LITTLE MISS SUNSHITE

The Queen Vic is having one of those frequent non-comedy competitions they make up whenever they can’t think of enough plot for a week. This time it is a beauty contest. JoJo, Chelski, Syed’s Unwitting Beard and a few extras are taking part. Jojo does a strip tease and uses the opportunity to shower the Vic with tat from her stall, which she then sells. She also makes a stupid and out-of-character speech about how she is the queen of hearts. More like the Queen of WHATEVER. Juhneen’s Paddy Considine looking bloke goes over and says, “ I liked your speech.” Jojo: “Thanks!” Paddy: “Wanna shag?” Jojo “OK!” Juhneen pulls a hacky face.

Syed’s Unwitting Beard sings a Whitney lurve song to Syed, while everyone else is sick in their mouths a little bit. Xtian has a new slightly dozy-looking boyfriend whom he is using to torment Syed with thoughts of forbidden man-lurve. Syed (who has no neck, btw) is pretending he doesn’t care. SUB and Chelski have a tedious row.

Bradley has persuaded his glum faced girlfriend and her cute little deaf son not to move to Canadia so they can stay in Walford and watch him mope after JoJo. Good plan, glum faced girlfriend. Bradley plays scalectrix with the cute son then (SYMBOLISM ALERT) the car goes off the tracks. Bradley (SYMBOLISM ALERT – Gah!! Two lots of symbolism in five minutes!!!) then stands on it and crushes it. Cute son says “You’re not my dad! I hate you!” in sign language and runs off. Bradley proposes to Sid (aka glum faced girlfriend) in a really half arsed way so she laughs in his face and says that marriage is a patriarchal construct that’s not for her. Bradley sulks on Losers’ Bench a bit then reappears with a new Scalectrix car (SYMBOLISM ALERT) and says he wants them all to be together whatever.

Tanyah, Jane, Dadley and Bealemeister are doing a week of wife swap. WTF??? This mainly seems to involve Ian crawling round in a drunken stupor while Jane tells stories to Tanyah’s cute baby about people called Ian meeting horrible deaths. There is some controversy about whether Devil Child Peter (who has grown up into an illustration from a 1970’s girls comic) has shagged/is shagging Tanyah’s Eva Green lookin’ daughter. Drunk Ian tries to slip a Kaff’s Kaff battered saveloy to Tanyah in the middle of the night and she wakes up and screams “Eww, get off, you creep!” Devil Child Lucy runs in and sees the whole thing and laughs a satanic laugh.

Babs has whored herself out to Evil Archie to get the money to pay for Sam’s bail. No–one else would stump up, which isn’t surprising considering she scarpered to Brazil and changed heads last time she was on bail. Everyone else is like ”Muuuum, what did you do that for??” HMP Lakeland Plastics (where, yes, Sam did wear a rounders bib whenever it was visiting time! Nostalgia!) has not been kind to Sam’s gigantic hair. Bab’s shoe-horns her into a tight dress and enters her into the “Queen Vic Made Up Beauty Contest”. She then uses her Stalinist powers to make Trinidad rig the vote and announce her the winner. Well done Babs, that’ll really cheer Sam up when Archie turns you into a replicant like in that BBC promo slot of yesteryear.

Bianca and Rickay are still having problems. Whatever.

Wheelchair Lad declares himself a rival to Dasbo for Libbie’s affections. Also Whatever.

Babs goes to Archie’s Den of Evil (aka the car lot) to submit herself to his evil whims but the entire Mitchell Jr Brigade (well, Roxie, Fill, Ronnie and Billy) show up and give him a big pile of cash that Ronnie was saving up to buy another disastrous nightclub. “Keep your stinking bail money,” they say and march out triumphantly. (Babs says something boring about not being able to buy love, and family, probably, as well, before they go). Archie sits there making evil faces until Juhneen (who can smell a used £20 note from 500 yds) conveniently wanders in. Archie says “The Mitchells, we hates them forever” and offers Juhneen a big pile of money to help him make them pay, make them all pay! Juhneen fondles the money lasciviously and tries out a few evil faces of her own.

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 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!!!!!

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)...

GHOST ON THE (WASHING) MACHINE

Just what is Cruestella up to? What drives a career woman to act all pathetic in order to snag the affections of a spud-faced pub landlord, then proceed to terrorise his young son? Whatever evil non-event the producers have planned for us, it's pretty damn good. Cruestella pours water on Ben's bed and tells him that dreaming about being bullied by the Children of Razorlight makes him wee in his sleep. But if she hides him from the Children of Razorlight, he has to tell Fill that he wants Cruestella to be his new mummy.

Cruestella does weird stuff to Fill's accounts book while everybody sleeps. Fill finds out and tells Ben to go to the playscheme and stand up to the Children of Razorlight like a true Mitchell. Cruestella says that she will protect Ben's snivelling little carcass. For a price! Fill beats up the main bully's dad and Cruestella messes with Ben's head some more. Wow! I love this... even though bullying small boys and messing around with their little brains is bad, m'kay?

