T Boy

So it seems!

Kathy is such an unserious character these days. Why not just tell Ian that Chelsea didn’t make it in time and was stuck on the tube? She didn’t have to mention the appeal but she could have done better than asking him the daftest questions.

I don’t know, it’s been a lot worse and in recent memory too. Prison storylines are always a little bit ridiculous. The teen stuff has petered out and the Bea stuff was horrendous (thank goodness that’s over!) but I’m generally enjoying everything else right now.

I can suspend my disbelief about Ian and Gray being in prison together. After all Sharon got locked up for contempt of court and placed in the cell next to her ex stepmother who had been doing 19 years for murdering her father. Things have been less realistic. I am starting to wonder if Vicki had something to do with Joel’s attack. I hope not but I have a feeling. I was living for Chelsea, who does not want any of her family finding out she’s speaking to Sheila, just meeting her in broad daylight in the middle of the Square where all her friends and family live. I just hope the prisoner actors in Ian’s story aren’t as hammy as the ones from when Mick got sent down.

Yeah but in real life they would definitely have checked. If only to see if they’d taken any pictures of the crime scene that could easily get posted over social media. Jean going back into detective mode is all we need.

So the police took 8 statements but didn’t examine anyone’s phone for that video? Well it makes sense now that Ian manages to get out of prison in time for New Year but it’ll be the end of November by the time he gets out. Max will have a month to choose him as best man.

I’m willing to give it a chance with it just being a couple of episodes. Wadey despite his faults has managed to salvage characters before. Max, Cindy, Lauren and Elaine are all much better under him. Janine’s last stint was pretty poor. There was no clear plan. They were desperate to improve the show and the lack of steady work during Covid meant Charlie would definitely say yes. Janine’s ties were almost non existent then and the only relationships they built for her were with the Carters and that was really bad. The fact that all anyone is mentioning with this news is Linda kind of proves how misjudged it all was. She struggled to play off anyone-Ian wasn’t even around! I did like her double act with Sonia though. She shouldn’t have come back poor and she shouldn’t have been portrayed as a neglectful mother. It would be great to have her establish new relationships to keep her relevant but that’s unlikely to happen in 2 episodes. I’m going in with an open mind though.

It does irritate me just how much she is associated with Mick now. What awful developments. I know it’s only brief and we may not get an interaction but I’d be here for more of this.

Wadey isn’t great but the show IS still in a better place than it was back then.

I mean, no one is saying that Golden isn’t popular. Just that you can’t compare like for like. Heartbeat/Tragedy was insanely popular in 98/99 but out of context it only looks as popular as no.26 hit Golden if you look as sales figures. Music wasn’t more popular in 2021 than it was in 1999 just because a no.26 was pulling in the same figures as a no.1 was back then. The charts were just very different back then. If the charts worked the same way, fifth single or not, Golden likely would have gone top 10 but probably wouldn’t have pulled in over a million sales. It’s always frustrated me that streaming was just added to the chart without much thought to how it would be counted alongside sales. Chart records have become more meaningless because the playing field is no longer level. There is no solution but that doesn’t mean we can’t point this out.

We love to see it.

I’ve mainly gotten into Go Let It Out more in the last couple of years. Never rated this era for Oasis and have never listened to the album. I quite enjoy GLIO to listen to now but it was so fleeting at the time I never paid it much attention.

I mean all I said was ‘you have to laugh’ which I don’t think was that much of a bad thing to say? And of course I drew up with evidence from this very thread. Gezza even noted she was the highest selling singles act of the decade not to get a no.1-and quite a way above any of the others (I didn’t even use specific examples of those.) All I was trying to do was remark about an artist’s success in the context of a recent discussion. There was no attempt at all to insult anyone with what I said and I’ll definitely be thinking twice before I enter any discussion about anything from now on.

