I have a terribly guilty confession. It really is shameful. But I am open with you and so confess that …I have started watching Coronation Street. It is really quite gripping to discover what life is really like in the Grim North.
The Mrs – hailing from the entrepreneur free, economic wastelands of the welfare addicted Grim North, that is to say Nottingham – is a lifelong Corrie fan. Until recently we have agreed that when I am there she records and when I am away she gorges and catches up. But then I started watching. It really is fascinating.
I had no idea that life in the North was so interesting. Apparently there is a murder on the Street about once every six months. Folks disappear for unexplained reasons (because the actor who plays them is on trial accused of being a nonce, a rapist or both) and no-one lives with their actual parents. In the North it is apparently compulsory for kids to live with a step parent and their new partner while their actual parents both live with new partners and the children of other folk.
It is all very confusing but since The Mrs is a sociologist she is able to explain it all to me. Right now someone called Tina who seems to have had sex with every man in the street (apart from the large numbers of homosexuals camped out in Corrie) has been murdered. The main suspect is a white man whose son by his first marriage appears to be black and lives with his white ex-wife. Go figure. The main suspect lives with the wife of his father (currently a “disparu”) who is not his mother. The other suspect is the main suspect’s wife (not yet divorced). In fact the killer is the brother of the main suspect’s wife whose girlfriend is the sister of the main suspect. Or is it half-sister? Whatever. As you might gather it is all gripping stuff.
My wife says that Corrie is set in the traditional small c conservative part of Manchester not the liberal gay friendly part. Yet roughly 10% of the population of Corrie have apparently been openly gay or Lesbian in the past two years. Cripes. In the trendy City centre of Manchester I guess almost everyone must be gay. Perhaps my good pal Dan Levi might care to tell me if he and Rio Ferdinand are “The only straights in the village” that is Manchester.
Anyhow the Grim North seems a fascinating place. But what with the fact that one person in every street gets murdered every six months and with all the unexplained disappearances I am not sure that I have any great desire to get my passport out and pay another visit just yet. Corrie tells me all that I need to know.