There's stuff about Dasbo, @@@ and Lin. @@@ starts wearing make up and puts her profile on the Russians for pervs a dating site when she looks as Russian as my cat looks barely old enough to have started her periods. Good move @@@. Thought you were supposed to be clever? Dasbo also messes with Mickney's head re: DVDLi. No, I don't know either.

Big Mo tries to put NurseTanyah out of business (eh? Oh, this will be the big revenge!!! thing that Mo talked about the other week). The bright idea is to tell a bunch of pensioners that NurseTanyah is doing an OAP free perm special, and bring them to the doorstep, waving their vouchers. NurseTanyah gives them all perms - or at least pats their hair and waves some hairspray about - and thanks Big Mo for the marketing boost. Mo goes: "Bah! I'll get you NurseTanyah! And those Tanyettes too!"

Yolande starts work at the launderette. What happened to the Kwik E Mart? She winds Dot up with her fancy new ideas about not smoking and alteration services. Dot tries to nobble Yolande's laundry load and thinks that Yolande is after her job. Mr Opodopolus offers Poline's old job to Yolande. Dot has a meltdown and screams "I quit". Dot spends the rest of the week in either the caff or the pub, muttering about ageism. Yolande refuses the offer, but reminds Dot that Poline is properly dead and should really be buried, so get a grip. Dot grippeth not.

Beale tells the family that they're moving into Poline's old house. He promises a new double bed for Panto Jane, but Devil Child Lucy says the place smells of wee, and she can sense the presence of Poline. Obviously DC Lucy's satanic powers are not yet at a level that she can do battle with Poline's enfeebled ghost, so they all move back to the old house. Especially after Fill and Bill tell a posh couple that Ian rented the old place to that Walford is a den of vice, violence and iniquity. Posh couple demand a rent reduction. PJ finds Poline's ashes in a cupboard, and DC Lucy says she's still not moving. PJ enlists the local vicar's help. The vicar tells them that Auntie Poline is not a demon, but DC Peter sees the crossed fingers behind his back and starts getting all Buffy on his arse. Ian gives the ashes to Dot to keep in her ashtray and bribes DC Lucy and DC Peter to come back to the house. Dot keeps Poline in the launderette and talks to her after hours. Oh boy. I'd love to see what happens when they run out of powder.

Fill intercepts PJane's new bed and gives it to Billy. Because making Ian Beale's life a misery is not the same as proper bullying because Ian has foolish aspirations towards middle-classness and keeps yattering about gentrification, so therefore needs to be put in his place.

Pregnancy triangle update! Slimy snogs GADawn in front of Dr SheWolf and moves in with GADawn. Another meltdown and then Dr SheWolf tells Slimy's employers that he fixed up a dodgy credit card for GADawn in PantoJane's name. Never mind Slimy, there's always the caff. Or the bookie's. Or perhaps you could work on MMartin's stall? Well, that's GADawn's attitude anyway. Dr SheWolf tells Slimy that she'll see him crawling back to her after GADawn leaves him when the money runs out etc etc. Slimy and GAD scuttle off to his mum's for a bit. SheWolf: thwarted!

SEVEN DADLEY SINS
The theme of this week’s episodes is “All middle class ladies be crazy!!” First of all we have Dr Fox, who is cackling with glee at the news that GADawn is past the legal limit for abortions and also referring to herself in the third person alot. (“What Dr Fox wants! Dr Fox gets! Bwa ha ha!!” etc). Calm down love, you’re not a character from Flash Gordon. GADawn meanwhile moves into the flat above Minty/Garry (who are disappointed, as they were hoping for a new cast member) and gets Stella to check over her Surrogacy Agreement. Stella says it is a load of tosh, legal-wise so GADawn tells Smarmy that they can live together and keep the baby and skip through tulip fields forevah! Smarmy dumps her. Ha!

GADawn is snivelling around so Dr Fox tells her that Smarmy never fancied her in the first place but just pretended to, so that GADawn would keep the baby, which is now more fought over than the Alcase-Lorraine region of France/Germany. GADawn drinks a bottle of vodka, has a hot bath and sticks “Vera Drake” in the DVD player. Everyone thinks she is trying to commit suicide and calls an ambulance. Dawn and the baybay both turn out to be alright. Smarmy sits on Losers Bench for a spot of manly crying and then tells Dawn that he does love her really after all, but Dawn tells him to “Git Ahhht!!!”

JoJo/Dadley drags on and on. This week JoJo wears a horrendous “sexy outfit” that makes her like a Victorian killer doll and Dadley sexes her up in his own living room while he is supposed to be researching guinea pigs on the internet. Don’t ask. Can something please happen with this plot now? Is that too much to ask? In other Slater news, BroJo weirdly flirts with Babs for a bit (mate, it’s called “masturbation”, look into it) and JoJo Ma reappears, saying that she wants to go on a holiday with her kids. The hateful brats all run a mile but then something happens so that Dadley ends up paying for a holiday for JoJo and Ma anyway.