I’m not sure you understood my response because I’m having trouble understanding yours. Janet sold over 3 million singles in the 90s. Only 18 other acts managed that. That is sustained success over a 10 year period. She also broke out in the mid 80s and could still hit the top 40 up to the mid 2000s. She is unquestionably a big artist, you can’t really frame it any other way? She never got that no.1 single but she was a constant chart force. If anything Together Again was unlucky in that it was released in a period where so many songs were selling in high amounts. It didn’t even go top 3 but outsold so many songs that did.

Not all of those hits were minor and even so, it’s sustained success across the decade. Only 18 artists sold more singles throughout the decade. I mean, where is your bar for ‘huge’? I think you’ve taken what I said a little too personally. On brand for you of course but, once again, you have to make at outright personal dig at me.

You have to laugh at anyone in the ‘biggest artist not to have a no.1’ thread who said Janet just isn’t that big. That is just one decades worth of her sales.

There is no solution. Just accept that the charts won’t ever be the same and will likely never be viewed as important ever again. Rule changes have pushed it to its limits and the charts have still gotten more stagnant than ever. Everyone’s listening habits contribute to the chart. A large majority of those people aren’t as interested in music as we are and it’s just background sound to them.

Not sure about that with Zack. He’s been awfully anonymous recently. I feel Wadey responds quite quickly to feedback (the Zoe stuff) and might actually be distancing Barney’s connection to Zack rather than enhancing it as previously shown. Note that last night it was Nicola and Harry that Barney chose to go to.

Barney could work as a red herring. But unfortunately, I don’t think he is. It was a bit much I guess to see the teens reflect in the way I mentioned earlier. Perhaps that will come but they actually got very little screen time in that ep. Unfortunately, Barney is a nice young teen who is never rude, wants to do well and is a little socially awkward. This seems to be EE’s go to every time we have a plot like this ‘always the one you least expect’, etc. They’ll give some ‘he did it to defend Avani’ excuse and she will chastise him about not needing someone to defend her whilst she’s shouting at Joel, Priya, Ravi and literally anyone else. I did see someone speculate Vicki may be behind it but I’d hope not. It could just be that Barney witnessed the attack therefore knew where the weapon was but who else out of all of them would have access to a hammer when he’s admitted he knows where the keys to the Arches are kept.

But Joel had no choice in how long his sentencing was? He appears to be showing genuine remorse and not actually wanting to be around these people. He’s even the one that pointed out to Avani they shouldn’t be near each other. Joel obviously did some horrific things, but since when is it up to the general public to decide when he’s been punished enough? I’m not saying his sentence wasn’t extremely lenient, but he was a minor so it was always going to be. All these kids have done is shown that, actually, they’re not much better than him. They, like him, know that their actions are wrong. They’ve proven that they are kids and they aren’t mature enough to deal with these situations no matter how much they yell at their parents for allegedly letting them down. If you want a class act in dealing with Joel’s actions, look at Vicki. At every opportunity she has removed herself from Joel’s orbit. She has never gone back on the fact that she cannot have Joel in her life yet she is also lending support to her husband who is in one of the most impossible positions. She has not tried to set Joel up or inflict any revenge. It’s not nice to have him around, but the kids don’t have to have anything to do with him. He was already a pariah and knew it. They lured him out. They’re not as good people as they’d love everyone to believe, they are still kids at the end of the day. I haven’t seen today’s episode yet, but it will be good to see them having to deal with the consequences here. For them to begin their journey growing up.

Surely Nuggett is older than Avani by virtue of him being raised by Ravi and Ravi not knowing Avani existed?

I guess we needed the teen group to do something of this magnitude. Most of the time they act all high and mighty and do need taking down a peg so perhaps this experience will help with that. Tommy notably absent from it all.

So I assume redemption will come to Joel just by making all the other characters as horrific?

Sorry, Linda, I don’t think you count as a widow. Mick’s widow is Janine.

But I believe they do their best job that they can every time. That doesn’t mean I love the tracklists, it’s just an acknowledgment of the circumstances. We really should stop indulging Hadji at this point-this is a poster who believes that Now doesn’t include Taylor Swift because they just don’t want to. Probably thinks if he’d been able to review bomb in the 2000s, they’d have relented and included Madonna.