THE PRIDE AND DIGNITY OF THE GREAT UNWASHED
Hey, I’ve just thought. The above could be a subtitle for Brookside. You know ... Brookside: The Pride and Dignity of the Great Unwashed. Because that’s what it’s becoming. Tales of White Trash ... Trailer Trash on the Up.
Last week’s shows, at least the double episode shown Wednesday, was all about misplaced pride and dignity.
Mike Dixon prepares for his complaint to be aired against Gary Parr, a man of whom Mike is so jealous, it’s almost palpable. Mike admits he might not have much in the way of material goods (er, not really, living rent-free in his father’s house, getting free meals, electricity, gas and telephone paid for etc), but he has his pride.
Ditto Jimmy, who’s well on his way to becoming the Christ of the Close. So close is he to becoming a God, that I’m waiting with baited breath for Happy Smiling Helen and Dr Nikki to render a duet of ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him’. Last week, he and Happy Smiling Helen got to work on a bit of the old Immaculate Conception. It was supposed to be funny. It wasn’t.
And the Gordons? Well, here’s where the dignity comes in. Annabelle has rightly and on numerous occasions, pointed out that this dire family is little more than a redux, albeit a pale one, of the Grants. The Grants, however, had social aspirations. This family is a wonderful example of what happens when white trash get a little money.
Years ago, when I grew up in Virginia, there was a bona fide white trash family who lived up the road from my parents. They were straight out of Tobacco Road - lazy, shiftless father, whiney, snarly-haired mother, countless numbers of kids. They lived in a SHACK along the side of the road, with no running water, no electricity and a dirt floor - AND THIS WAS IN THE LATE SIXTIES, mind you.
The local council, prompted into action, because their meagre property was an eyesore, built them a low-cost, modern home, at the expense of the taxpayer. They moved in and proceeded to trash the place. In less than no time, the garden looked like a tip, old car up on cinderblocks, rusted bicycles in the front garden etc. Then, suddenly, an elderly relative, who’d spent her life working as a cleaner for other families, died and left them a small legacy.
Did they buy the kids some decent clothing? Shoes for their feet etc? Did they, BOLLOCKS! There was a gleaming new car in the drive, a colour TV and spanking new bikes - all the mod cons of the time, but the family were still the nemesis of the neighbourhood. I never knew what happened to them. I suppose the parents are dead by now and most of the kids serving time someplace.
The Gordons are like that. Jumped-up white trash - three cars, endless mobiles, whining kids, digital TV, DVD, state-of-the-art computer. Oh, and Debbie Gordon DRIVES to work ... AT THE GARAGE ... ON THE PARADE.!
They’ve not been on the Close five minutes and they’ve already had one punch-up. Last week, we got to see Ma Gordon (Debbie) screaming like a banshee across the Close.
Give me strength. I need it.
Mike Dixon is ironing a crisp, white shirt. No, he’s NOT working for Ron. It’s his day to air his complaint formally against Gary Parr.
Rabbity Ruth Gordon Morrissey Whatever stands over a sizzling frying pan, heaped with grease, her lank bleached-blonde hair falling over the food, as she wipes a streak of green snot from her face before turning to smile beatifically up at SuperDan who stands beside her.
Upstairs, the odious Ali the Ginger Gordon lies wrapped in oblivion in his bed. Pity he has to wake up.
Downstairs at Bicker-Bicker House, Ma Gordon pauses at the bottom of the stairs to SHRIEK up at the sleeping Ali to get out of bed. (Has she ever heard of going upstairs? No, of course not. She’s white trash and much too lazy).
Pa Gordon hulks into Bicker-Bicker kitchen to behold Rabbity Ruth snorking back her snot, standing over a nutritious high-colesterol fried brekkie in the pan on the cooker, and gazing lovingly up at SuperDan.
Hmph! Snorts Pa Gordon, shortly. He observes that SuperDan stayed over yet again. Glancing at the sizzling mass of greasy food in the frying pan, he remarks that he wouldn’t mind some egg and bacon for his breakfast, since Rabbity Ruth’s cooking.
Rabbity Ruth snorks back some green snot, turns briefly to her father and apologises. She’s cooked the last egg and bit of bacon for SuperDan, who’s surely much more deserving, than her fat, farty, fag-addicted, old Pa.
Pa Gordon doesn’t stand on any ceremony. He’s a Londoner and shoots from the hip. Without further adieu, he asks the silly slag if she’s phoned a solicitor yet, as she’s obviously intent on ending her marriage to the hapless Sean.
Rabbity Ruth smiles serenely up at SuperDan, glances briefly over her shoulder at her Pa and mouths, ‘Not yet.’
Pa is taken aback. Well, in that case, he continues, do the couple - i.e. Rabbity Ruth and SuperDan - have any plans regarding their relationship - such as where they might want to live?
Again, Rabbity Ruth wipes her snot, smiles at SuperDan again and sighs, ‘Not really.’ She’s a woman in luuuurve, after all.
Pa Gordon looks as though he’s gagging for a fag and so he makes his excuses. He’s got to go. He’s got a Regional Directors’ meeting re the haulage industry at a swank hotel down on the dockside this morning. They were learning the results of the latest traffic poll.
(NOW PAY ATTENTION, CHILDREN, YOU’RE ABOUT TO LEARN SOMETHING. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 101 MOVES TO BROOKSIDE).
Rabbity Ruth starts to whine at her father about the way his industry adds to the pollution level in the country. Too many gas-fueled vehicles on the roads - and as for Ma, owning a garage! Why couldn’t her parents indulge in professions a bit more geo-friendly? (Er, silly bitch, what did you borrow from your sister to move your gear? Right. A car!)
Ma Gordon enters the kitchen at this moment, shrieking because Ali the Ginger is having a lie-in.
Mike Dixon, booted and suited, is nervously preparing to leave for the Health Authority hearing. Rachel is trying to soothe him by urging him to ‘caaam down, caaam down’ and only succeeds in agitating him even more.
Mike can’t help being nervous, he says in a breathless, shaky voice, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. He’s up against the entire medical profession, who view him as an insignificant piece of shit (they’re not wrong there). It’s all gamesmanship, this having the hearing at the surgery, trying to break his nerve. But he’s doing this all for Beth, yes, he’s going through this for justice for his daughter.
‘Caaam down, caaam down.’ Urges Rachel the Dim.
That Gary Parr might be so smug as to reckon he’ll get away with what he’s done, but Mike would show him. Yes sirree, that medical board didn’t know what THEY were up against. He might not have a job, but he still has his dignity. And didn’t HE have a degree as well as Parr? Didn’t HE have letters after his name?
Oooh, remarks Rachel, las’week M-eye-ke were sayin’ degree useless.
Yes, indeed, he rants, pacing relentlessly about the room, this is ALL about Beth. Her health was endangered. He wants justice for his daughter and an apology from Parr for his refusal to treat her.
Ma Gordon stands in the doorway of the darkened room where Ali the Ginger sleeps foully. She nags him to get the hell out of bed and get down to the JobCentre. (Why ALWAYS the JobCentre? Why not a private employment agency?)
Not now, Ali grumbles into his duvet. This was doing his head in. Anyway, he’d been to the JobCentre and - as per usual in Liverpool - there was nothing.
‘Yer HAVE ter start payin’ yer way!’ Ma pleads, but we know he’ll do nothing and continue to be subsidised and spoiled by his shiftless family.