Billy wants to turn the defunct DVD shop into an internet caff – how very 1998. He bickers with Fill and Beale about them investing or not. Meanwhile news spreads about Phoney’s pregnancy. Billy and Phoney think their little flat won’t be big enough and talk about renting Poline’s Palace of Burnt Memories instead. Beale says no, of course, because he is horrid and then suggests to Panto Jane that he moves them and the devil brood into Poline’s Palace of etc and so on instead. Jane: “Erm, I don’t think so!!”

The other middle class crazy lady storyline is that of Cruestella D’Evil, who is on fine form this week. Ben hides his hearing aid so he doesn’t have to go to school but then Cruestella makes him go anyway. All the kids tease him for being deaf and Ben wets himself. Cruestella mutters that he is a “wee stained little freak”(double ha!) and offers to help him hide his shame from Fill. Then she mocks him for being a wuss and says that he has to be HARD if he wants to be a proper Mitchell and worthy of his daddy’s love. Next day, Ben tries to smack one of the boys (when instead he should have teased him for being a rubbish actor and having hair like a girl) who made him wet himself and ends up being thrown roughly to the ground and given a good shoeing. Cruestella watches with a faint smile on her face for a few minutes before breaking it up.

Ben goes crying to Ian, shows him his bruises and tells him that Stella is beating him (Ian comes up with the “Cruella” nickname). Ian goes round to see Fill and be all Bealemeisterfull and outraged and then they quickly discover that he was actually beaten up by the kids from school. They tell Ben off and Cruestella slips into his room, tells him that he will be taken into care if he carries on lying and then gives him a hug and says that she’ll protect him. Brrr, creepy. This storyline with all the headfuckery and emotional blackmail etc is so much better than a clichéd child beating plot. Well done the BBC!

WHEN I'M SIXTY-ERR?

It's a milestone birthday for Peggy. Not sure which one. The EE producers don't divulge that, but if she's supposed to be 60, then I'm Liz Hurley. Fill, Cruestella (thank you GU) and Victim Ben decorate the pub with old Carry On Stills, pictures of Babs taking tea with the Krays, you know the kind of thing. Babs has a few non-comedy senior moments over the catering delivery, and Ian sneers. Babs also engages some bloke with an outrageous accent to makeover the living room so that it looks like something out of a Furniture Village ad. The ladies not classed as a) totty, b) mad, or c) pregnant (Yolande, Babs and PantoJane) go to a yoga class and the bouffanted teacher in a leotard tries to realign Babs's chakras without her permission. Babs is later sad about this because it's the best offer she gets all week after NotDavid Essex says he's not coming to her birthday party.

Phoney is pregant again, and worries about telling Billy. Billy runs foul of a debt collector who follows him around until he hands over the money, and worries about telling Phoney. Phoney gets a job as the receptionist in the Hair Patting salon to make more money. Her first task is to screw up GADawn's hair patting and colouring appointment. GADawn makes an unreasonable amount of fuss, and Duckface Preeti has to fit her in over lunch or something.

Slimy is installing GAD in a flat above the plot cupboard, and AGarry is allowed out to sniff around. He's got a thing for pregnant ladies, after all. GAD's little head is too full of colour charts and sofa catalogues to notice, and she skips off to get her hair done. Only Chelski switches the hair dye for a red felt-tip pen, and GAD ends up with rather cute Gothy streaks instead of honey highlights. GAD marches into the pub and starts having a go a the nice ladies, who finally admit that Dr SheWolf has persuaded them all to pretend to like her, but they all really think she's a wee hoor. GAD can't believe that her only friend in the world is Carly (incidentally, whatever happened to Genghis, the Dolescum Dog?), and stomps off home to cry. I can't help thinking that with all this womb rental, accommodation costs etc, they'd have been better off visiting an orphanage in a developing country, but what the hey...

Plenty of action in the Hair Patting salon, today. JoJo decides to upgrade her appearance (again), and gets Preeti to set her hair in some carmen rollers to make her look like a Charlie's Angel, but not in a good way. Really, you'd think that GADawn could take one look at JoJo's hair and get some money off Slimy to get a proper cut in town.

Dr SheWolf tells NurseTanyah of her surrogacy hell, but with all the controlling and pimping her husband bits removed. Nurse Tanyah looks slightly concerned that Dr SheWolf and her flexible interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath is in charge of her family's health. Meanwhile Dadley is shagging JoJo amid the ashes of Poline's fruitbowl or something. No wonder the Bealemeister can't sell it if he hasn't even bothered to paint over the smoke stains. Two letters, Ian: B and Q.

