Like the word? Know what it means? Well, males who get their rocks off watching Jennifer Ellison with one hand down the front of their trousers are veritable ‘tossers’. It’s another word for ‘wanker’, but just as rude. Yet it was the parole du jour for Wednesday’s episode, used to excess, by Jimmy and in situations that can only be described as gratuitous. Now some people may attribute this to his manic-depressive character, but to me, it was Brookside looking for a cheap, risque joke.
It wasn’t funny, and it was before the watershed. The mind boggles that the Official Forum choses to star out the word in context as it’s supposed to be providing a family-friendly environment (recognising that Brookside is indeed deemed a ‘family’ show), but the writers allow such rude expression and tacky double entendres to run riot.
What a marvel Brookside is proving to be ... One only has to read the Official Forum to establish that the majority of young viewers admire the illicit and illegal activities of Dimily. Maybe these viewers aren’t too bright. Maybe they’ll reckon that it’s easy enough to get away with crime. Maybe they’ve got convoluted morals like Emily.
One thing for certain, Brookside isn’t the show it used to be. Even Uncle Phil in his ivory tower is forced to admit that and is seeking to do something about it. I wish him well, but he will have to contend with the fact that many people who post on the Official Forum have a Talibanesque intolerance to anyone who expresses a criticism of the show and a singular misunderstanding that anyone of long-term viewing who dares express such a criticism FOR THE GOOD OF THE SHOW should be personally and verbally attacked as a miscreant.
YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
I’m seriously thinking now of throwing in the towel on these summaries. I suggest one of the critical element take them over. Any volunteers?
Adele is hurrying Ant along at the beginning of a school day. The lad is understandably reluctant to be jollied along and complains to Adele that she’s picking on him. Adele rejoinders that she’s heartily tired of acting as his bodyguard.
NNT: and a cacophony of depressing music emanates from the stereo. Poor, pitiful, stinking, smelly, filthy Katie has hit the bottle again. She lolls numbly on the sofa, dressed in her Jackie Corkhill original bathrobe and heaves herself upward to suck from the bottle of vodka again. As she does so, Sammy enters the flat and silently observes the pathetic scene.
Dimily sit, joined at the hip, on the sofa at Hotel Corkhill. Jimmy stands behind them at the counter which divides the kitchen from the living room area. He asks the pair and Tim if they plan to be in for their tea tonight.
Emily screws up her horrible, orange, rubbery face and wants to know what’s so special that they be in for their tea tonight?
Why, it’s Pancake Day, reminds jolly Jimmy. Not only that, Wills is coming around for the occasion. No not THAT Wills, Jimmy’s son. Tim considers the proposal and decides that an evening of eating pancakes might not be so bad. In fact, Jimmy wants to have a pancake party.
Emily suggests that he invite Nikki and Jerome. Tim then suggests that Emily can use the occasion to give their gift of £1000 to Nikki, in order that she can stay at university. (Question: £1000 will only cover one year’s tuition for Nikki. I was under the impression that she owed at least two years’ fees!)
Sammy Rogers is appalled at the state of her younger sister and marches directly to where she sits, forcibly trying to extract the vodka bottle from her hands. The girls get into a tussle. When Sammy is successful in retrieving the bottle, she asks with disgust if Katie has even been into work that day?
Poor, pitiful, ugly, smelly Katie snarls that she wasn’t in the mood for working that day.
Sammy declares that the most urgent thing Katie needs is lots of black coffee and an immediate shower.
Back at Hotel Corkhill, Jimmy is having a less than satisfactory one-way telephone conversation with the now unseen Jackie. Wills, it seems, won’t be coming over for pancakes, as he’s been invited to a pancake party at one of his friend’s houses. Jimmy announces as much to Dimily.
That’s not fair, pronounces Emily. Tim pipes up and insists that Jimmy should still have the party. In fact, why not invite Nikki and Jerome? Or the Murrays? Suggests Jimmy. Plenty to go around. He’ll even knock up Ray and Jessie as they seem to need cheering up.
Dire and Brigid enter Sitcom House to find Adele, headphones on head, firmly ensconced on the sitcom sofa, listening to music. When the two nosey women finally succeed in getting through the sound barrier to Adele, Dire asks if she had a good day and what she did for lunch.