Mike is leaving for the hearing, being seen off by Rachel, as Nick the Builder arrives to begin a sporadic days’ work. At the same time, Jacqui, followed by Harry and Emma arrives at Number 7 in order to deposit the kids with Rachel. Seeing Mike dressed to the hilt in a whistle, she assumes he’s going for a job interview.
No, Mike responds shortly, stalking away from the house and being pursued by Jacqui.
‘Oh, yer NOT goin’ through with this coomplaint!’ Exclaims Jacqui in disbelief.
‘Caam down, caam down!’ Shouts Rachel from the doorstep.
Yes, Mike replies, whipping round to face his shorter sister. He IS going through with the complaint and the hearing’s this morning. And he’s doing it because he’s tired of people treating him as though he were a piece of crap.
‘Then don’t act like a piece of crap!’ Says Jacqui.
Mike storms off, shouting over his shoulder that all he wants is an apology from Gary Parr and justice for Beth.
Jacqui shakes her head hopelessly afer him and then greets Nick the Builder, asking him politely to move his van, which is blocking her car.
Nick replies cheekily that, as he’s a man of his word, he’ll do it.
Well, teases Jacqui, since he’s a man of his word, why hasn’t he made any further contact with Katie after their first date?
Nick the Builder says he’s careful not to rush things.
Ma and Pa Gordon stand at the back door of Bicker-Bicker House, grimly surveying the pile of builders’ rubbish still lying there. Ma whines that she wishes Pa would get that rubbish sorted.
Pa promises to do something about it the weekend. He’d get the lads to help him shift it. As Ma moves inside, SuperDan looks over Pa’s shoulder and smugly remarks that there was more than an handful of work to do there.
Perhaps SuperDan would like to help, suggests Pa, wryly, especially since his presence was contributing to the ‘houseful’ effect currently being suffered by Bicker-Bicker House.
The two men return inside to the kitchen. Pa Gordon begins his inquisition of the interloper. Does SuperDan have any specific plans?
SuperDan plays coy. Plans? Lui? What plans?
Pa Gordon rephrases his question. Does he want to be together with Rabbity Ruth and Luke the bunny? As a family, like?
SuperDan looks decidedly uneasy for a brief moment, before answering that, of course, he does. But there’s the question of him getting a job (as ever, yawn) as well as their finding a place to live. They couldn’t really stay at his mother’s - things were just too cramped there -
As here, quips Pa Gordon.
Rabbity Ruth hops into the kitchen, imploring her Pa not to get on SuperDan’s case.
Rabbity Ruth is still a married woman, Pa Gordon reminds her. Anyway, regarding the rubbish, he’d see if those lads across the way would shift it. That Jimmy one said they ran a lifting and shifting business.
Mike arrives at the surgery, which is surprisingly full, to be confronted by Katie in the reception area. He asks her if she knows the procedure for the hearing.
Katie tells him that the hearing will take place in the rear surgery area. He’ll be called in first, then she’ll give her testimony.
Mike is astonished. What has Katie got to do with the case?
Katie reminds him that she took the telephone call from Rachel, informing the surgery of Beth’s illness.
Mike is immediately sceptical. Oh, and he supposes Katie will be quick to give Parr’s version of the truth.
Katie primly reminds him that she’s only going to relate what happened when she took the phone call.
‘Oh, come off it, Katie!’ Exclaims Mike. ‘This lot pay yer wages!’ It’s a conspiracy against Mike, truth, justice and all that’s British.
Gaby the Grin floats into the reception area at that time, nervously asking Katie the whereabouts of Dr Parr, as if she didn’t know. Katie reminds her of the hearing and asks if she can help Gaby.
Gaby’s worried. She’s got to go to the Coroner’s hearing today regarding Rob Dexter’s death. She wants to know from Gary if he thinks she should consult a solicitor first.
Katie confidently tells Gaby that SHE used to work for a solicitor, and it’s not necessary to see one in relation to a Coroner’s hearing.
As Gaby the Grin leaves, the buzzer near Katie’s desk sounds and she requests that Mike go into the hearing.
As Ma Gordon and Rabbity Ruth hop about Bicker-Bicker kitchen, Rabbity Ruth snorks back some snot and pleads with Ma to ask Pa to lay off bothering SuperDan. Pa Gordon never ceases to treat her like a kid! She whines.
Ma whines back that Pa Gordon frets over Rabbity Ruth. Not only was she his firstborn, she was also born with a heart defect. Pa Gordon’s bound to be over-protective. It’s not easy seeing your newborn baby be whisked away for immediate heart surgery, admonishes Ma. Why the sister even suggested that Ma and Pa arrange for Rabbity Ruth to have one o’them Last Rites things.
Ma tuts sympathetically. They nearly lost Rabbity Ruth, they did. She was a frail kid. That’s why Pa worries about her more than the rest.
Rabbity Ruth is shocked at these revelations. Why wasn’t she told before? (Indeed, why not? If she were born with a heart defect, then presumably it was congenital? Surely when the girl was pregnant with her own child, she should have known about this potentiality? Are these people for real? People should ALWAYS be aware of their own health status!)
Oooh, whines Ma Gordon. It WERE distressing, especially fer poor Pa.
Pa Gordon, who STILL hasn’t left for his urgent Regional Directors’ meeting, now takes a hand at trying to rouse Ali the Ginger. From the doorway to the lad’s room, he bellows for Ali to get up and get his lazy, shiftless, ginger Scouse arse down to the JobCentre.
‘Me’ead’s doon in,’ mutters Ali the Ginger into his pillow.
Chop, chop, admonishes his father. And what’s all this he’s heard about Ali the Ginger swearing in front of Ma Gordon?
Ali the Ginger raises his fetid head. He’s heard Pa Gordon swear enough.
With the lads at work, sure, reasons Pa.
Oh, ponders Ali the Ginger, so it’s OK in some places, but not in front of Ma Gordon?
Plank Muddie is working on a car in front of Sitcom House, when Tim approaches him. He asks why Plank is tuning someone else’s car at home when he’s supposed to be a mobile mechanic.
Plank says the bloke who owns the car is on holiday, and Plank offered to do the car here.
Tim’s at a bit of a loose end as his work’s dried up. He’s even desperate enough to think about going back on the rob.
Ma Gordon approaches Nick the Builder about possibly shifting the builders’ rubbish from the back garden of Bicker-Bicker House, but Nick demurs. He’s far to busy with the bungalow to do that. Ma glances across the way at Tim and Plank and ponders aloud to Pa the possibility of asking those lads to shift the rubbish. As Pa says, that Jimmy one says they have their own lifting and shifting business.
It’s the fact that he’s been getting so many pissy, little jobs that’s worrying Tim, Tim explains to a listening Plank (a sounding board, get it?) It’s Emily, really, he continues, in a worried tone. She’s got big ideas. She wants nice things. Always talking about doing the hosue over with leather furniture and the like. He doesn’t want her to get impatient with his small earnings. (Is this the beginning of her leaving line?)
Is it worth a life of crime? Plank asks.
‘The bigger the job, the bigger the risk,’ says Tim. (Tim’s very hoarse. Philip Olivier must have been coming off a big cold when he filmed this).
Pa Gordon approaches the lads then. He has a job for them, he says. He wants them to shift the builders’ rubbish from the back garden.
Tim and Plank exchange sickly looks, before Tim swallows and tells Pa that the job will cost Pa.
