#maybe ste will end up with the best gay in the village

[meljwrites]

Let’s hope the rumours are true and James has been axed from the show

yeah, we were talking about that as well, probably.

[hollyoaksloversx]

If I Could Turn Back Time...

Rounding up a week in Hollyoaks (2nd-6th July 2018)

The year is 2002 and in Hollyoaks village Ellie Hunter shocks her family by waltzing back in after a two year radio silence, Mandy Richardson and Adam Morgan are involved in a horrific car crash and Mr C is making a tit of himself at the Jubilee celebrations. Meanwhile, in another part of the country, it’s James Nightingale’s 16th birthday and his Father, Mac, gifts him a night with a prostitute, hoping that the experience will ‘turn him straight’. The fling results in a pregnancy and Marnie pays the prostitute, Donna-Marie, to have an abortion. Or so she thinks...

This week, Hollyoaks rewound the clock and gave viewers a glimpse into the past life of popular character, James. The first flashback took us to 2002 and James’ 16th birthday. After finding out that his son was gay, Mac organised for James to sleep with a prostitute, hoping that the experience would make him realise he was actually straight.  A pregnancy resulted, and Marnie soon ‘sorted’ the problem by paying for a termination. Which brings us nicely to the next flashback and with ‘Call Me Maybe’ playing on the radio and the London Olympics being on newspaper covers, it could only be 2012. Here, we met a now grown-up James preparing to start work at a law firm. However, the occasion wasn’t all happy as Mac soon demanded that James help him get £100,000, supposedly to save his company from going under. Desperate for his Father’s approval, James made the decision to embezzle money from his new work place and he soon met the perfect person to frame for the crime when he met kindly accountant, Kashif Maalik. However, unbeknownst to James, his Father’s business wasn’t in trouble and they actually needed the money to pay Donna-Marie, who hadn’t had a termination after all...

Back in the present day, James’ son, Romeo, approached his house, but couldn’t bring himself to knock on the door and walked away. Inside, James was desperately trying to work out who was framing him for Kyle’s murder. Suddenly, James had a realisation, and after all this time, remembered the surname of the man he’d framed; Maalik. Putting two and two together, James came up with four, and realised that Sami was Kashif’s son, and must surely be behind his recent troubles. The following day, James headed to Sami’s office and after finding the evidence he needed, confronted his rival. Turning the tables on Sami, James ordered him to get the murder charge dropped, or he’d tell the police that the whole thing was a set-up. Later on that day, Marnie invited the family round for a meal but Sami’s goading of James soon got too much for him to bear, and he beat him up, accidentally knocking Ellie over in the process...

It appeared that neither Sami or Ellie had been seriously hurt, but the following day, Ellie collapsed at The Dog after feeling lightheaded and was rushed to hospital. Sami felt guilty about the situation and made the rather hasty decision to leave the village, however, he soon changed his mind when he discovered that Ellie was pregnant. James was devastated when Ellie shared her news with him and begged her not to have Sami’s baby. In that moment, Ellie saw red and got straight on the phone to Roxy, telling her to add Sami’s assault to James’ murder charge...

That wasn’t the only Nightingale trauma this week as Marnie was finally told what was wrong with Alfie; schizoaffective disorder. Realising that her son would be on medication for life, Marnie decided to seek a second opinion and called in Dr Spellman. Unfortunately for Marnie, she didn’t get the news she was hoping for when Alfie’s diagnosis was confirmed and Marnie was shocked to be told that she could actually impair his recovery by refusing to acknowledge his illness...

Meanwhile, Adam’s ashes were ready to collect and Grace and Maxine made the decision to scatter them together. However, after yet another row, Glenn ended up throwing the ashes all over Grace, leaving Maxine furious. Glenn tried to get back in Maxine’s good books by blaming Grace for the incident and offering to scatter the remainder of the ashes with her. One thing lead to another, as it so often does after scattering some ashes, and Glenn and Maxine ended up sleeping together. Unusually for Hollyoaks, Grace found out relatively quickly and finally walked out on Glenn! Great scenes, until you remember she’s walking out of her own flat. A flat that Glenn has no claim to...

