The illustrated Hello: Billy Corkhill

After an unexpected hiatus following the death of Malcolm last night, we're picking this feature up again tonight with Billy Corkhill.

You said you wouldn't go to prison... that teacher was 'avin' it away with my daughter.... you said you wouldn't go to prrrrisssson

Billy Corkhill was one of the Brookside greats, during the period when it was a soap opera which trusted its audience. The sequence where he and Sheila Grant negotiated their respective hang-ups on Otterspool Prom pulled off the impossible of making an unlikely relationship convincing and touching, and a lot of that was down to John McArdle's performance as Billy.

You remember Billy Corkhill:



It was probably for the best that he never came back to visit his brother Jimmy as Brookside declined into the home of the Millennium Arch and the sort of cartoon gangsters that the scriptwriters for Dick Tracy might have drawn the line at.

"Ah, but surely you're cheating by just dumping a bit of Brookside in here. Where's the music? Have you failed?" you cry.

Not at all. Do you fancy Billy Corkhill - or, at least, John McArdle - singing What's My Age Again? As part of a choir?



I bet you'd forgotten that All The Small Things ever happened, hadn't you?

[Part of the iluustrated Hello. Vince Hillaire next? Oh, jesus...]

A Galaxy of swearing

Ofcom has ticked off Galaxy in Manchester after presenter Rob Ellis got sweary against the disabled [pdf link; page 9] on-air and said:

“...I reckon every spacker in Manchester could go to Toys R
Us…meanwhile I am having to walk fucking miles with me kids in the rain...”

Of course, this is the sort of thing which can happen on live radio.

Unfortunately, the programme wasn't live; it had been pre-recorded which compounded the error. Surprisingly, though, Ofcom seems more worried about a presenter having trouble operating the recording software than the idea that people who think "spacker" is acceptable for use whether on or off air are getting access to microphones.

It didn't help that Galaxy waited a week before apologising, and then didn't bother to explain what they were sorry about.

In light of all this, Ofcom had no choice but to... erm, say it wasn't right.

Curiously, the last North Western radio presenter to inadvertently appear on air saying "fuck" - Simon O'Brien, who had the decency to resign - has resurfaced: He's joining the resurrected City Talk in the New Year.

Jennifer Ellison: My shit life

We can see why Jennifer Ellison would be happy to flog the "I was an abused fiancee" story to the News of the World - having seen how Kerry Katona has managed to spin so much gold from a crap life, who wouldn't attempt to make a little cash while humiliating the thuggish bloke who last week got caught with Shalimar Wimble by telling the world he's a violent bastard?

What we can't see is why the News of the World would run this as their front-page splash.. Sure, it's a bit of a thin summer - which is why The Sun is reduced to running day after day of "exclusives" about sharks, an obsession which suggests that Rebekah Wade has gone on holiday and left an autistic nine year-old in charge of the paper - but even the NOTW can't quite recall why Jennifer Ellison is famous:

During all her secret turmoil with Richardson, brave Jennifer's career continued to soar. She won Celebrity's Hell's Kitchen, toured to rave reviews in the musical Chicago and had TV roles in ITV's legal drama The Brief and the BBC sitcom Hotel Babylon.

In other words: after she left a now-defunct soap-opera, she's had a couple of bit parts in TV shows and tramped round the country in a musical. In fact, she's mostly been famous for telling unconvincing stories about how she's been injured.

The saddest aspect of the story, though, is that if it hadn't been for the intervention of Shalamar Womble, she'd probably still be covering up for Richardson now.

You thought Atomic Kitten was scary?

Live Magazine let the cat out of the bag, so we suppose everyone knows now - having been spurned by AK, Andy McCluskey is now priming this for pop action:

Jennifer Ellison from Brookside. Presumably he's chosen a solo artist as they can't conspire against him.