Ali the Ginger finally comes downstairs and mumbles something incoherently Scouse to Rabbity Ruth and SuperDan. Rabbity Ruth starts nagging him about going to the JobCentre, before Ali informs her that he IS, in fact, going out to look for a job.
SuperDan urges them all to ‘chill out, man’.
The siblings bicker bicker bicker ... bicker bicker bicker ... SHOUT SHOUT ... SHOUT SHOUT some more. The doorbell rings and Ali the Ginger answers it to greet his mate, Tommo, who has a harelip and a cleft palate, which obviously accounts for the fact that he couldn’t be understood in a month of Sundays. The only thing I understood was their silly Mork and Mindy ‘Nanoo nanoo’ greeting.
Ali: Nanoo nanno ... Efoehoh skeort apot4je4p aothelgha rf;gjro/.
Tommo: Nanoo nannoo ... Rhoehrre kghrewoitw nrethoetihrl.
And they dart off.
Mike Dixon returns home with steel in his eye. He stalks ominously into the house.
Oooh, asks Rachel, holding Beth on her hip. ‘Ow’d ‘eerin’ go-ah?
It was a complete stitch-up, spits Mike. HE thought that he’d be heard by an independent panel of doctors, but the panel consisted of another partner in the practice and the practice manager. And Katie Rogers was asked to give evidence! Katie Rogers!
Oooh, wonders Rachel, breathlessly, whut did the’ saaaaay?
Katie testified because she took the phone call Rachel made to the surgery, asking Dr Parr to visit Beth, Mike relates. Katie testified that Parr told her to tell Rachel to bring Beth to the surgery right away, but Rachel refused. Mike sighs, in frustration. The panel said that there could have been no misdiagnosis, simply because of the fact that Beth was never seen.
Oooh, observes Rachel, well, they were r-eye-ght abowt tha’. Ka-teh did tell’er ter coom t’surgery, boot she didn’t.
It’s ALL a conspiracy to keep people like him down! Exclaims Mike, unreasonably. Why else would they have demanded that he come to the SURGERY to fill in complaint forms beforehand - just so they could get their own stories straight! That’s why!
Oooh, Rachel wails, M-eye-ke should stop this! Oooh, ‘tweren’t fair! And now, because of all this, Beth were sick again and she hadter tek ba-beh ter surgery. Oooh, what were she gonna do-ah?
Take the kid to the doctor, Mike quips, brusquely. He’d stand outside the surgery. And if they as much as blinked at Rachel the wrong way, she was to come get him.
Oooh, Rachel wails again, she din’ want stress ter oopset Beth!
Back at Bicker-Bicker House, Rabbity Ruth and SuperDan are upstairs in Rabbity Ruth’s temporary room, readying themselves to go out. SuperDan wants to go shopping in town for some new trainers, but Rabbity Ruth, who’s snorking a bit less, seems curiously distracted.
She asks SuperDan exactly what it was her Pa was hammering on at him about.
SuperDan shrugs Pa Gordon’s questioning off smugly as mere parental concern. It’s a DAD thing, he explains. Pa Gordon was merely trying to be protective of his flock. (Pa Gordon as shepherd of a flock of sheep - well, that about sums it up). Actually, he continues, he was questioning SuperDan about SuperDan’s wanting to create a family unit with Rabbity Ruth and Luke the bunny.
Oooh, oozes Rabbity Ruth, snorking back a glob of snot, and what did SuperDan reply?
SuperDan smiles easily and lies, telling her that he told Pa Gordon that he’d like nothing better than to set up housekeeping with Rabbity Ruth and Luke the bunny in a hutch of their own. (But we ALL know that’s a fallacy, don’t we?)
As if to emphasise his point, SuperDan assumes a misty-eyed look and starts to reminisce about the time he and Rabbity Ruth were childhood sweethearts, when suddenly Rabbity Ruth hears noises emanating from the back garden.
‘We’ve got visitors,’ she snorks.
The ‘visitors’ turn out to be Tim and Plank, who are dismayed to be faced with clearing this builders’ rubbish again. Rabbity Ruth runs into the back garden, as Tim explains to her that Pa Gordon has asked them to clear the rubbish away.
Rabbity Ruth says she thought they might be burglars.
Tim cheekily asks if SuperDan would mind helping them shift the rubble.
SuperDan, who shows yet more evidence of being a skiver, demurs, citing a dodgy back.
No chance of a cuppa then? Pursues Tim, glancing at Rabbity Ruth, who wipes a stream of snot away from her nose with the sleeve of her top.
Sorry, no, she replies, they were on their way out.
Tim and Plank gaze disgustedly after the departing couple, and Plank wonders what they were going to do with the rubbish. Tim says he’ll not risk putting it in the van again.
Jacqui has dropped by the Surgery to have a word with Katie, wondering how Mike’s complaint hearing went. They stand in the corridor just off the reception area, speaking in low voices, as Rachel enters the surgery with Beth.
Katie glances briefly at Rachel, seated behind Jacqui’s back and whispers that she’s not allowed to discuss the case, but the look on Mike’s face when he left the surgery told her that it didn’t exactly go his way.
Rachel pricks her ears up.
Just as well, Jacqui says, scathingly. It was silly of Mike to even bring the complaint in the first place. She was certain he was only in on the action in hopes of getting some sort of compensation. He’d be much better off looking for viable work.
Katie nods. Just as well it was thrown out, if that’s what it was, she agrees. At least he didn’t mention Dr Parr decking him. The doctor, says Katie, has a reputation about having a short fuse and being handy with his fists. She explains to Jacqui about Dr Parr punching Rob Dexter when he was harassing Gaby the Grin the first time around.
Rachel’s ears prick up even more.
At that moment, Gaby the Grin enters the surgery and approaches Katie and Jacqui, asking if Dr Parr is in.
Katie nods and resumes her receptionist’s duties. Gaby wants to know if there’s any chance of seeing her husband for a brief word. Katie tells her she can squeeze her in between appointments. Jacqui turns and greets Rachel, asking her where Harry and Emma were to be found. Rachel quickly explains that Mike’s minding Jacqui’s kids, as Katie calls out to Rachel that she’s booked Rachel an appointment with Dr Corrigan.
Jacqui then turns and greets Gaby the Grin, asking if she’s free for coffee at Bar Brookie at 6PM. Gaby the Grin agrees and Jacqui says Max can watch the kids for a couple of hours that evening.
Tim’s initial plan for the disposal of the builders’ rubbish is to dump it in the skip in front of the bungalow. However, Nick the Builder scuppers that plan, telling them off for dumping it there.
Tim tries to lie his way out of the jam, saying that Ray said the lads could dump their rubbish there. The builder refuses, telling them to dump it elsewhere.
Well, that knackers that plan, quips Plank.
Ah, but this was only the first stage, Tim tells his mate. He’s got a contingency plan, but that would entail getting shot of the stuff bits at a time.
Ali the Ginger and his verbally disabled mate Tommo are busy drinking alco-pops and tossing the empty bottles onto the pavement on The Parade. They decide to go to Bar Brookie, and try to enter. Jacqui is standing at the door, however, and asks to see their ID’s as proof of age.
Ali the Ginger and his mate give her some unintelligble lip. Examples:
Ali: gheonteintorn eotjepm eptmrepmreotm gheierntr!
Tommo: emftrpodsomt duriejrepe fjeorme ew0rjepejtmrt!
Mike, approaching from a distance, sees the lads trying to give an unbending Jacqui grief and comes to her aid.
Jacqui says that she can’t admit them in an inebriated state and that they couldn’t come into the bar without proof that they were eighteen.