There's some stuff about moving to Spain. It's always Spain isn't it? Never Cheadle. Or Stockholm. Stockholm's nice. Very clean.

JoJo thinks that Dadley is selling her a line. NurseTanyah has been watching far too many property programmes, and is impatient to make a fresh start. Blimey, she's only been in Walford for five minutes. But the Tanyettes don't want to move because they've got friends. Really? Well, Lauren is kind of mates with Zombie Jay and DC Lucy - no wonder she's going all Goth. Abi is friends with umm... Ben.

Not if CruStella has anything to do with it. CruStella says that Abi is a Bad Person, and that if Ben so much as talks to her, it'll be Spoontime for Benjy at Bedtime again. CruStella does mad faces and learns how to beat Ben at Grand Theft Auto and tells Abi that she's not welcome at Ben's birthday party.

Phoney tells Billy that she's pregnant. Billy tells Phoney that they're broke. But they decide to have the baby anyway. But only after Billy has made lots of bad smell-type faces and overacted like a good 'un. He's too good for this crap.

GADawn turns up in a red dress to match her hair, and "looks amazing", according to the official spoilers. Dr SheWolf sends Slimy out to "keep GAD happy", and looks mad and smug at the same time. Slimy looks worried.

Everything's going well at the party. Babs is wearing something ghastly in white and Bacofoil that screams Peter Stringfellow In Drag; Pat is wearing Stealth Bomber earrings. BroJo uses his combat skillz to create one of those champagne towers that you used to see in 1970s semi-porn movies starring Joan Collins; and JoJo makes sour comments about Nurse Tanyah's Spanish plans, and tells her that Dadley will probably leave her anyway, so what's the point. Not really. But there is a fight between JoJo and NurseTanyah over who spilled whose Babycham, and Ian knocks over the champagne tower while nobody's looking. Dadley runs after JoJo, saying that says he's going to give the little minx a good seeing-to demand an apology. Then he tells JoJo that he's in love with her. Eh? I've seen more passionate declarations from a wet cushion. NurseTanyah encounters BroJo in the ladies again, and he tries it on. NT says no, and discovers Dadley coming out of the Slater Tardis with JoJo. JoJo apologises, but what for???

THE DISCREET SMARM OF THE BEALEGEOISIE
I was out a lot last week so it’s cribbage time again. Sigh.

JoJo and Dadley continue their weird, repetitive and repulsive on/off relationship (though it seems to be more on than off). I can only assume that Dadley is v well hung as I can’t see why else Nurse Tanyah and JoJo would spend so much time fawning over him. Anyway, Duckface has a faux ann summers party and Di Vi Di Li borrows money off Dasbo to buy some pleather undergarments to sell. It all turns out to be a cruel hoax though so Chelski and Duckface can watch her make a fool of herself. That seems a bit much considering they are only fighting over MICKNEY, who doesn’t seem worth the bother, to be honest. The three of them start squealing and pushing each other but then it cuts away before the proper catfight starts. Boring. Nurse Tanyah is also there and Jojo has much angst re Dadley.

DVDLi can’t return the money to Dasbo and @@ is cross, but then it turns out that loads of sad inadequates blokes have signed up to their mail order bride site so they are suddenly loaded. Hmm, are they going to rent out Chelski and GADawn or is this basically a big fraud? Some bloke manages to track them down to Walford and says he is going to come and check out the fictional Olgas for himself. Ruh roh. In other news they think that a webcam of DS Keef might make them money. Trampcam.com?? I suppose I’ve seen crappier websites on the internets

Prison Bitch Bert spends half the week being feckless and irresponsible, while Pat pops up from behind the occasional lamp post to shout “Oi, stop being feckless and irresponsible!” and then disappear again. Ok Bert, if you aren’t going to fuck off back to Emmerdale can you at least cut your hair? That stringy shit is giving me the creeps. The Social come round and Jay is all “yes, I’m v happy here etc and so on” as he would rather even be stuck with Bert than be taken into care. Anyway, one day Jay-Z (Z stands for zombie, of course) is caught stealing a bacon butty from the caff because PB Bert has neglected to feed him his daily helping of BRANES. Doh. Bert has an epiphany, decides to be responsible and gets a job as a street sweeper but he’s still v annoying. Also his mystery ailment reoccurs and he crashes his dustcart into a stall. Let’s hope it’s something terminal.

Dr Fox buys DS Keef a drink and whitters on about sudoku puzzles for a bit as a lame pretext to suddenly squawk, “How is GADawn and her costly womb?? Tell me?? Tell me??” Dr Fox finds out that GADawn has met “someone” in the Cotswolds and immediately starts panicking that her precious baby will be stolen away by a horny handed farm labourer (or stockbroker, seeing as it’s the Cotswolds…).

