I ONLY watch Coronation Street if I have to. I don't go out of my way to do it. I don't cancel dinner reservations, rush home from the pub or tell my sick cat that I haven't the time to get her paw fixed because Coronation Street is on.

However, I've been sent 10 DVDs of Coronation Street during the 2000s. The naughties . Whatever.

The collection of 80 episodes comes out on Halloween (October 31) from Network DVD, which has already released numerous boxsets from all the other decades.
 
I remember I bought my nan the sixties set of black and white episodes, but she died before finishing it. I eventually sold it at a pawn shop for £10. It's what she would have wanted.

Anyway, with so many episodes, and my cat in need of a paw replacement, I have dipped in and out of the long-running series, where nobody ever leaves the confines of the cobbled streets.

What excitement is there to be had?

Richard Hillman’s murderous rampage where he went a bit mental with a crowbar, Peter Barlow’s bigamy being discovered when his two wives compare wedding photos and notice a striking similarity of grooms; Tracy Barlow vs Karen McDonald in a church aisle; Mad Maya’s revenge where she hopes Dev will die and come back as something nice, like a puppy; Les and Cilla’s fake wedding, Blanche at the alcoholics’ support group, blurting out the last decade worth of storylines to a surprised AA group - I could go on.

So I will. There are the deaths of Mike Baldwin, Vera Duckworth and Fred Elliott and Tracy going mad and killing Charlie Stubbs. There's also that Christmas 2009 shocker when Roy finds out Tony killed Liam. If only Roy hadn't gone out that night.

I think the best thing about these releases are the memories that flood back. I remember where I was when I realised Martin Platt had a weird looking face but a hot-looking daughter, and how young Ken Barlow looked.

I remember Toyah Battersby, and Hayley saying she's a man, and Maxine being murdered and Leanne being a prostitute. The clothes, the hairstyles - Deidre's ever-shrinking glasses. I'm made up of Coronation Street memories thanks to my mother's and grandmother's obsession with watching it.

But what of the similarities with recent years you ask?

Alison Wakefield married Kevin Webster after discovering she was pregnant with his child. Much like the recent Kevin Webster discovering Molly Dobbs was pregnant with his child.

Peter Barlow's battle against alcoholism is much like the upcoming episodes that will deal with Peter Barlow's battle against alcoholism, and Todd Grimshaw began to question his sexuality which I believe Steve McDonald is due to do anytime now.

Anyway, here’s what’s coming up for the rest of the week on Coronation Street.

Thursday

Eileen's confused when she wakes up to find Paul has left flaky skin on the bed sheets. When she fails to get hold of him using semaphore, she starts to worry that he was only after her for storage of his growing fossil collection.

Unable to bear the pain, Marcus confesses that he saw Paul with a bottle of bleach and suspects he's not a fireman but a toilet cleaner. Horrified, Eileen marches down to the fire station to confront Paul but he’s not there because he’s a toilet cleaner not a fireman. An internal investigation by the Fire Authority is launched.

Meanwhile, as Sally tries to limbo dance at Frank's new nightclub, Izzy, Kirk and Sean are appalled to discover she is half woman, half elastic band. Carla tries to warn Sally that Frank's a dangerous man, but caught up in his string-bead curtains, will she ever escape?

Elsewhere, Rosie suspects that Jeff is having a flan with Stacey, and when he offers the blonde a top modelling job creating a 1:100 scale model of the Bismarck, Rosie gets mad and throws the flan in the bin.

Amber suggests that she and Sophie should have a night out yodeling while Sian's away; while Rosie puts pressure on Jason to sell his flat tyres so they can buy a wood-burning stove and a set of spring toggle M5 and 50mm machine screws - ideal for fixing to cavity walls and ceilings of low structural strength.

Friday

A heartbroken Eileen decides that Paul's pineapple deserves to know the truth.

Meanwhile, Rosie tells Sophie that she's got a plan to break Sally and Jeff up - then Sally will get back together with Kevin. Rosie’s going to kill Jeff with a posioned flan, so when Sally arrives home from limbo dancing, she'll have to dump him. Sophie's quick to point out the pitfalls of Rosie's plan, but she refuses to be put off. Will Jeff die easily?

Elsewhere, Sophie tells Amber they're on for their night out picking hops and yodelling in the Weatherfield graveyard; Owen’s not happy about having to wear a pair of pants he put on the day before after spending the night with Anna; and Chesney visits a downbeat Fiz in prison who has become a lesbian bodybuilder called Fizzy Bottles.