‘You’eard!’ Growls Mike. ‘No ID means yer not gettin’ in. Now do one and go play soom computer games.’
The lads disappear, mouthing unintelligble obscenities.
As they scupper off, Jacqui asks Mike how he got on at the hearing. (Er, if Rachel’s still at the surgery and Mike’s here ... Who’s minding the kids? Bad bit of inconsistency here, Brookside!)
As Rachel leaves the surgery, Katie asks her how Beth is.
Oooh, witters Rachel, Beth O-KEH. And she thanks Katie for allowing her to see Dr Corrigan. She wouldn’t feel r-eye-ght seeing Dr Parr while this hearing thing was going on.
As she leaves, Nick the Builder enters the surgery, to see Katie. He asks her out again, and says that he doesn’t want to be a prize in a pull a pig competition.
Katie plays coy and says she’ll sleep on the offer.
Tim and Plank are now trying to fly-tip the builders’ rubbish along a busy stretch of road. (Surely, one fly-tips along a deserted country lane or such ... But then they’re supposed to be thick Scousers). Plank is keeping look-out while Tim tries to dump the garbage. Every time Plank thinks it’s clear, a car comes around the bend.
Maybe they should put up ‘Caution’ signs, he jokes, grimly to Tim. ‘Caution: Fly-Tipping Ahead.’ But seriously, he continues, he thought the pair of them were beyond this scally stuff.
Tim gives up the attempt to fly-tip. Stage Two of the disposal plan is not working, he admits. They’ve only managed to clear two bags in two hours.
So, Plank surmises, Tim’s great disposal plan is really that there IS no great disposal plan.
Tim is frustrated.
Jacqui and Gaby the Grin meet in Bar Brookie. As they sit over coffee, Gaby the Grin admits that she feels guilty about Rob Dexter’s death. Jacqui tries to allay her guilt by telling her that Gaby the Grin wasn’t to know that Rob Dexter planned on committing suicide.
She had to attend the Coroners’ Court, Gaby the Grin wails. She felt awful. She didn’t want to be questioned, and felt that she was being disrespectful to him in the abusive way she treated him during his final days.
‘Hey,’ offers Jacqui, ‘when any divvy goes around stalkin’ a perr-son, that perr-son’s got a right ter be as abusive as they want.’
Gaby the Grin’s feral little eyes fill with tears and she looks up at Jacqui. She actually TOLD Rob Dexter to go ahead and kill himself, she confesses, tearfully.
Seated at the booth next to the window, are Ma and Pa Gordon - Ma never seems to cook an evening meal. They always seem to be eating out. Pa’s hankering for a cigarette, and Ma lectures him on the evils of tobacco as they sit waiting for their food.
Ma asks how Pa’s meeting went.
Pa sighs wearily and tells her that the targets are up again, which means that they’ll all have to work harder - especially him, now that he has all these mouths to feed. Oh, and that includes Dan and Ruth now, he supposes bitterly.
Oh, well, soothes Ma, at least Ali the Ginger finally got off to the JobCentre. (Is this woman stupid?)
At that moment on another street in another neighbourhood, Ali the Ginger and Tommo are having a chug contest with alco-pop - seeing who can down an entire bottle in one go first. They gob off unintelligibly about school, which they’ve just left.
Ali: epneonojlkfmgfdojgrpo jfpojtpet ae tsaepoaewpw t!
Tommo: ewrenrewmnt-k;ejet pwotj tportret erotjrt roiktjrewptj!
Rachel bustles home to find M-eye-ke waiting for her (sans the Farnham children, it seems). Mike asks after Beth and Rachel tells him that Beth’s OK (surprise, surprise). Mike’s trying to eat some dinner, but is finding the eating painful - his teeth which are not there anymore, ache. He almost wishes that he’d taken up Parr’s offer of a referral to the doctor’s dentist mate.
Oooh, remarks Rachel, with a sly look on her face, mebbe dentist is where doc-teh sends all people’e poonches.
Mike looks at her curiously, asking her what she means.
Oooh, whispers Rachel, with excitement. She heard Jac-keh’n Kay-teh talkin’n serr-jry bowt Doc-teh Paaaaaah poonchin’ soom man.
Hmmmm ... Ponders Mike, maliciously, he wonders if Dr Parr’s partners were aware about Parr’s ability to punch people.
Jacqui and Gaby are still conflabbing. This reappearance of Dexter certainly must have been a shock for Dr Parr, Jacqui remarks. Gaby tells her that Dexter even told Dr Parr that she was having an affair with Max, after seeing them talking in The Shelf.
Jacqui merely looks at her.
The truth is, Gaby continues, earnestly, Max is a good guy and a good listener.
Jacqui agrees, wholeheartedly.
Gaby the Grin hopes Jacqui’s not jealous of her friendship with Max.
Jacqui lies and says she’s not.
Some women would be, Gaby the Grin remarks, disarmingly, and while Max IS a nice bloke, the truth is, Gaby the Grin thinks he’s too old for her.
Jacqui’s face is an absolute picture. (And so we have the wimping down of Gaby Parr.)
Ma and Pa Gordon return to Bicker-Bicker House to find Bitch Gordon and her ubiquitous tits on their own. Where is everyone? Ma asks.
Well, Bitch says sullenly, the Brookside Bike’s at a mate’s house and Rabbity Ruth and SuperDan have taken Luke the bunny to SuperDan’s mother’s house.
Where’s Ali the Ginger? Asks Pa.
Oh, he’ll be here soon, replies Bitch, absently.
A drunjeb Ali the Ginger and Tommo try to climb a street sign in order to rip it off and take it home. Ali the Ginger says he’s going to put it on his bedroom door.
As he climbs to the top of the sign, a police van pulls up and the bizzies emerge, arresting the lads.
Maurice Bessman wrote this - in his spare time, apparently.
BROOKSIDE CAST RELEASE NEW LP
In an effort to boost the programme’s flagging ratings and to increase its profile, Mersey Television will shortly issue a CD, containing twenty cover versions of established songs, sung by the Brookside cast and Phil Redmond.
Some of the nation’s top songwriters have contributed to the re-working of the songs to reflect Brookside’s aims and issues.
Shortly to be released is a CD single, hoping to score a double-sided hit, one side featuring an old standard sung by Phil Redmond, with backing vocals by three Brookside actresses, Alex Fletcher, Suzanne Collins and Diane Burke.
We’ve had an exclusive preview of the other side and its accompanying video, featuring a group comprised of the actresses who play Emily, Adele, Laura and Kirsty Gordon, who call themselves The Scouse Girls. Their single is based on the first hit single recorded by The Spice Girls.
The video opens with the opening riff of the song. All four girls bounce onto the Close on spacehoppers, each wearing a teeshirt three sizes too small and hot pants.
Emily: Now tell me what yer want, what yer really, really want!
Adele: I’ll tell yer what I want, what I really, really want!
Laura: Now tell me what yer want, what yer really, really want!
Kirsty: I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I really, really wanna
Wanna ... Go get my carrrrrrrr!
All: If yer wanna be in Brookside
Yer gorra have big tits
Acting is fer nonces
Boot tits get all the hits
Emily: If yer slightly on the flat side
They’ll pay fer yer implants
They’ll set yer oop fer Loaded
And shoot yer in black pants
Kirsty: Now tell me what yer want, what yer really, really want!
Laura: I’ll tell yer what I want, what I really, really want!
