BY THE LIGHT OF THE SNIVELLING MOON
Slutty breaks into Moon Towers to find Fool dressed in Ethel 2.0's favourite housecoat, weeping over her lifeless form while he mixes up the taxidermy potions. Not really. Fool, apparently, managed to call Doktor Boden-Shirt and an undertaker in without the neighbours noticing, and Ethel is to be buried on Thursday. They go through Ethel's stuff and find the money she won off AGarry in an envelope, with instructions to put it on the 3.30 at Wincanton (eh?).

Moomin introduces MMartin to her faaancy student friends at the course Xmas do. One of them is a bit of a prat, and slags off The Square and MMartin's boring life to boot. Instead of saying that's a bit rich coming from someone who sounds like he lives in Peterlee, MMartin gets cross and there's a fight. Moomin is cross and tells Naomi that she uses her faancy nursing course to get away from her lifeless marriage to her dead fiance's murderer. Funnily enough, she never mentions this. Naomi tries to warn MMartin that Moomin wants out unless he starts reading books or something, but MMartin just shouts at her.

I don't like the undercurrent of the Davetta/Juley mismatch either, but I can't work out if this is just the producers being cack-handed about race issues as only graduates of the Phil Redmond School of Soap Production can be. Anyway, Davetta takes the morning after pill and Isn't Pregnant. But TB finds the packet and goes ape. Fill gives Juley money to parade Davetta in front of Tony B in the pub. At some point in all this Juley discovers to his horror that he actually loves Davetta, Davetta has some more arguments with TB and moves in with TB and MYGus. MYGus and JoJo: sad.

Keef suggests that the Dolescums save money by making their own decorations out of old cornflake packets and milk bottle tops. Apparently nobody has yet worked out the source of Dasbo's stash of ready cash. Maybe because they're too busy worrying about Mickney's mystery disappearance.

Billy and Phoney do some bizarro Santa and Xmas elf modelling shoot that brings them closer together. AGarry and Minty have one last shout before being shoved back into the plot cupboard. They work out that Billy and Phoney are an "item", and force Billy to acknowledge his new woman in front of Drippy - whose hair is indeed vile.

Somebody explain the whole Tony Bennett/Denman ruck to me again? Denman is nice to Davetta, and TB tells him to keep his nose out. Well, he seems to tell Shazza to leave his faaamily alone or something like that.

Poline and Straight Pike put up Xmas decos and Poline goes on about the Classic Arfur Meltdown episode of 1985 or thereabouts. Straight Pike yawns and tells her to move on. As if by magic, Poline agrees (see what I did there?). Meanwhile Moomin decides to leave MMartin just as Poline turns up with Moominchild for Christmas. How in the name of all that is holy did that happen?

Ethel seems to have left a small fortune to the undertaker in her will because the funeral is a full-on Kray job with horses and typographic floral tributes and everything. Fool wears his horrible leather coat and is not struck by lightning. After the funeral he witters about taking a motorbike across America and Slutty tells him to follow his dream, it says here.

GADawn puts the moves on Lee. And fails. Maybe it's the hair.

I give up. There's suspension of disbelief and suspension of sanity. Plots and characters are twisting and turning like a bumper Christmas Curly Wurly.

Anyway, the Countdown to Denman's Doom has begun. Fill watches from the sidelines. With his swollen belly and shining head, he's rocking the evil pixie act so much that I half expect him to start bashing away at a guitar and singing about incest and UFOs with Silent Tracey going "aaaahhh" every once in a while.