Lunch? Replies Adele. Why, she had to go to the shops with her mates for lunch. Dire pounces like a duck on a June bug! Mates? Adele’s not allowed to have any mates! Anyway, she’s meant to sit with Antony during lunch. What happened to Ant during lunch?
Adele replied that he was all right. He sat on his own. No one bothered him. As Dire begins to proselytise, Adele cuts her short by saying she’s fed up with acting as Antony’s keeper. In fact she wishes that she could go away.
Brigid cattily remarks that Adele could go up to her room and have another beach party if she wanted to go away. Adele shuts the nosey old bag up by telling Brigid that she, Adele, would be going away sooner than anyone would think.
Down at Bev’s Bar, Nikki and Bev are working at sorting the place out. Jimmy enters and invites Nikki and Jerome, who arrives shortly thereafter to the Pancake Party. He also invites Bev. He compliments Bev on the fact that she’s admirably sorted out the place.
Yes, remarks Bev, the stench of the Powells was at last beginning to fade.
Nikki protests that Bev can’t include Lance in that assumption and Jimmy agrees, saying that Lance endeavoured to look after Bev’s interests in her absence. It was all the fault of Leanne and Christy.
Bev replies that Lance didn’t try hard enough.
Jerome enters at that point and Jimmy makes a point to ask how good Jerome was at TOSSING. (Not funny, just shocking). Jimmy then explains that he’s having a pancake party and there’s going to be a pancake tossing competition. He invites the couple, before Bev reminds Jim that there are some empty barrels in the storeroom that needed moving.
Left on their own, Jerome expresses his reluctance to go to the pancake party. He wants to have an evening out with Nikki. Nikki refuses, saying that she’s skint.
No problem, says Jerome. The two would go to the pictures as Jerome’s treat. (Er, call me old-fashioned, but isn’t Jerome Nikki’s boyfriend? Shouldn’t he, therefore, pay for the date?)
Ah, but going to Jimmy’s do would be free and besides, it would be a laugh, says Nikki. (Doesn’t this woman have any mates at uni?) She promises Jerome that she’ll go out with him NEXT week.
Looking around at the bar, Jerome becomes frustrated and asks Nikki why - if she’s skint - she’s working for Bev for nothing. Nikki replies that she may just end up being an ex-student who’s a full-time barmaid, with her current financial status. (Well, Mike Dixon was a graduate who was a full-time barman).
Emily has put Nikki’s grand in a decorative chocolate tin, telling Tim that she’ll give the money to Nikki in that, so it will be a surprise when she opens it. Tim wonders if Nikki will accept the money, but shallow Emily sees no reason why she shouldn’t. After all, it was for Nikki’s own good. Nikki is a born student, says Emily. She needs to study in order to make something of herself.
Bev and Jim stand at the empty bar, Bev listening to Jimmy extol the virtues of his special recipe for pancake batter. Suddenly, all conversation is stilled as Lance appears in the door of the bar. Bev gives him a very reluctant look of welcome, as Jimmy makes himself scarce in order that the two can talk.
Lance remarks that Bev doesn’s seem overly excited to see him. Bev asks Lance what he expects her reaction to be, especially after returning home to find her bar in ruins, all thanks to him and his sister.
Lance decries this, saying that the state of the bar wasn’t his fault. Bev counters that she left him in charge. This is a surprise to Lance. He was never in charge. In fact, he was firmly under the impression that Bev left Leanne in charge. (And so was I, as I recally Leanne virtually forcing Bev into this situation. Perhaps Annabelle or Airfix would like to make this observation in the Official Forum as I shall not deign to present such a provocative question!).
Lance explains to Bev that he tried desperately to look after her interests in her absence. And it really wasn’t Leanne’s fault per se. It was all down to that Christy Murray. In fact, Christy convince Leanne that Lance was jealous of Leanne and in the end, Leanne actually sacked him. Lance asks Bev where she’s been for the past six months.
Bev replies that she’s been in Brazil, trying to sort the marital situation out with Fred. In fact, it was only because of that marital dilemma that Bev even returned to Liverpool. It was all down to that evil cow of a sister of Lance’s that she left in the first place, Leanne having convinced Bev that the place was crawling with bizzies out to expose Bev’s fraudulent marriage. Bev actually returned to give herself up, and the only thing she succeeded in doing was making herself look like a prize lemon at Manor Park Police Station. Why, they had no idea what Bev was gabbling on about! No, she would never forgive Leanne.