You can pick up the Network DVD box set for £39.82 by clicking the picture below.

Ciao, Mark Wright here from The Only Way is Essex with my oft-weekly talk about sex. It’s pretty difficult to get into that’s for sure. A friend of mine said the other day I probably send my right hand a Valentines Day card but I didn’t understand what they meant. I’m from Essex.

Anyway, sex, It’s all very natural unless your posh like a Londoner and then you slip in words like “crumbs” and “crikey” when it all gets too much. I imagine Prime Minister David Cameron and Prime Mayor Boris Johnson sound like this in bed. When Nick Clegg does it I’ve always imagined he’d say “preposterous” with clasped hands.

Anyway, I’m straying off the point, I’m here to talk about love and all the strange relationships that are going on in my programme. I’m now marrying Lauren Goodger despite conflicting reports of my love interests with Sam Faiers, Kayla Collins and Lucy Mecklenburgh.

I know Lauren went on Twitter the other night and wrote about my relationships with those other girls. She told this person who thought it was all fake: “Of course its not u fool them 2 r acting playing the game! the truth is I've been with mark 10 yrs not the others ! Clearly its real!”

These are the three things I know about rumpy pumpy: It always involves a man and a woman (two if you’re lucky). It can involve a man and a man and/or/preferably a woman and a woman (two if you’re lucky). You only get one chance to have a go (two if you’re lucky).

The other night I was watching a DVD in the privacy of my cellar when I noticed a weird and wonderful movement by Kayla Collins who was playing a teacher. She seemed to be pulsating her feet in my direction. I have to say I didn’t know where to look and eventually I settled on looking at Lauren’s gerbil. She’s a fine-looking gerbil and all that, but I should have thought about which way to turn before things got out of hand.

Anyway, I’m straying off the point again, I’m here to talk about The Only Way is Essex.
 
Well, actually, that’s all I know. Those three things I mentioned earlier. Anyway, that’s all you really need to know. Now I’m going to fly off on my tangerine bicycle of mystery. Bye.

A GRITTY hard-hitting drama hits the screens of Wednesday starring the former shadow chancellor George Osborne.

The Spending Review, which cost an incredible £155 billion to make, is being simulcast on all of the news channels.

The 39-year-old is likely to be seen in the socio-political thriller reading out a list of things he intends to curtail; all set to Bono’s Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own.

The former Selfridge’s employee has already purchased two DVD review copies at £47 of himself in the role. He said he bought them for a constituent to watch because she had no gums.

The father-of-two, who has a personal fortune of about £4 million and took over the long-running role from Alistair Darling earlier this year, is expected to appear in a tense character-driven scene in which he wields a metaphorical axe about the place whilst saying "necessary," "big society," "austerity" and "community".

Likely to be on the edge of their seats during this scene include defence bods (played by Liam Fox), benefit cheats (a dual-role for George Osborne) and quango executive-management-leaders (a welcome return for James Braithwaite).

Mr Osborne told this column from his flipped second home at Downing Street: “Crikey, George Osborne is an incredible character to be playing. He is light and shade but certainly not black and white. He’s a fully formed character - a human. He’s three-dimensional and from the start of playing George I've been able to do the full range: wit, inflexibility, pathos, idiosyncrasy, capital gains tax.

“Gosh, I don’t know how the audience will react to the show but, golly, the writers have made some tough decisions - keeping in scenes about healthcare, children's education, early years provision; but at the same time a lot of stuff was left on the cutting room floor - police, courts, pensions, all that sort of thing.”

But MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle Alan Johnson, who also auditioned for the role and featured as a recurring character in the last series, accused the makers of "making a rubbish show".

Mr Johnson, 48, said: “I was certainly put up for it by my manager but the producers didn’t think I was right for it. I disagree. Obviously. I mean Christ, I've got a diploma in journalism and an honorary degree in law. I haven’t seen the programme yet but I can tell you, hand on heart, that it’s going to be awful. Absolutely awful. I’m not really surprised though, the scale and scope of it. And the incompetence.”

Mr Johnson, a former postman, will be launching his own one-off comedy tomorrow called Push for Growth, which sees him infiltrating a number of top-flight banks disguised as a £50 note in a bid to make them pay more.