Emily: Now tell me what yer want, what yer really, really want!
Adele: I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I really, really wanna
Wanna go ter Ayia Napaaaaaaa!
All: Get yerself soom hair extensions
And get soom tarty clothes
That’ll make sure all the lads watch
And never miss a show!
Adele: Make sure that you’re all mouth and brassy
And that you’ve got a gob
Never mind what all the girls say
At least you got a job!
Laura: Now tell me what yer want, what yer really, really want!
Kirsty: I’ll tell yer what I want, what I really, really want!
Adele: Now tell me what yer want, what yer really, really want!
Emily: I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I really, really wanna
Wanna ... Be a porn starrrrrr!
All: Never mind that yer can’t learn them
Or speak distintive lines
Joost fill yer lips with collagen
And perrr-se them all the time
Laura: If yer feelin’ really loocky
They’ll let yer snog a lad
Tim or Plank or maybe Stewart
And Gary’s not half bad.
Adele: Now tell me what yer want, what yer really, really want
Kirsty: I’ll tell yer what I want, what I really, really want
Emily: Now tell me what yer want, what yer really, really want
Laura: I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I really, really wanna
Wanna snog in Plank’s caaaarrr!
All: Alla Liverpool will know yer
And all the party scene
Yer’ll cop a football player
Boot yer gorra treat’im mean
Kisty: Be sure ter wear black, lacy knickers
The camera loovs an arse
Filling oop the lens shot
Boot never think it’s crass
All: Oh, coom along and be in Brookside
The show’s not over yet
The contract’s been extended
The boodget’s now been set
All the dosh for our makeovers
Pooblicity, PR
No matter that yer’ve never acted
Yer soon will be a star!!!
Mounting the spacehoppers, the girls bounce into the front of the camera lens then bounce back, turn away from the camera, lean over the spacehoppers and shake their bums at the camera.
Sound of giggling and fade-out.
Oh, golly gee! I’m so excited! Let’s rush out and buy it now!!! (The sad thing is, that there’s sure to be some dumb bastard on the O F, who’ll believe this tripe).
Stay tuned to the next summary for a preview of Phil Redmond’s rendition of the old standard ‘Mr Sandman’, re-titled ‘Mr Thompson’.
In the early hours of yet another Merseyside morning, one of the innumerable mobile phones rings in the lounge of the Gordon household. We catch a glimpse of the shadowy figure of Ma Gordon descending the stairs in search of the phone.
Across the Close, the Brookside version of Jesus Christ, Jimmy Corkhill, is taking a telephone call as well, whilst next door at Sitcom House ...
The postman has arrived. Marty Muddie picks up the post from the floor and stares curiously at a letter addressed to him.
Pandemonium reigns at Bicker-Bicker House, with the rest of the family up and about now. Pa Gordon, stands like a colossus, in the middle of the lounge, fielding a call on his ubiquitous mobile phone. The gaggle of family members mill aimlessly about him, whilst Dan the Man, oblivious to the mayhem, remains firmly rooted to the sofa, where he’s spent the night.
Bitch Gordon, sits amidst this riffraff, gobbing off about something unintelligible. Suddenly HER mobile rings. Thinking it might be the lucky Pete, who’s made his escape from the middle of her lethal tits, she grabs the apparatus and answers it. As she listens to the voice on the other end, her eyes and chest expand visibly.
Glancing up from the mobile over her shoulder, she addresses her parents. It’s Ali the Ginger. He’s at a place called Manor Park Police Station (said as though she holds no comprehension of the place). It seems he’s been nicked for causing a riot.
Ma Gordon quickly snatches the phone from her daughter, as Bitch sniggers that Ali the Ginger would be sure to have his backside royally kicked.
Ali’s in jail? Scoffs the Brookside Bike. Well, good! He can stay there, if it means the Brookside Bike gets his room back to himself.
Finishing the call, Ma Gordon squints her eyes myopically and turns to Pa for advice. Oooh, she whines, should she go ter the copshop or would he?
Pa Gordon’s face is positively puce. He’s off to work, he growls. He’s washing his hands of this lot. SHE’LL have to go.
Boot, poor Ma whines, helplessly, she wanted ter start her work at the garage terday.
Pa’s too busy fiddling with his mobile, which appears to be low on battery charge. This tips him over the edge. Well, with Ma showing up,he snipes, she’ll be sure to let the lad know exactly how much bother he’s caused.
Swiftly, he swipes Bitch’s mobile phone. And he’s taking that for today for his own use, and to intercept any other call Ali the Ginger might make. Bitch’s big gob hangs open in disbelief.
By now, Dan the Man has been roused from his slumber on the couch, and struggles to sit upright.
As a parting shot, Pa Gordon, having a nicotine craving par excellence, points a finger at Dan the Man and snaps: ‘And HE has to go too - by the time I get home!’
And he leaves, slamming the front door behind him and leaving his family speechless. (Good. It takes a Londoner to stifle a Scouser).
Now Brookside reveals another inconsistency. Jimmy’s talking to Lindsey on the phone. It’s her birthday, and Jimmy consoles her for the fact that she won’t see 30 again, having turned 31. (This is correct. This IS Lindsey’s age, as Jackie revealed, back in 1991, that she and Jimmy were married in 1971, and that she was 3 months pregnant with Lindsey at the time. Yet, in 2001, ALL we heard was that Jimmy and Jackie had been TOGETHER 27 years, which would either make Lindsey 26, or mean that she was born some 3 years before they were married. I’m sure the unctuous coxyboro on the Official Forum, would find this interesting and positive, but I think it’s pure shit, the way consistency is not maintained).
As he’s having his conversation, Timily enter the room. Tim can barely walk, so exhausted is he from the efforts of the previous day at removing the builders’ rubble, yet again. Emily is nagging him. She wants the couple to go out for the day together.
Tim staggering into the kitchen, pleads with her to give him a break. He’s spent a whole day shifting builders’ rubbish and he’s got a bad back.
Emily, however, has the whole day planned. First she needs to call around the technical college for her beauty certificates, then she and he will have a lager downtown. Afterwards she wants to go shoe shopping and then the couple will have dinner - someplace nice, she adds.
As Jimmy finishes his call, Tim takes the opportunity to suggest to Jimmy that the rockery he created for Jim is looking a bit thin. He could reinforce its rocks, he says. Help design it more fully.
The rockery was full now, Jimmy says, smugly. Any more rocks and he’d have bloody Chris Bonnington knocking on his door, wantin’ ter cliiiiiiimb it.
Emily looks puzzled, wondering who Chris Bonnington is.
Anyway, the Sage continues, booming so that everyone is certain to hear the voice of God, Happy Smiling Helen’s due to drop by, as she’s on her way ter Iceland terday.
Emily’s brows knit together. Helen’s going to the supermarket? She asks.
Marty Muddie stands at the bottom of the sitcom stairs, screaming for Adele to come downstairs. Dire and Ant enter the lounge, attracted by the noise, as Ant’s on his way over to visit his Nin in her new temporary flat.
Adele bounces downstairs, literally, the term ‘support bra’ meaning nothing to her, to face Marty’s wrath.
He waves the offending letter under her nose. Funny, he remarks, how he seems to have forgotten to sign a letter saying she could go on holiday to Ayia Napa. He goes ballistic.
What the hell was the girl playing at, forging his signature? If she seriously thought he’d even consider letting her go off traipsing to Greece with a gaggle of bimbos, she had another think coming!