I am really sad I missed this next bit (honest!) as Ian decides to try and be middle class and has an excruciating dinner party with the other middle class people of the Square (Dr Fox, Smarmy, Dadley, NTanyah). It all goes tits up when they all start going on about GADawn and adoption and the Foxes run off in a huff and Ian gets drunk. Better luck next time, Bealemeister. Bourgeois respectability will be yours one day! Later on it is the anniversary of their miscarriage and Dr Fox whines about her uterus AGAIN

Sdulla helps Ben with his homework. Exciting!

Jay’Z gets one of the Tanyettes to start smoking. Equally exciting!

The rest of the week is taken up with BroJo’s attempts to get into Nurse Tanyah’s knickers. BTW, does it count as crypto-incest if a brother and sister are trying to knock off a pair of spouses? Anyway, BroJo spends the whole time sniffing round Nurse Tanyah and offering to sort out her fusebox (that is not a euphemism, you pervs) at the Hair Patting Shop. It turns out he learnt to be an electrician as well as a sexy brooding psychopath whilst in the army. Nurse Tanyah starts off all “sod off you twerp” but then she changes her mind and is all “boo hoo, Dadley keeps binning me off when it’s time for marriage counselling” and BroJo is all, “You poor thing, tell me all about it… IN BED!!!”

BroJo overhears Dadley whispering saucy come-ons to JoJo on his mobile in the pub (though he doesn’t know it is her yet) like, “wear more self tanning lotion, it really turns me on” and “I love the smell of urinal tablets in the morning,” etc etc. He tries to prove to Nurse Tanyah that the Dadster is having an affair but the seasoned love rat deletes his call history off his phone. Bah! Foiled! BroJo continues to flirt with NT in various ways in front of Dadley, driving Dadley into a jealous rage that causes him to throw BroJo against the wall and say “grr” a few times in a totally non gay stylee. Poor Nurse Tanyah, destined to be fought over by a pair of charmless gingers. Dadley thinks that BroJo is going to do it with NT in the hair shop one night and bursts in to surprise them, but it is all a cunning ploy on BroJo’s part and instead he is doing it with Chelski. Gasp!

POLINE DAMNS THE WORLD TO HECK
We don't get to see the fire of DOOM, but it looks like Poline's fruitbowl survived the conflagration, as did she. Did MMartin make a dash through the inferno to save his sulking mother? Did Joe construct a rescue ladder out of bits of 2x4 and old knickers? We will never know.

All we do know is that Poline's expression hasn't changed since we last saw her, sitting on the stairs, clutching BettytheDog to her breast while Moomin conducted her very own speak bitterness session in the living room. There she is, in her hospital bed, eyebrows perfectly arched, and mouth like the proverbial cat's arse. Nobody wants to tell Poline the truth about MMartin and Moomin, even though she drops mile-wide hints at every opportunity. So Poline decides that if nobody is going to tell the truth, she's going to lie too. But she doesn't tell her loved ones that she's running a crack whorehouse out of Arfur's shed, oh no. She says that the doctors checked her for smoke damage and found...cancer. Apparently she has a brain tumour in her lungs and only has days to live, so everybody had better start being nice to her and doing as they're told, or she'll come back and haunt them or something. MMartin immediately promises to do anything she likes, including stuffing her corpse and keeping it in the living room while he dresses up in her old cardigans and cleanses the showers of Walford of SIN. Not really. But he does dump Moomin. Moomin: foiled!

It's also the run up to another Wedding of the Month. Panto Jane's mother, Auntie Mabel (aka Nurse Gladys Emmanuel) flies in from inspecting poo factories on CBeebies, and parks her spotty Damien Hirst plane down by the canal. Auntie Mabel doesn't like Ian. The words: "weasel-faced loser" are never far from her lips. Though she lets it drop that Jane's real name is Lesley.

PantoJane has the usual EE hen party, when a bunch of women she barely speaks to suddenly come together to drink champagne and talk about strippers/marriage being a living hell/quote Dylan Thomas. Except Junior Hussies DC Lucy and Lauren manage to invite themselves along too, and get drunk on cheap cava. PJane cancels the stripper and carts DC Lucy home. Ian gets cross and almost adds "can't look after other peoples' teenage children" to her list of crimes, except that DC Lucy says that having Panto Jane for a stepmother might be OK.

Poline looks at a photo of her Twiggyesque 1960s self, and wants to play an old record from her youth. Oooh, is it "Come Outside"? Joe finds her old dansette, and she cranks it up to play a Dusty Springfield classic. Blimey, all we need are the drag queens. Instead, we get Ian.

Ian wonders about not publicly humiliating PJane on her second big day, but then Poline tells him that she knows all about Martin and The Dirty Jackson and has decided to punish them by dying of cancer. Ian cries like a girl until Poline tells him to shut up, she's not really dying: she just made it up to punish the world for lying and possibly showing the damage that lies can do. Yes, that sounds like soap logic to me.... Ian tells her about PJane and Grunt, and Poline says that crushing her spirit isn't enough; he needs to tell the world that he is a cuckold three times over. In a church. In front of Auntie Mabel.

