Meanwhile, Rita's back from her holidays. Her fluffed-up red hair is a welcome splash of colour. Steve kissed a transvestite on his holidays, which he admitted to a hushed crowd in the Rovers. Steve's mother Liz, with her two-toned hair, is landlady, brassed up as a worthy successor to Bet Lynch.

She looks like she found some of Annie Walker's polyester curtains in a cupboard and ran up a blouse on the sewing machine. A lowcut blouse. Annie would turn in her grave if she knew what happened to her curtains. In the cab office, Eileen leaned forward and stapled Lloyd's paper together.

That's what he gets for slagging her. Sue Cleaver, who plays Eileen, is a perfect soap actress.

After two minutes, you've known her forever. She's like Victoria Wood's less famous, older sister.

Vera's exit will be heartbreaking. A few years ago, when she and Jack were the established comedy double-act, the writers gave them a marriage-breakdown story where years of resentment came bubbling to the surface like a blocked drain.

They survived, but the writers will turn the screw when you least expect it. Remember the murderous Don? He was a toxic, soulless and emasculated man.

He made a few anonymous phone calls to Denise the hairdresser, then the writers left him alone for a few years as he limped up to the Rovers with his wooden leg. Sally had a pleasant 40th birthday lunch with Kevin a few weeks ago, but there was still that shadow across her face of an unfulfilled life. She doesn't love Kevin. She stayed for the family, which is why she will fight for Rosie to stay in school rather than work for Carla at the Underworld knickers factory.

In recent years, Coronation Street has become more onedimensional, with its characters going bonkers overnight: Sally's sudden snobbishness, Tracy's man-revenge murder, Gail's hysterical street fights and David's evilness, which can only be explained by the fact the writers can have fun with an actor who is unusually versatile.

But they give you throwaway lines as little treats. On Monday, Dev Alahan took a bite of a sandwich in his corner shop and, just as the scene finished, said, "Urgh! Too much mayo!" It was a reference to him being a middle-class shopkeeper in a working-class street, and his annoying fastidiousness, but it could also have been two fingers from the writers to know-it-alls who reduce Asian food and culture to curry and chips. A certain class of British delis uses mayo as their staple ingredient.

While Emmerdale can't make up its mind whether it's a Colombian telenovella panto or Eastenders via Take The High Road, Fair City has other problems. It's not the bad lighting . . . which reacts with Pierce's gelled hair, turning him into an electric eel . . . or the royal-blue and lime-green sets, or jazzed-up theme music, or the Luas and IFSC being squeezed into the credits. They have turned what was a gritty working-class soap into a middle-class craparama about computer companies and property deals. They wiped out the working classes. Is Margaret Thatcher moonlighting as a script writer?

Leo, who looks like a sleazy guy ordering champagne in Renards, repeats his lines like an idiot savant. (Like Dr Zhivago: "Where is Lana?") And he talks in that slurry Bonoid voice. But Rita, Jimmy, Tracey and Carol hint at what this soap could be. They crackle with coddle authenticity . . . even if Tracey has a long-lost sister who became a nun and moved to the Congo. Fair City lacks any subtlety. But, in many ways, as a commentary on the crassness of modern Ireland, it's right on the money.

Reviewed
Coronation Street
ITV1
Fair City
RTE One