Adele’s face assumes an ugly frown. Only six of them were going now, she whines, and besides, they weren’t all airheads.
Well, Marty demands, still waving the letter about. What does she have to say for herself?
Adele looks at her father with a mixture of sulkiness and cockiness. That she’s sorry she used the wrong travel agent, she sasses back, she should have used one that didn’t check up with the parents.
Marty categorically tells the girl that she’s NOT going on this holiday.
Oh, but she is, argues Adele. In fact, she’ll sell a vital organ if it means she can go.
Ant quips that she should get more for the organ sale than she got for selling her Nin’s bracelet.
Marty is virtually exploding with anger. She’s simply too young.
Adele maintains that, if she has to, she’ll sleep on the street to go!
Happy Smiling Helen has arrived at Hotel Corkhill, happy, smiling, bobbing her head incessantly and breathless with excitement. (Actually, she’s breathless because the jeans she’s wearing are too small and she’s got a beer gut haning over her knees. She looks disgusting). Oh, it’s a longshot, she realises, traipsing off to Iceland like this, unannounced, and springing a surprise on the woman she suspects is her birth mother. Oooh, but it IS exciting!
Who knows? She continues. This may really BE Sylvia Morgan, her mother. After all, she traced Ray through a bingo cheque.
As an afterthought, the Sage asks where Happy Smiling Helen’s voluptuous daughter, Stephanie, is.
Oh, her? Replies Happy Smiling Helen. Oh, she’s staying with a mate. Oooh, Happy Smiling Helen suddenly worries, what if she gets all the way to Iceland and finds that Sylvia Morgan and Bard Johannesen have divorced? Or that Sylvia’s dead! After all, there had been no reply to the letter the couple had written to Bard Johannesen. Happy Smiling Helen suddenly remembers how things between Ray and Jessie blew up after she made her untimely appearance in Ray’s life.
That only happened because Happy Smiling Helen was such a little stick of dynamite, coos Jimmy, repulsively. (Oh, pur-leese! GET THIS COUPLE OFF THE SCREEN QUICK! I CAN’T STAND TOO MUCH MORE OF THIS!!!)
Meanwhile, Ma Gordon has arrived at the Manor Park cop shop and is being ushered down a corridor by an officious constable. Poor Ma is twiddling with her snakey, poor white hair and whining to the policeman about the trials and tribulations poor Ali the Ginger has been suffering.
The policeman turns briefly toward her as he leads the way to the cells. He’s right in assuming that Ali IS under eighteen? He asks.
Ma nods rapidly. Ooh, and he’s been oonder so mooch pressure, she whines.He’s joost only had his GCSE’s and they’ve joost moved house. He’s been oonder sooch stress. Oooh, she promises, faithfully, as most poor whites do, that this sort of thing won’t happen again.
Well, says the constable, as they reach the cell and he fiddles with his brace of keys, they get a lot of this sort of thing. It’s standard procedure to keep the kids in custody overnight until the parents have been notified.
Oooh, nods Ma, hopping up and down, and can he be released now.
Afraid not, replies PC Plod. There’s been a local pub cellar broken into in the area where her lad was apprehended. He’s now being held on suspicion of theft of lager. They found about seventeen bottles of alco-pops in his possession.
Happy Smiling Helen has condescended to stop by Ray’s briefly, on her way to the airport. Ray stands on the doorstep of Number 7, scratching the back of his head and rocking on his heels. He hopes Helen doesn’t go all that way to Iceland, only to be disappointed, he ruminates. But here, he reaches into his pocket. He’s got something for her to take to Sylvia. He pulls out a snapshot of Sylvia and Helen, taken when Helen was about eleven.
That was taken the last time he saw Sylvia, Ray says, holding it out to her.
Happy Smiling Helen preens and bobs her head. Does Ray have any message for her to give Sylvia?
Ray thinks for a moment, before telling Helen to tell Sylvia that he was happy with his lot in life.
Meanwhile, back at Sitcom House, Marty is still livid about Adele’s deception. Dire, however, has other things on her mind. She’s fertile. She’s tugging and pulling a reluctant Marty through the lounge in the direction of the stairs.
COOM ON, she bullies. COOM ON, ‘E’D PROMISED ‘ER THEY’D DO IT THREE TIMES A DAY FER THE NEXT THREE DAYS. SHE’D EVEN TAKEN TIME OFF WORK FER IT! (Now there’s a surprise).
Marty’s more concerned about Adele. What if she DID raise the money for the trip? What if she DID go without their consent?
THE ONLY POOL ADELE’LL BE SWIMMIN IN THIS SOOMER IS LIVERPOOL! Quips desperate Dire. ANYROAD, SHE AIN’T DOON NOOTHINK DIRE HADN’T DOON - SHE’D FORGED BRIDGIT’S SIGNATURE OOMPTEEN TIMES AS A GERRL.
And that’s not all, moans Marty, pulling away irritably from Dire’s vice-like grasp. There’s all the remarks being made about his questioning by the police, all coming from the staffroom at school.
‘YER PARANOID!’ Accuses Dire. ‘YER WOULDA BEEN BETTER OFF NOT TELLIN’ THEM ABOUT THE INTERVIEW!’
He’s not paranoid, maintains Marty. The truth is, the staff now view him with suspicion, thinking he had something to do with Imelda’s disappearance.
Next door at Hotel Corkhill, Happy Smiling Helen is preparing to bid the Sage a fond adieu, as she wings off to Iceland in search of the elusive Sylvia Morgan. She sits in her M-reg Ford Fiesta, bobbing her head behind the wheel, as if she’d be more at home laid out on the rear window parcel shelf. Ray joins Jimmy, a bit tentatively, to see her off.
Happy Smiling Helen and the Sage exchange a kiss. Bleuch! He tells her that he hopes she finds what she’s looking for. Then, as he finishes, Ray leans his head into her window. Er, if she DOES find Sylvia Morgan, he begins, reticently ... But then he’s unable to finish his thought. Happy Smiling Helen drives off, leaving the Sage and Raymundo gazing after her.
Meanwhile, back at the Manor Park calaboose, Ma Gordon is giving her boy, Ali the Ginger a right Scouse what-for. What on airrrrth did he think he was oop ter? He’s only been doon fer oonder-age drinkin’ and theft.
Ali protests that he never stole the drink. He and Tommo bought the stuff from an offy.
‘Der yer have the receipt?’ Snarls Ma, viciously, leaning her weasley little common version of Jenny Agutter’s face close to Ali’s/
‘What?’ Asks Ali, slightly confused.
‘Der yer have the receipt?’ She shrieks. ‘If yer bought the drink, there moost be a receipt.’
Ali checks his pockets absently, finding nothing. It moost be in his jacket, he says.
Well, rejoinders Ma, where’s his jacket?
Ali looks at her blankly. The bizzies took it, he replies, lamely.
Ma’s frustration has reached the boiling point. She’s off ter get her hands on that jacket! At the door of the holding room, she turns back to tell Ali, that he was too young to drink, but he wasn’t too old for her to turn across her knee. She’d never hit him at all as a child (then it’s not difficult to see why he turned out the way he did), but perhaps she should have. (Hindsight is twenty-twenty vision).
The Sage sits fragrantly in his lounge, contemplating the scarf Happy Smiling Helen’s left behing and wafting it about.