Meanwhile, at the Mitchells, Babs is organising some medieval banquet, complete with stuffed pigs head, some weird layered roast bird dish and a fat bloke in a dress chucking chicken legs about. Oh, that's Minty.

Fill has an attack of conscience and texts: "He KNOWS" to PJane. PJane runs into the rain in her dress, and refuses to marry Ian. Poline decides to have a go anyway, and is wearing a special Satanic Red outfit for the occasion, with matching hat. Ian runs off to read Jane's list of crimes in the street or something. What follows is possibly one of the worst things I have ever seen on TV. And I've been watching The X-Factor.

It rains. Ian screams. PJane screams back. PJane runs off to the allotments and cries a bit. Ian runs after her, still screaming. Then suddenly it's dark, and they fall into Arfur/MMartin's carrot patch and start throwing mud at each other, still screaming. Ian says he gave her everything: a job, three kids to look after, a house to run, free chips and choice of leftover fishcakes every other Saturday...everything a woman could want. But PJane says she wanted more, like baldy ex-para loving and lots of it. Obviously Ian calling the shots was never good enough for Miss Picky, eh Patrick?

Anyway, in the middle of all this...perhaps Ian swallows some of MMartin's leftover hemp seeds...Ian has a revelation, and decides that he really does love PJane, and that they can put all this behind them. PJane is only marginally less surprised than we are...Poline sees them from her lair and scuttles out to remind him of his duty to rend PJane limb from scarlet limb. Ian says he's changed his mind, and maybe Poline should say that the cancer diagnosis was all a mistake, and they mistook her for the hatchet faced harridan at the other end of the ward...Poline scowls and says: "Go to hell..." Excellent!

Bye bye baby, baby goodbye; Bye bye baby, don't make me cry

By special guest blogger, Patrick
(who has used different nicknames from the usual, just to be difficult)

Mickney and Dasbo are suspicious about BankerRob's intentions. GADawn is loved up and thinks nothing could possibly be wrong and that Rob is "the one". Again, it is clear that no one in EastEnders watches the soaps as verbalising that someone is "the one" is always the kiss of death. In a cunning plan, Mickney steals GADawn's mobile phone and gets BankerRob to meet him in a posh hotel. As we all know, the BBC is run by sodomites so we get a nice scene of BankerRob soaping himself up in the bath and Mickney coming into the bathroom to watch and lick his lips. BankerRob's wife phones as they're chatting (what are the odds, eh, viewers? Well, in soap world, close to 100%). Mickney seems to know it's Rob's wife using mystical extra sensory powers. In a weird homoerotic courting ritual, he punches the towel-wearing Rob and makes Rob agree to dump GADawn. However, Rob meets up with her in the Vic and can't go through with it. A nation yawns.

DevilChild Lucy asks PantoJane for some extra money. PJ says no, as she has to learn to live within her means. DCL: angry. PJ is worried that DCL is being bullied at school and using the extra £2 she'd asked for to pay off the thugs. Pretty poor thugs if they're only asking for £2. PJ says to the Bealemeister that they should tell DCL about the planned adoption and ask her to be bridesmaid. Bealemeister very against this idea but goes along with it. Meanwhile, PJane goes off to see NurseTanya, who assures her that DCL is very popular at school, according to LittleLauren, and that the adoption is wonderful news.

PJane and the Bealemeister sit DCL and Peter down to tell them about the adoption. Incidentally, has anyone else noticed that PantoJane always starts conversations to the children with "Me and your dad"? Hardly a good grammatical role model. Peter, who seems to have been supplied by the Paedophile Recruitment Agency [maybe his head twisted off in a 360 degree twirling frenzy - Ed], doesn't seem to mind. DCL shouts "Nooooo! You're not my mother and you never will be!!!!!!!!!!!!" and storms out. PJane is upset. She and the Bealemeister are talking about it and the Bealemeister takes the opportunity to give her a hug so he can do the Evil Over The Shoulder Grimace that is required in EE every time someone receives a hug.

The Bealemeister goes to talk to DCL about her reluctance to be adopted by PJane. DCL screams at him "I have a mother and today is the anniversary of her death! Why don't we ever talk about her?!" The Bealemeister replies "well, she had an affair with my half-brother-who-wasn't, tried to pass off the resulting baby as mine, then had an affair with my cousin, tried to have me shot, abducted my children and fled the country!" Unfortunately he didn't really say any of that, and just told DCL not to worry about the adoption, "because it's never going to happen". Mwah-ha-ha. O Bealemeister what is your evil plan? We all know PJane isn't anywhere near good enough for you since she rejected your fishly charms for Grunt, but let's face it, you're 38 with three marriages behind you, three kids, a growing paunch and a nasty recurring cold sore. You're not exactly a prime catch.

