GAIL FARCE

Last night's Corrie was a little surreal. It made no apologies for borrowing the story of the real-life disappearance of the 'canoe-man' for the Joe and Gail McIntyre storyline. The story so far is that Joe's been hounded by loan sharks and to escape the constant threats, he attempts to fake his own death so that wife Gail can cash the insurance money.

Quite how someone who owes a stack of money manages to hold on to a boat, suddenly acquire a car to tow it up to the lakes, sort out mooring fees, get the boat in the water unaided and stay in a luxurious lakeside cottage is a mystery to me. Anyway, Joe plans to disappear on the lake at night, presumed drowned, then lie low in Ireland until the money pays out. Simples. CSI Ambleside here saw a slight problem with the plotline. Surely a drowned body in a lake would show up eventually? Bodies don't normally sink to the depths for eternity unless they're weighted down? I also don't recall Cumbria's lakes having tides or man-eating sharks either, so a disappearing body would be a little problematic.

As in true soap history, the plan went arse up so to speak. Joe and Gail have a domestic and Joe badly sprains his wrist. Joe sails off onto an eerie lake with a full moon and a look of desperation in his tear-filled eyes. Gail meanwhile is left on the jetty with the actress Helen Worth acting her boots off wailing and declaring undying love for Joe.

Fast forward to the middle of the lake. Joe is slowly getting bladdered on a bottle of vodka and gets ready to get into the dinghy to take him to the shoreline when... oh bugger, the dinghy springs free. On a dead calm lake and with not a breath of wind, Joe begins leaning precariously over the side whilst desperately trying to haul in the dinghy. FRom nowhere, a gust of wind to bring down a chimney stack manages to move the mast boom (?) at an alarming rate and unlucky Joe ends up plunged into the icy waters. He then tries to swim back towards the boat but couldn't pull himself up with his damaged wrist. Cue the really dramatic bit when Joe realises this and simply falls backwards to be swallowed up downwards to the murky depths. Call it the cut price Windermere version of Leonardo di Caprio's death scene from Titanic.

So that's it, Corrie goes all Tales of the Unexpected on us. The plan went wrong and Gail the unluckiest bride in history says goodbye to husband number 4. The rest of us witnessed one of the strangest and silliest soap plot in history....