Elsewhere, Farrah was delighted to be offered a new job as a forensic psychologist, surely a result of the fantastic work she did with RyRy earlier in the year. There was, however, a downside, and the new job would require Farrah to work much longer hours. Not so great when Kim was still refusing to leave the house. Not wanting to share the news with Kim, Farrah confided in Misbah that she didn’t want to jeopardise Kim’s recovery by leaving her before she was ready. Worried that her daughter was going to turn down the offer, Misbah decided to tell Kim about the job. Wanting to show Farrah how proud she was of her, Kim decided to leave the house alone to go and get Farrah a present but was left upset when Farrah snapped at her, unaware that she’d just shared a snog with Grace. The following day, Kim was still struggling but forced herself to leave the house again. This time, she headed back to the basement, to seek comfort from Rick Astley. 

In other news this week, desperate for a break from Imran, Misbah begged Buster to take him to the training camp in Barcelona, leaving Yasmine feeling like her Brother was being reward for his violent behaviour. Cleo was panicking about her upcoming wedding to Joel and Myra attempted to take some of the load off by buying her a wedding dress. Cleo was delighted by the thought, but was left devastated to discover that the dress was too small. Finally, Tegan was discharged from hospital and Diane, Leela and Ste realised they’d have to tell her about Dee Dee’s illness...

5 Things We Learnt This Week:

1. Hollyoaks village has it’s own education system, where children start school younger than in other parts of the country. Either that or Rose Lomax and the Hutchinson kids are child geniuses who have been moved up a year. 

2. Family loyalty means nothing to Ellie. James supported her when Nick raped her and helped cover up what she did to Mac and she repays him by turning her back on him when he’s in trouble. Nice sister, there. 

3. Kim’s taken up papier mache and has made a bowl, but she doesn’t know if it’s safe to eat out of. There’s Hollyoaks next big story. Several characters come down with a mystery illness after eating from Kim’s bowl. That’s got ‘Best Storyline’ at next year’s British Soap Awards written all over it. 

4. The folley found a new use this week as Glenn and Maxine scattered Adam’s ashes there. Well, I suppose it’s been used for just about everything else! 

5. Glenn is actually ill! There is a God! 

Characters Featured:

Alfie, Anthony, Buster, Cleo, Courtney, Curtis, Dee Dee, Diane, Donna-Marie, DS Roxy Cassidy, Ellie, Farrah, Glenn, Grace, Holly, Imran, James, Joel, Kim, Leela, Marnie, Maxine, Misbah, Myra, Oliver, Romeo, Rose, Sami, Ste, Tegan, Tony and Yasmine. 

Past Characters Mentioned:

Patrick Blake, Adam Donovan, Mac Nightingale, Nathan Nightingale, Darcy Wilde

[tripstations]

Travel Through Canada and the U.S. This Summer Holiday

This month, we are celebrating two nations’ days by reading our way through Toronto, Montreal, and 1930s Kentucky.

Chai Factor is set mainly in Toronto.

The Chai Factor

In the Chai Factor by Farah Heron ($22.99, HarperCollins Canada), Amira Khan is just about done grad school. She comes back to her grandmother’s Toronto home to work finish her paper in the quiet of her basement apartment to discover her grandmother has rented it out to a barbershop quartet, who are practicing for an upcoming rehearsal.

While a small town north of Toronto gets mentioned in this book, Toronto has centre stage and Heron, who calls Toronto home, describes the city perfectly.

“The giant maze of hallways and escalators of Toronto’s Union Station was a nightmare to navigate on the best of days, but in the early hours of the evening rush, it was a sea of people as well.”

We spent a lot of time on Toronto’s transit system as Amira takes the TTC, its subway and streetcar, from place to place including its downtown waterfront.