PJane takes DCL over to NurseTanya's for some pampering. Shitty receives an phone call from her mother (BT's Ironically Timed Phone Calls department is working overtime this week), and commiserates with DCL about how hard it must be to have lost her mother. DCL agrees, and then asks PJane if she can have her hair cut. PJane agrees and, lo and behold, DCL has it cut in the style of Cindy. Poline sees the hair cut, makes the sign of the cross and screams "It's Cindy! Cindy from beyond the grave!!!" and tells StraightPike all about what a witch Cindy was to the poor old downtrodden Bealemeister. This is actually a rather good plot development; let's hope that history will repeat itself and DCL will hire a hit man to take out the Bealemeister on his wedding day. Meanwhile, PJane finds a pack of tampons in DCL's bag which we had seen her shoplifting earlier. PJane realises that Lucy has been in such a bad mood as it's her very first rag week (get used to it, love, you've got another 35 years or so to go), so forgives her and they hug.

Bradders has organised a birthday surprise for JoJo - a trip on the LondonEye with champagne and truffles and everything! He tells Dadley about it and Dadley says that JoJo is far too common to appreciate it and that Bradders should find himself a classy lady. What, just like NurseTanya? Bradders also tells Dadley that JoJo's mum has just come out of the funny farm. Dadley immediately tells all his family and LittleLauren makes sarky comments about it to Bradders. Bradders has also, miraculously, managed to find a clothes shop apart from JoJo's stall, and has bought her a posh frock. RainMan delivers a card for JoJo which had arrived at the Tardis by mistake; BroJo sees it's from their mother and rips it up! However, BroJo's crime skills wouldn't tax even the Secret Seven for more than 30 secs, as he leaves the ripped card in the rubbish bin in the living room, where JoJo finds it. JoJo: annoyed.

JoJo wants BroJo to come with her to see their crazy mother, aka NutMum. BroJo says no way; JoJo is the nutty one for even wanting to go. JoJo arrives at NutMum's house to find NutMum not dressed (at 5pm!) and thinking it's 9am. Not a good start. JoJo drops BroJo into the conversation, just casual like, and NutMum starts screaming "He's dead, I tells ya! Sean is dead!" JoJo didn't realise NutMum was quite this far gone. Next day, NutMum is on quite good form and cooks JoJo a nice breakfast and gives her a digital camera for her 18th. JoJo shows NutMum a family picture. NutMum rips it up and screams a lot. JoJo flees back home, only to find that Bradders has gone on the Eye without her. She and Bradders row and she accuses him of trying to change her with his posh frocks and his London Eye trips. Bradders bursts into a few bars of Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are and they make up. JoJo tells BroJo that NutMum thinks he's dead. BroJo doesn't care.

Phoney agrees to take the BabyOfDoom out. Billy is pleased. When he comes home for lunch, Phoney has cooked a big meal. But where is the BabyOfDoom? Billy thinks the worst, but it turns out she's with Pat in the plot cupboard. Phoney says to Billy, isn't it great, just the two of us! Billy fails to pick up on her meaning until she hands him an adoption leaflet. He comes home the next day to find a note from Phoney saying that she just can't take it any more and has left him. Babs is angry and tells Billy to fight for his family "like a proper Mitchell!" Aaaargh. Billy tells her he's sick of hearing about the Mitchells - my hero! Babs and Billy take a taxi to NotDavidEssex's narrowboat in Kent (a taxi to Kent?!?!?! FFS.). They arrive. The narrowboat is moored on a green so idyllic, I keep expecting Miss Betsey Trotwood to appear to chase the donkies away. Phoney, however, has fled to the house of some posh but rather batty woman I've not seen before, who turns out to be her dead mother's sister. BattyAunt reveals her own adoption horror but says it was the right thing for her to do at the time and she will still love Phoney if she throws BabyOfDoom to the jackals.

Babs and NDE have made up now that Babs has confessed that she really rather likes BabyOfDoom, actually. Phoney arrives back and she and Billy talk about how hard BabyOfDoom's life will be. Phoney confesses that she hates the sight of BabyOfDoom and can't bear to be in the same room as "it", and that she nearly killed it with a pillow. Billy is shocked. He thinks back to his Psychology O-Level and pretends to be about to float BabyOfDoom off down the river to see if she survives. Unfortunately this backfires as Phoney is almost ready to shove the boat off, not stop him. Armed with this information, Billy reluctantly consents to the adoption. Fill and Babs are not pleased at all. PoshDoc comes around to get things going. Phoney tells Billy all about how she was expecting BabyJanet, not BabyOfDoom. As you all know, I'm actually a fan of Phoney, and she does all this stuff pretty well. She thanks Billy for going along with giving BabyOfDoom away, but Billy breaks down and cries like a big girl, which is actually rather affecting even to an old cynic such as myself.