Ma Gordon has returned to the holding room with a police constable in tow. The policeman informs Ali the Ginger that a receipt from the off licence shows that he did, indeed, buy the booze, instead of stealing it. As Ali should probably know, off licences are prohibited from selling alcohol to sixteen year-olds, but the owner of the off licence attested that both Ali and Tommo looked older (HA!).
Then the bizzy formally cautions him, advising him that the caution wouldn’t appear on any record, but if he re-offended again, it would be taken into account.
After this, Ali the Ginger cockily enquires of the policeman if that were all that was going to happen to him.
‘Isn’t it enoof?’ Shrieks Ma Gordon, in exasperation, as Ali the Ginger scoots off.
As she starts to leave, the police constable advises her to make sure that her children knew exactly where they lived.
(The old ‘I can’t remember the address’ line has really been overused; but when you see who wrote this episode, you’ll understand why).
Timily have returned from their shopping spree, with Tim whingeing about Emily having spent all his earnings.
Emily reiterates that the day out spent together was quality time, although she wasn’t too enamoured of the frozen fish dinner they had downtown.
Well, counters Tim, as they pass the pensive Sage, recumbant on the sofa cradling Happy Smiling Helen’s scarf, all Emily seemed to do during the day was telephone and text her mates at beauty college.
The doorbell rings and the Sage rises to answer it.
It’s Happy Smiling Helen, who bobs her head, smiles shyly and admits that she’s returned because she’s ‘forgotten her cardy.’
Next door at Sitcom House, Brigid’s come to pay another interminable visit, this time to show off her latest bargain purchase. She’s managed to buy a second-hand mobile phone and she stands, showing the apparatus to a less-than-impressed Adele and a smarmily supportive Antichrist.
Well, she urges Adele, eager for praise in her efforts to be modern, what does the girl think of her Nin’s newest purchase?
Adele looks at the mobile phone as if it’s a lumpen piece of shit in Brigid’s hand. It looks old-fashioned, she sneers, like the bracelet Brigid gave her.
Brigid pauses in her fiddling with the mobile to frown disapprovingly at Adele. She’ll have the girl know, she says, peremptorily, that that bracelet would be worth a lot of money on the Antiques Road Show!
Timily are almost gobsmacked to see Happy Smiling Helen, grinning and bobbing her head up and down, as she enters Hotel Corkhill. Emily looks at Tim in disbelief. So she came alllll the way back here because she fergot her carrr-dy? Emily whinges to Tim.
The Sage creeps into the lounge, holding back his quivering delight. So, he asks softly, why did Happy Smiling Helen change her mind?
Tim nudges Emily and suggest that they take their Chinese takeaway upstairs and eat it.
Happy Smiling Helen gazes adoringly up at her Saviour Sage, bobbing her head, and smiling ecstatically. Well, she begins breathlessly, she got to the airport and then she remembered the look on Ray’s face. She suddenly realised that - and now she’s beginning to look so beatific that if she raised her hands to the camera, we’d actually see the stigmata form - she doesn’t want to look anyplace else for happiness in this world. Everything she’s ever wanted is right here in front of her ... Inside Jimmy’s trousers and about eight inches at the moment, it would seem.
(Isn’t this the most sickening line ever written? I mean, it’s so obvious that Heather Robson spends rainy Sunday afternoons in Liverpool, cooped up in a Dockside flat endlessly watching videos of ‘Now Voyager’ again and again, seemingly for inspiration - ‘Why wish for the moon, when we can have the stars?’ Well sorry, Kerry Peers is NO Bette Davis and Sullivan is NO Paul Henreid. I almost expected swelling orchestral music, but the only swelling Brookside wanted to emphasis was that which was occurring inside Jimmy’s whiffy drawers - hence my original ending to her soliloquy, which is damned site better than anything Heather ‘no-brainer’ Robson could ever hope to write).
Jimmy grips her butterball-shaped, bouncy, fat body to his tightly. How did he ever manage to pull her? He gasps. The disgustingly smug couple manage to avoid Corkhill’s massive chin and her frizzy oh-so-out-of-date perm to perform a massive snog whilst whirling around the kitchen area and removing each other’s clothes. Mercifully, Mersey TV cut the scene before we were treated to the rolls of spare tyre around Ms Peers’s waist and her increasing girth of lager-belly. (Actually, I would much rather have seen Jimmy with Amber. Anyone else agree?)
Ma Gordon has returned to the Close, in her P-reg Ford, with the reluctant Ali the Ginger in tow. She’s on a screaming rant, herself, as she pulls onto the Close, parking directly across the driveway to the bungalow and blocking the Hiltons’ car. Ray, standing in the front garden, looks at her curiously.
She pays him no mind, as she’s intent on scuppering Ali. Ali was an embarrassment to her, she rants. He was simply drunk and incapable of sensible action. And he had no consideration of the fact that those people in the offy might lose their jobs because of him, selling liquor to a minor! Why because of what he did, the shop would most likely be closed down and people would be out of work unnecessarily!
As a way of responding, Ali opens the car door, leans his head out, and pukes at Ray’s feet.
(NOW PAY ATTENTION ... MS ROBSON’S ABOUT TO ATTEMPT A COMEDY SCENE, AND WE SHOULD ALL LAUGH).
We see Jimmy dashing from the extension, trying to run and pull on his trousers at the same time - you know, the way they always do in those 1930’s comedies. Think Cary Grant ... Hop hop hop, pull on the trouser leg ... Hop hop hop on the other foot, pulling on the other, whilst shouting over his shoulder to Happy Smiling Helen that he’d soon be back.
He dashes upstairs and knocks on the door of Timily’s room. When Tim opens the door, Jimmy doesn’t mince words. Has Tim got any sausage covers?
Tim, laughing at Jimmy’s embarrassment, pretends not to understand what Jimmy’s after.
CONDOMS! Shouts Jim, in frustration.
Tim shakes his head. No condoms. None at all.
‘Whaddyer mean yer doan have’em?’ Shrieks Jimmy in a rage.
Suddenly a voice issues from the depths of the room behind Tim.
‘Eeeem, soddy,’ echoes Emily, ‘boot he doan have no condoms. I’m on the Pill, me!’
Back at Bicker-Bicker House, the Brookside Bike is revelling in his older brother’s predicament. Ali the G’s downfall means that the Brookside Bike steps into the gap of his disgrace and becomes the son and heir, he brags. And now that Ali the G would be watched like a hawk night and day, there would be more opportunite for the Brookside Bike to get up to whatever.
(This kid is an AWFUL actor - especially his annoying voice).
Like the time the Brookside Bike had his housewarming party before they’d moved in and the bizzies were called? Asks Ali the G in deadpan.
The Brookside Bike shits his pants as he sits on the sofa. How did his brother know?
Ali the G smirks. One of his mates attended the party.
Suddenly, Ma Gordon seems to have undergone a character transplant and bounds into the lounge, shrieking at the top of her voice about wanting a word with Ali.
Ali bolts for the front door.
Ma SHRIEKS after him to get back inside the house, she hadn’t finished with him yet!
Ali the Ginger stands on the doorstep, his back to the Close and shouts back that he’s 16 and he’ll do as he pleases, then turns and bounds off, with Ray standing gawping, open-mouthed.
Ma Gordon follows him to the doorstep, glances briefly about the tranquility of the Close, and screams back that he WON’T DO AS HE PLEASES WHILE HE LIVES OONDER HER ROOF! She then continues to scream after him, as Ray watches in wonder, shaking his head in dismay.