But, asks Lance timidly, would she forgive Lance?
Bev admits that Lance had betrayed her as well, but it seems that he didn’t betray her on purpose.
Sammy stands with a drunken Katie at the door of the shower, the water blasting. Sammy forces a gulp of black coffee down Katie’s throat and pushes her into the cold shower. As Katie whines and screams, Sammy admits that she’s sobered up enough, herself, to know how Katie feels.
Jimmy rings the doorbell of Sitcom House to invite all Murrays present to the Pancake Party. Whilst the grown-ups seem reluctant, Ant begs to be allowed to go. Jimmy jokes that they can only come if they bring a pan for the competition.
Bav and Lance are going over Bev’s life in the six months she’s been gone. Lance asks after Josh. Bev says that Josh hadn’t really got over Dave Burns’s departure. He never really warmed to Fred as a stepfather. Again, Bev reiterates her desire to hand herself into the authorities, but the police weren’t really after her at all. She tells Lance that Fred sends his apologies for the end of their relationship, and Lance sadly admits that Fred is history. The two spend a moment gazing at the concocted pictures of Bev and Fred, done to fool the immigration authorities. Lance admits that he knew the whole affair would all end in tears.
Jimmy’s party is in full swing, with Jimmy again extolling the virtues of homemade pancakes. The Murrays arrive en masse, including a poncey, little Antichrist, replete with Raymond Blanc cook’s apron, and a very reluctant and boorish Adele. Dire’s even brought some booze. Jimmy welcomes his guests and explains to Brigid that neither Ray nor Jessie fancied a party that evening.
Approaching Dire and Marty, Jimmy begins wittering about the dodgy insurance claim he helped Christy and Marty mastermind from the previous summer. Marty looks noticeably uneasy, and Dire isn’t at all certain what Jimmy’s going on about. When he disappears, Marty tells her to pay him no mind. He explains to her that just because Jimmy’s always been dodgy, he assumes that everyone else is also.
As Dire swans off, Marty approaches Jimmy and advises him that he almost put his size 9’s in about the planned break-in. Dire doesn’t know it was a planned job, he tells Jimmy, so Jimmy should shut it.
Bev and Lance are still reminiscing about the bar. Bev suggests that Lance accompany her to Jimmy’s party. It would be a laugh, she insists, just the way the bar used to be. Funny, Bev muses, she never knew how much the bar actually meant to her until she stepped out of the taxi and saw what Leanne had managed to achieve in her absence. The state of the place! She tells Lance that, initially, she only bought the bar to rub Jacqui Dixon’s nose in it and to show Jacqui how minted she was. It was a plaything. Now she was reduced to having nothing to show for her efforts.
She turns to Lance and asks if he’d consider coming back to work for her. After all, he was always the star attraction.
Lance looks uncomfortable. He finally admits to Bev that he’s got a swank job as a maitre d’ at a restaurant off Penny Lane. Dead posh, it was.
Bev pleads with him to return to his old job with her, but Lance says he isn’t sure he actually belongs there anymore.
Nikki and Jerome stand to one side at Jim’s party, Nikki singing her ever-present song of debt. Jimmy chooses this moment to launch into a tirade against Jerome’s assertion to put maple syrup on pancakes. It was lemon juice and sugar on pancakes in THIS country, Jim asserts. This country was losing its cultural identity - what with everyone wearing baseball caps and calling each other ‘guy’. (I assume this is supposed to indicate ignorance. I would hope that it would. The same tirade emanating from Ron Dixon’s mouth would foster cries of ‘racist’ or ‘nationalist’ or ‘bigot.’ Oops! Forgot. America and Americans are the accepted pet hate of the chattering classes. Any remark against them is ‘opinion’, not ‘racism’ as such.)
Tim and Emily stand, oddly shyly, to one side and pat each other on the proverbial back in anticipation of their act of great generosity toward Nikki.
Showered, fragrant and sober, Katie now sits on the NNT sofa with Sammy. Sammy is baffled by Katie’s drunken behaviour. She clearly thought Katie was over the worst of Clint. Katie admits that she thought she was over the worst of it too - until she saw Ron Dixon’s release date marked on Jacqui fridge calendar.
