Place your bets here, folks.

Dot doesn't want the cute baby to be registered with a doctor and acts so badly that even Phoney gets suspicious. But Phoney's got her own problems. Billy doesn't want her to test the New Phoneybaby for congenital defects because the whole thing smacks of a eugenic conspiracy to prove that his seed is faulty. Cute baby gets a mild rash that Phoney says is MENINGITIS - once again the BBC miss a chance to show viewers the right thing to do, and they end up in the a&e ward, talking to a bored nurse about missing red books and NHS numbers. Phoney offers to help Dot hide the cute baby from the authorities and gets a job in the launderette to boot. Another baby for the EE supercreche.

JoJo tells NurseTanyah to expand the hairpatting shop to do...I dunno...car bodywork? So NurseTanyah decides that taking business advice from a nymphet with a market stall is a good idea and does exactly that.

Slimy loses his job for giving GADawn a credit card. He tries to hide it from GAD, but Dr SheWolf says: "No he's lost his job, you little strumpet. Who's going to pay for your hair extensions now, eh? eh? And I'm not paying your rent any more either." Hang on, she was paying their RENT? What kind of sick weirdness is this? Speaking of sick weirdness, have GAD and Slimy wondered about the medical ethics of buying your patient's baby and pimping your husband to her in order to 'keep her sweet'. No? I'll shut up then. There is cameo appearance from the lesbian off that geek comedy drama Attachments (ahhh...how well I remember their urgent discussions of banner ads and saucy intraoffice instant messaging). This time she's Dr SheWolf's happily married sister, with two moppets in tow. Dr SheWolf tells her that she's pregnant, and Slimy's at work. But there's some kind of altercation in the pub involving Slimy and a bottle and Dr SheWolf's tissue of lies is torn asunder. Not sure if this will provoke a crazed rampage involving a speculum, but we can but hope.

DVDLi, deprived of her dope allotment, decides to advertise Mickney as an escort service. The ramifications of this are not to be gone into, not even after several stiff drinks and many hallucinogenic drugs. Mickney and Gus find out, and DVDLi is foiled! Again! A nation sighs with relief (but not that kind of relief)...

MOTHRATKINS VS GOGGINZILLA

I'm off on holiday tomorrow and an't think of anything to top Sarah's ace post - so here's a quick rundown of last week's so-called action...

1. News starts to spread about Dot and Jim’s stupid plot baby, who spends all Monday’s episode crying non stop, the poor little thing. They have the family round for dinner and Jim quickly explains that it is Nick’s son that he sired by knocking up a nurse whilst in cancer prison hospital. That makes about as much sense as the real plot. Abi notices that baby “George” looks a lot like baby Tomasz so Dot tells her to shut up. Everyone is a bit non plussed/sceptical. Dadley mocks Jim fro being paternal finally. Jim says “Shut up, haven’t you got a barely legal trollop to be messing round with?” not really.
2. But it’s still true! Jojo comes back from her holiday and starts canoodling with Dadley. He tells her that his marriage is in trouble but JoJo later discovers that this is a lie.
3. DVDLi chucks all of Gus’ stuff out of his cupboard and put a padlock on the door. Gus is all “Hey! That’s my plot cupboard where I live for most of the year!” Mickney discovers that she has set up the world’s smallest weed farm in the cupboard and has a dramatic confrontation. DVDLi whines that she has to do anything – ANYTHING – for money now that she has to support herself, her old ma and Mickney. Mickney says he will get a job and is interviewed by Bradley’s firm. I’m not sure what job he is going for – do banks actually need Jesters/Motley fools?
4. Cruestella tells Ben that “address” only has one “d” so he fails a test. Bwa ha ha. Fill buys him a lap top and Cruestella is cross because she wants Fill to buy her shiny presents instead!! Ben tries to talk to Fil about Cruestela’s reign of terror but Fill has a hilarious EE type misunderstanding and thinks he is talking about puberty instead. Fill is all “It’s art of growing up and becoming a man!”
5. Fill says he will propose to Cruestella properly and gives her a wad of dirty bloodstained £20 notes to buy herself an engagement ring. Classy! Why didn’t he just drop an Elizabeth Duke catalogue in her lap and be done with it! He wants them all to go away together but Stella tells Ben to make sure he is left behind, so he smashes up the bogs at school so he has to be punished by Fill. Fill and Stella go away and Fill proposes by hiding the ring in a bacon bap from a white van in a lay by. Ha ha ha, oh Stella can’t you find a nice middle class man to terrorise! They end up going back for Ben anyway as Fill misses him.
6. Annoying Deano moves in with Atkins but says he will go to Parklife’s stag do and wedding anyway. Mrs G says she doesn’t want a hen do but all her family/friends (they don’t actually need to rope in a bunch of extras as Mrs G actually has friends OMG!!) chuck a few triple vodkas down her neck and she is all systems go (her drunk acting is not bad actually!). Goddess Pat sees that Atkins is at the bar making hacky faces and goes and tells her to git out of Walford and no one wants her and Parklife has moved on and wants to be happy with Mrs G etc and so on. Atkins says that Pat is a dried up old slapper and will have no family once Parklife and Mrs G get married and move out. They carry on arguing and eventually go outside and have an awesome catfight with slapping, throwing onto car bonnets and kung fu kicks (from Atkins, though I would love to see Pat lay down a hefty axe kick). A handily passing police van breaks them up and while they are on the way to the cells Atkins mentions that she shagged Parklife recently, so there.
7. I miss the actual unfeasibly quick wedding but there is the usual will they/won’t they bollocks without which no soap wedding is complete. Pat warns Parklife that Atkins is in marriage wrecking mode so in the end he tells Goggins himself, adding that he was “depressed” when the act of joyless carnal hoo-ha took place – excellent excuse there, Parklife. Mrs Goggins says (a) Ew! And (b) She’ll have to think about it. While she’s wandering round in her non traditional maroon outfit, Atkins comes over to spill the beans and is such a cow that this somehow makes Mrs G decide to go through with the wedding. Don’t ask me… Atkins is all ”Bah, you might have foiled me this time.. but I’ll be back!”.