Saturday 3 November 2012

The Street - would you live there?


(This post was originally posted by Clinkers (David) on the Coronation Street Blog in October 2012.)
In some bizarre, parallel universe, there is probably an edition of Location Location Location in which Phil & Kirsty amble down Coronation Street. I can’t imagine it would make for an edifying programme. There are more than one properties that fail to meet the ‘des res’ standard. Okay, maybe not as many as yesteryear. Who can forget Hilda Ogden’s medieval kitchen? The poor woman might as well have been cooking over an open fire. Then again, Hilda was no domestic goddess and you hardly need a top of the range AGA to unwrap a bag of chips.

There was also that freaky little creation that Gail and Brian shuffled around in back in the 1980s. It was barely a one-up, one-down and had trouble accommodating our Brian’s bouffant as he and Gail trundled around their micro-bijou hutch.

Until recently, the award for ‘Somewhere Horrible to Live/Exist’ was held by Peter Barlow’s flat. Most visitors had to enter the place sideways, crab-like before negotiating that nasty dining table (or was it just a large dinner plate on sticks?) and tripping over Carla’s ever-jangling handbag and falling headlong into the sofa. 

There is a new pretender to the crown though. Step forward Michelle’s ‘apartment’. “Oh to be alive on this glorious dawn” the raven-haired one must sing to herself each day, as she rises to the smell of stale kebab meat, or Steve as we call him. The joy of her doll’s house kitchenette, the over-sized sofa, another rotten old dining set, her charity shop pieces of ‘art’. Spare a thought for poor old Ryan, a six-foot bloke sharing a slice of roof space with the equivalent of asbestos insulation, namely Tracy luv. No wonder Michelle is evolving into a demented harpy. She would be more comfortable in an Underworld packing crate.
The Rovers gets more baffling as the centuries roll by. Back in the days when Ena’s hairnet was still a lass, the pub sported umpteen bars and function rooms. It would have come as no surprise to have seen Annie Walker showing punters into a five hundred seat theatre nect ton the gents lav. All of that extra space disappeared in the 1980s only to have now re-appeared upstairs. Suddenly the upper storey boasts numerous bedrooms, a flat and space for B & B guests. Give it a few weeks and Gloria will be leading Ken and Deirdre up to the roof terrace for cocktails. 

Meanwhile, spanking new developments such as Victoria Court are now studiously ignored. No one can afford to live there or no one wants to. Will new life ever be breathed into this part of the Street? Or can we expect even more characters to be crammed into Weatherfield’s attics?


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