Who’s Top Dog?

‘RATHER aptly, there’s a classic dogfight going on down The Rovers Return – as Bev and Shelly scrap it out for the manager’s job.

‘Can I have a bowl of water, please?’

Fred had demoted Shelly after the takings went down and he caught her having an illegal lock-in and given her mum the job. “Yer take other people’s men and other’s people’s jobs,” Shelly ranted at her mum. “You disgust me.”

Tensions between the pair were already tense as builder Charlie Stubbs had let slip to Shelly that her mum had slept with Ciaran while he was engaged to Sunita. “Yer can’t help yerself, can yer mother?” spat Shelly.

Which is not entirely fair; Bev would like to ‘help herself’ much more often, if she could find willing victims.

Once in charge of The Rovers, the power went to her head and it wasn’t long before Betty had also walked out after hearing Bev describe her as a “just a part-time cook – and a poor one at that.”

“It’s just you and me now,” she cooed to a startled Ciaran. Bev then proceeded to break every rule in the Employer’s Handbook by demanding that Ciaran sleep with her or lose his job. Even Ciaran isn’t that desperate for a job and promptly quit, making sure Fred knew exactly why.

“Right! That’s it!” boomed Fred, jowls shuddering from side to side. “This pub is going up for sale. I’ve had enough, I say I’ve had enough.”

Poor Fred has enough on his (extremely large plate) as it is at the moment, having just been rejected by Penny King. Nanny Claire’s rebuke of last week seems to have pricked Penny’s conscience and she agreed to do the honourable thing and break it off with Fred.

“Yer a lovely man,” she told him sadly, “but I just can’t marry yer. It’s too soon after Vernon died.” Too soon to marry a fat Northern butcher, but not too soon it seems to sleep with a short Cockney knicker-manufacturer.

“I know it’s wrong,” she told Mike later, “but I can’t help the way I feel about yer.” Mike, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth (providing he can find a ladder long enough), promptly took the Merry Widow by the hand and led her to bed.

Our Tracy Luv is another who’s never backward at coming forward in the bedroom department. She’s managed to get herself a job in a local florists and a new boyfriend thrown in for good measure.

“It’s great being young, free and single, isn’t it?” she whispered in the ear of her date Matthew, conveniently forgetting to mention the fact that she lives with not one but two wrinkled balls of screaming flesh in the shape of her daughter and her grandmother.

Tracy pretended she was working, palmed her daughter off on Ken and lured poor unsuspecting Matt back to the house, not realising that her entire family would choose that time to pop round.

Even with her powers at bending the truth, she’d be hard pressed to pass off Amy as Blanche’s.

Someone else who’s got some explaining to do is Dev. Dev-id Essex has agreed to keep hold of some stolen watches for his cousin Neveen but, with Maya around, nothing’s a secret for long.

“You should have told me,” she said to him, “I can help you.” Indeed – with Maya’s light-fingered skills, she’d have never got caught.’

Posted: 8th, April 2004 | In: Strange But True Comment | TrackBack | Permalink