Sammy tells Katie that she has to do her best to ignore that and just get on with her life. Katie says she can’t help dwelling on this all the time. The feeling just wouldn’t go away, and it would get worse once Ron Dixon was free. (So how, pray tell, will she sustain her friendship with Jacqui?How? First, she will demand utmost loyalty from Jacqui AGAINST Ron. Then she will demand even more utmost loyalty from Jacqui against Max. The same old ‘bring Jacqui down to my squalid level’ cycle will begin again).
Bev and Lance arrive at Jimmy’s and stand in the middle of the lounge, Bev reflecting on the grusome history the house holds. Why, she points out to Lance, she reckons Trevor Jordache met his grisly end right about where Jimmy was standing in the kitchen, holding his competition. Just as well they weren’t having a barbecue, she quips to Lance, because Trevor lay buried for a couple of years right under the patio out back.
Adele sits sullenly on the sofa, listening to her personal stereo. Brigid tries to get the girl to join in she spirit of the evening. Adele thinks the whole thing is stupid. It’s even more stupid as far as Antony is concerned, she discloses.
Brigid is perplexed by this remark.
‘Well,’ Adele asserts, ‘don’t you think it’s sad that Ant’s only mate is a fifty year-old ex-mental patient?’ (Not only sad, Adele, but dangerous).
Dire steps out onto the frosty patio for a breath of fresh air. Jimmy follows. Dire, referring to the time she sought Jim’s advice on infertility, asks if Jim’s managed to keep quiet about their little secret conflab. Jimmy, however, misunderstands her gist and thinks she’s referring to the bogus break-in of the Murray house. Oh, Jimmy would never tell about Tim’s burglary, he insists. Why, the burglary would have been a success if Plank hadn’t manager to walk in on things.
Marty, standing in the doorway, overhears and dashes onto the patio as Jim returns inside. Dire is gobsmacked. She instantly demands an explanation from Marty. Marty at first tries to dismiss it as one of Jimmy’s rants, but Dire insists that if Tim had something to do with the break-in of thier house, she wants to know so she can call the police.
Marty is forced to admit that the break-in was a sham. It was basically Christy’s idea and he got Tim to effect a break-in to look realistic, only Plank returned home early and decked Tim. Marty thought for certain that the insurance company would pay out, and they would get their own back from the property that had been stolen earlier.
Dire is righteously angry. A scam! How could Marty be so stupid?
Sammy has made Katie some hot chocolate and advises her to drink it and have a good night’s sleep. How could she sleep? Wails Katie. Her life had become a nightmare. It would be her birthday soon. Last year, when she celebrated her birthday, she had a good-looking fella (who? Clint the Duck?). Not only that, but her bezzy mate had fallen for his brother, so begins the fantasy of Sister Katie and Sister Jacqui marrying brothers and living happily ever after in the same house. She begins another classic moan about her bad luck and nothing ever going right for poor, pitiful Katie. A real self-pity trip.
Dire is banging a verbal gong in poor Marty’s direction, still on the Corkhill patio. How could he have been so stupid as to arrange a put-up burglary perpetrated by the scally next door? And at a time when she was under the sainted fertility treatment and not supposed to be under any stress. And Plank catching Tim in the act! Why, there were umpteen number of potential weapons in the Murray household (not including Dire’s tongue). What if Plank had done a Ron Dikko and killed Tim?
Marty interrupts to accuse Dire of exaggerating the circumstance. All he was trying to do initially was to reclaim what was rightfully theirs.
It was fraud, accuses Dire.
No, it wasn’t, argues Marty, anyway, the insurance never paid out.
That assessor smelled a rat from the very beginning, says Dire. She supposes Marty got Plank to lie for him.
As Marty enters the house, he passes Jimmy and sarcastically thanks him for opening his big mouth. Jimmy could just stick his pancakes, Marty tells him, morosely.
Over at NNT, Katie tells Sammy that she’s grateful for her sister’s attention, especially at a time when Sammy’s own life was falling apart.
Sammy replies, uncharacteristically, that Katie’s troubles made Sammy’s seem like nothing. All that about Louise and her school, Sammy says bitterly. She was only trying to do her best by Louise.
Katie admits that at first she thought Sammy was being selfish, but now she knows that Sammy wasn’t. She would try to be more grateful for Sammy’s efforts in the future.
And the two of them should learn to lean on each other, says Sammy, and not on the bottle.