And finally, Mrs Goggins tells TriniDad that her mother is coming over from Montserrat to meet him and that they can be a proper family at last. @@@ even wants to take TriniDad's picture to school! TriniDad realises that he hasn't thought this lying-about-the-DNA-results thing through and looks uncomfortable. This has to be one of the stupidest storylines yet for EE, and I'm even including the romance between Alan's mother and Felix the butterfly collector. Gah.

DOWNS DOWN, DEEPER AND DOWN...
Davetta's ring is too big for her, and PantoJane's clearing every corner of the cafe in a frantic search for her engagement bauble. Pat, the East End's answer to Miss Marple - though I bet Miss M had a much fruitier past, especially the Geraldine McEwan one - eyes BroJo suspiciously. BroJo does some fancy footwork - getting the ring back off Davetta and dropping it in PJane's handbag when she's not looking for PJ to find it later and buying Davetta something from Elizabeth Duke. It's not like Davetta would notice anyway. Indeed, Davetta is so dazzled by the cubic zirconia's sparkle that she thinks BroJo flinching every time she touches him is the frisson of barely-suppressed passion.

Bradley and Stacey realise that they're not going to get swanky Docklands flats on a secretary City chap and a market stall trader's earnings, and Bradley asks Davetta if they can move into Chez Lee. Blimey, the earth has barely settled on his shallow grave and they're already going through his stuff. Davetta makes a thoughtful face and announces to BroJo that they're moving out of the Slater Tardis and into Chez Lee. BroJo nearly goes into spasms over the idea of living with the flowered borders and Barry's remains all over the cellar, and tries to spend Hallowe'en on the sofa instead of watching Davetta shake her barely-legal booty in a leather catsuit at the club. Davetta gets all teary and forces him to spend the day comparing paint swatches in Habitat to prove that he loves her. BroJo's Evil Hug Face count goes through the roof. He gets his revenge by bullying Bradley and JoJo to move in and help with the mortgage or something. Davetta ups the control ante - wow, this girl has ISSUES - and plans a "romantic surprise" weekend in Venice. Aside from the fact that the words "romantic" and "surprise" always spell "mindbending disaster" in Eastenders World, does BroJo look like the kind of man who'd enjoy being serenaded in a gondola? Think so, I do not. BroJo holds back the physical revulsion only just, and says he's not going because it's JoJo's 18th birthday and he doesn't want to miss that. Is it me, or does anybody else think that his relationship with JoJo is a bit...well...creepy? I think JoJo agrees with me.

PantoJane is relieved at getting her ring back, but NOT FOR LONG. Ian's got plans for a huge swanky wedding. PantoJane tells him that she wants a registry office do with a couple of sandwiches in the park afterwards. But then Ian's got all those inlaws from his former marriages to keep sweet, so he sends out the invites for Hotel Des Poshoes anyway. Jane throws the ring at him and says the wedding's off. Then it's on again. Then there's an engagement party in the Vic that Ian uses as a PR opportunity - I'm sorry, is Stephen Merchant his PR monkey or something? PantoJane agrees to marry him after he makes an emotional speech about switching off CJ Dave's life support or something. Ian makes an evil face, just in case we didn't realise that this is another super elaborate Bealemeister setup.

Phoney really can't cope with the concept of a child who is may possibly be stupider than her. Billy meets an old friend with a Downs kid at the Downs Encounter Group, and has lots of fun engaging with parents etc. Phoney tries not to go "Eww!". She wrecks Petal's room and runs off into the night to discuss...adoption! Meanwhile, Babs has a change of heart and says she can love Petal after all, which is nice. Because Billy has a massive care home flashback and takes Petal to live with Babs until Phoney changes her mind. Phoney does lots of weeping and looking very sad indeed, and begs Billy to come back (and bring the baby if he has to). She tells the health visitor that she has changed her mind, then gets this [---] close to putting a pillow over Petal's sleeping face, but doesn't (phew!) and sits on the bed in mentalist staring mode.

Over at the TriniDad's. Geoffrey the Fresh Butler is slimy and tells TriniDad that Yolande is a no good 'ho before disappearing off to rearrange P Diddy's wardrobe or something. TriniDad believes him. Yolande: sad. @@ calls TriniDad "grandad" and gets him to do the paternity test. It comes back negative, but TriniDad doesn't tell Mrs Goggins, and lets the Gogginses believe that they're all family - well, in EE world they probably are really. Yolande announces that she's leaving, but TriniDad says he forgives her too, so she stays. Gogginses/TriniDads: happy, but maybe with a Troubled Hug Face.

In other news: GADawn breaks up with Slimy Metrosexual, then gets back together with him. Maybe Equity was cutting up rough, and the producers had to give her a few lines so that she could keep her card. Beano and Chelski find Parklife and Mrs G in a "compromising position" over at the Gogginses' old place. Ew