The Sage and his Chosen Vestal Virgin have left Hotel Corkhill in a quest for a condom. Happy Smiling Helen, bounces blubberily along, bobbing her head and laughing. Why should Jimmy feel he needed a condom? She asks stupidly, that annoying grin never leaving her increasingly stupid face.
Does Jimmy say he’s concerned about safe sex? Does Jimmy say he’s concerned about fathering an unwanted, illegitimate child? Does he, bollocks! (Pun intended).
He admits smugly that he’s fifty years old, a father of two kids and a grandfather to one. He has his dignity to maintain.
By now, they’ve reached Bar Brookie. Jimmy ducks inside, saying he’s going to check out the gents’ toilets in hopes that they might have a machine.
Rabbity Ruth and Dan the Man hop along the Parade, Dan moaning about the fact that Pa Gordon doesn’t seem to like him very much. Rabbity Ruth, pauses to suck back some green snot and wipe her upper lip on her sleeve, like any self-respecting white trash girl would do, and scoffs at Dan the Man’s assumption.
Poor Pa Gordon was merely stressed out, she explains, especially with this business of Ali the Ginger and the bizzies. And she learned recently from her Ma why Pa was so protective of her - it was because she was so frail at birth.
It still doesn’t solve where the couple are going to live, moans Dan the Man, who has the lackadaisical air of Mike Dixon about him. They couldn’t stay at Dan the Man’s mother’s because Luke the bunny was allergic to cats.
Rabbity Ruth promises him that she’ll start looking for a place tomorrow.
Suddenly, however, Dan the Man is reluctant to commit himself. Let’s not be too hasty in finding a place together, he urges her, swiftly. Best let all this marriage mess die down first. (Does anyone else think Dan the Man’s a bounder?)
Jimmy returns to a fat and waiting Happy Smiling Helen, who’s standing on the pavement outside the bar. No luck in the gents - well, not that kind, anyway.
Antony is accompanying Brigid back to her temporary flat, which appears to be in some sort of sink estate neighbourhood - well, it’s in Liverpool, anyway.
As they walk, Antony holding Brigid’s arm like a little ponce, Brigid maintains a monologue about the disappearance of Imelda and Antony’s appearance in the reconstruction. They should have featured him more, the police, she witters. After all, HE was the person being bullied by Imelda. Brigid wonders where the girl could be.
She’ll turn up, remarks Antony, grimly, as they walk through the mucky neighbourhood.
Now Jimmy enters the garage in search of a condom, whilst fat and flabby Happy Smiling Helen lurks in the background. He approaches the counter, where Adele is serving. He asks Adele for a packet ... A packet of ... A packet of ... RAZORS!
Adele turns and removes a packet of Gillette disposables from their place on the wall and flips them onto the counter. Anything else? She asks.
Yes, replies Jimmy, and then begins a patois of small talk, asking her how she was doing in school and if she’d saved enough for her holiday yet. A woman queues behind Jimmy.
And Marty’s pond? He continues. How’s that doing?
Adele looks bemused, as the woman behind Jimmy clears her throat. Did Jimmy want anything else? She asks.
Er ... YES, he booms, pointing behind Adele in the general direction of the condoms, but not exactly at them. A packet of those, he mumbles.
A packet of what? Adele asks.
Batteries, mutters Jimmy.
What size? Asks Adele.
Small, mutters Jimmy, hanging his head and rubbing the back of his neck. Er, is only Adele working this shift? He asks suddenly.
Adele nods, with wide-eyed innocence. Oh, well, in that case, Jimmy defers, the woman in back of him had best be served first, he ushers the woman to the counter. Meanwhile, he says to Adele, he would just ... browse.
(This was SO not funny).
Pa Gordon has returned home and taken up residence beside Ma Gordon on the lounge settee, listening to Ma whine on about having spent hours at the police station because of Ali the Ginger. She wouldn’t have minded, but she HAD wanted to start work at the Garage that day. Besides reading both her and him the riot act, they offered them the services of a social worker, then discussed taking the case to court, and then threatened prison, because they were trying to pin a theft on him.
At that moment, the front door opens and Bitch’s up-turned tits enter the room, leading her into it. Here comes the Call-Centre Queen, jokes Pa, then tells her to move her car.
Bitch stomps her foot, which causes her tits to bobble, which causes thousands of adolescent boys the country over and coxyboro to delve their hands into their trousers and wank furiously. Emily has a rival here. Why? She whines petulantly.
The neighbours, snaps Pa Gordon. And she can have her mobile phone back, he adds. He’s had enough sex tips texted to him from Ellie to last forever.
(Does this remind anyone of Al Bundy in Married with Children? Does the writer have absolutely NO imagination?)
At that moment, the doorbell rings, and because she’s up on her feet, Bitch is convinced by her tits to answer it.
She finds Ray on the doorstep. As she pokes her common, tarty little head out the door, Ray demands that she move her car. It’s blocking his in!
She apologises and scurries to move it.
Meanwhile, inside, Pa Gordon is desperate to talk to Ali the Ginger.
Oooh, whines Ma, he did a rooner as soon as he realised she wanted ter talk ter him too.
Never mind, Pa says, reaching for the telephone, without which, the Gordons would simply shrivel and die, he’ll ring Ali’s mobile.
Ma Gordon sheepishly holds up the boy’s phone in her hand. Pa can’t reach his oldest son.
Marty has returned home and makes himself a cup of tea in the sitcom kitchen. It’s happened, he informs a puzzled Dire. Staff attitude has definitely changed toward him at work, he confirms.
OOOH, exclaims Dire, IF MARTY’S SENT TER PRISON, THEY’D HAVE TER ARRANGE ONE O’THEM CONJUGAL VISITS, LIKE.
Marty ignores her pithy attempt at a joke, shaking his head and gazing away into the distant past. Him, Marty Muddie, behind bars! He can’t help but think about his wrongfully-accused mate, Mickey Edwards. He suddenly turns to face Dire, sitting opposite him.
What if they find Clough dead? He asks frantically. Why, he’ll be in the frame unless the real killer comes forward or is discovered! He could go to prison for life and that’s that. After all, the only reason Mickey Edwards was freed was because someone eventually made a confession.
Again, he shakes his head bleakly. All the pain and suffering Imelda Clough managed to inflict on this family, he mutters, his voice cracking slightly, and now she’s STILL punishing them! (Best scene of the piece).
As Brigid and Antony walk along the seedy estate, her mobile rings. Brigid pauses to remove it from her bag, telling Antony that it’s most likely either Father Pat or Jessie, they were the only ones who had her mobile number.
As she removes the mobile phone, two shitty little kids watch her from a distance.
The Sage and Mary Magdalene have struck lucky and found some condoms. Are we amused? Are we excited? Hell, no.
As Brigid takes her call, the shitty little thugs pounce, grabbing her mobile. As they start to tear off, Antony pounces on the one with the phone, bringing him to the ground.
Antony sits astride the kid, pounding him furiously and shaking his shoulders, telling the kid to ‘leave him alone’ and that Antony hated him. All the while this happens, we see brief, intermittant black-and-white flashbacks to the killing of Imelda, with Antony telling her to ‘leave him alone’ and that he hates her, as he pounds her unconscious body and shakes her by the shoulders.
The kid somehow manages to pull himself from under Antony, jumps to his feet and scurries off. Brigid helps Antony to his feet, asking if he were all right.
Antony hands Brigid her restored mobile phone. At least she got her phone back, he tells his grandmother.
Heather Robson wrote this. Pure, unadulterated two-bit shit.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002