Jimmy’s party goes from strength to strength, with his pancake contest narrowed down to a final between Antichristy Ant and Jerome, the man with the parasitic spider on his head. Before the final competition begins, Jimmy takes the opportunity to thank everyone for coming to his party. He tells his guests that life is actually like pancakes in a pan - full of ups and downs - but the fact remains that a person, like a pancake, is always at the mercy of ... TOSSERS. (Great usage of idiomatic rude slang, Brookside, and before the watershed too. And you know what? It wasn’t even funny! Just sad).
Adele sulks mightily in the background, glaring morosely at the rest of the guests. Busybody Brigid approaches her and asks her what’s wrong.
Adele is bored, the girl confesses. Besides that, she’s sick of being treated like a little kid, by her parents. She wasn’t allowed to have a life; instead, she had to devote all her spare time to the protection of Antony. She should have more respect. After all, she’s an adult now, she smugly informs her grandmother.
Brigid makes a sarcastic moue with her mouth, raising her eyebrows at Adele’s pronouncement.
Well, Adele continues, her parents will just have to deal with the fact that she’s an adult now, especially since in a few months’ time, she would be going on holiday with a group of her mates.
And where exactly did she plan on going? Asks Brigid, politely.
Ayia Napa, in Cyprus, says Adele, confidently.
‘Cyprus!’ Exclaims Brigid in rigid disbelief. ‘That den of iniquity! And what do Marty and Diane say about that?’
Adele confesses pertly that she hasn’t told them yet.
‘Hmmph!’ Snorts Brigid. ‘You mean you haven’t asked their permission!’
Adele informs her grandmother that she didn’t need her parents’ permission. (Er, what was all that kerfuffle about getting parental consent because they were sixteen?)
Amidst all the hoo-haa of the pancake competition, Emily approaches her sister, bearing the candy tin. She reminds Nikki of the conversation they had had the other day, and tells Nikki that, because Emily knows her sister is broke, she got Nikki a present to cheer her up.
Nikki, thinking it’s chocolates, is grateful, and Emily encourages her to open the tin. Nikki demurs, however, saying that she’s well full and doesn’t fancy eating chocolates now.
Outside, Tim surreptitiously watches the discreet presentation and confesses to Jimmy that he and Emily have made a present of £1000 to Nikki in order to enable her to remain at university.
Bev takes her leave of Jimmy, thanking him for inviting her and telling him that she’s off to pick up Josh (from where, precisely?)Besides, she tells Jim, she wants an early night, in preparation for the big re-opening of Bev’s Bar the next day.
Nikki and Emily have ajourned to the stairwell in the foyer of Hotel Corkhill. Emily is insisting that Nikki open the chocolate tin, and Nikki is steadfastly refusing. Go on, Em urges her. It may not be what Nikki thinks it is.
Intrigued, Nikki opens the tin, spying the wad of bills, totalling £1000. Emily quickly explains that it’s a present from her and Tim. Tim, it seems, is ‘doing really well lately’ and they’ve decided to make Nikki the gift, to help her out with her tuition fees. Emily says that she hopes the gift helps sort out Nikki’s debt and helps her stay at uni.
Nikki looks uneasily at the money and then at Emily. She tells her sister that she can’t accept the money. She can’t accept it because she knows where it came from - well, no, she doesn’t know exactly where the money came from, but she knows it came as a result of a dishonest act.
Emily is pig-shit ignorant and amoral and doesn’t understand her sister’s logic. To her pea-mind, Nikki’s broke and someone’s just handed her a grand. Never mind where it came from. Nikki should take the money and run.
The money hasn’t been legally earned, Nikki explains, piously. It would prey on her conscience to take this money. Sorry, she tells Emily, but she wasn’t like her sister in the least. She couldn’t just take things the way Emily did and justify them later. She hands the money in the tin back to Emily and walks away from her, passing Tim the Dim, without a word or an acknowledgement.
Tim eagerly asks Emily what Nikki thought of the gift.
Well, Emily explains unbelievingly, Nikki was embarrassed by it. In fact ,she refused it on the grounds that they had come by the money illegally. Funny, Emily muses, if she had earned and saved all that money, herself, Nikki would have taken the gift. The truth is, Emily confesses, Nikki is ashamed of Emily. Perhaps Nikki even hated her!
(Well, Nikki may not hate you, Emily, but most of the viewers do - the intelligent ones that are left. And if Nikki DOES hate you, perhaps Nikki isn’t as unbearably stupid and po-faced as we’ve been led to believe!)
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002