Amira also spends a lot of time within Toronto’s public library system including the Toronto Reference Library, the “perfect place to lose a couple of hours in research.”

We get to hang out in the Sparrow, a local haunt, which in real life is now closed, but during the book Amira and her friend Reena hang out there frequently. “It was the kind of place with brewed coffee at all hours and decent beer on tap. And a killer Sunday brunch.”

There are a lot of Canadianism in the book.

“Reena giggled again. ‘All right, all right, sorry, Meer. No boyfriend, just school work. But you have to admit, this is funny. A gay, Muslim, lumberjack barbershop quartet living in your basement. You couldn’t make this up if you tried’…”

The Canadian apology: “Years with a temper worse than Hades’ meant she knew when to grovel, and being born and raised in Canada meant she knew how to apologize.”

Amira and Reena walk to a downtown beer festival, and Amira notes Toronto’s multiculturalism.

“The sun was setting over the horizon, bathing the sky in a rosy, almost otherworldly glow. There was nothing Amira loved more than Toronto in the spring. She was born and raised in the city, and she loved that her home was the kind of place with a Peruvian coffee house next to an Afghan Kebab shop, next to a Jewish deli wafting with the scent of bagels from a wood-burning oven.”

The Birds That Stay is set in Montreal and surrounding towns.

The Birds That Stay

In Ann Lambert’s murder mystery The Birds that Stay ($19.95, Second Story Press), set in Montreal and the towns surrounding the city, we learn the history of some of the place names including Ste. Lucie, “the village of eight hundred or so souls about six minutes from her house and an hour northeast of Montreal, was named for a fourteenth-century saint who blinded herself because she could not bear to witness all the sins in the world. Or she popped them out herself to discourage a persistent suitor, having sworn to preserve her virginity, of course. Every July, a few hundred Italian Montrealers emptied out of yellow school buses and paraded her statue (a woman carrying her two eyeballs on a platter) through the four streets in town.”

Police officer Romeo also mentions how the towns are named after saints, suggesting the irony as the province is “staunchly secular.”

“Saint Lawrence, after whom the massive river that encircled Montreal was named, has been roasted alive. Sainte Agathe had refused the advances of a Roman perfect and for that had her breasts cut off. Saint Hippoltye had been torn apart by horses.”

We learn that maybe you shouldn’t drive in Quebec.

“She made the first hair-raising turn onto the 329, accelerating like a torpedo not to get rear-ended. Driving in Quebec was unlike anywhere else, really. Crosswalks? Don’t even think about it. Drivers tried to hit people in them.”

We learn about Quebec’s food – hot dogs ‘stime’ (pronounced “steam-y”) or toastes, and poutine – french fries covered in melting cheese curd, drowned in brown gravy or “la sauce brune”

Hockey gets mentioned, although Remeo admits not liking the sport: “All Canadian boys were supposed to play hockey. It was something that was never questioned. It was like baseball to Americans. Soccer to Latin Americans. Cricket to Indians.

“Romeo’s shameful secret was that he never liked hockey. He didn’t see the point of chasing a puck for hours and hours on end. He didn’t like the hyper-masculine bravado of the coaches and the desperation of the fathers for their sons to be the best. Every Quebecois boy was supposed to dream of playing for the Montreal Canadiens, and every father seemed to think it was a possibility.”

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is set in the 1930s in Kentucky.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson ($22.99, HarperCollins Canada) is set in 1930s Kentucky at a time when people were out of work and starving. Then U.S. president Teddy Roosevelt created jobs to help get people working including the Kentucky Pack Horse Project, which saw mainly women deliver books and other reading materials to some of the hardest to reach places in Kentucky. One such woman was Bluet, nicknamed for her blue skin.

Despite the hardships and sadness – and there is lots in this book – there is also beauty as Bluet appreciates her home and it shows in her descriptions of the places she travels to deliver her books.

“At the mouth of the woodlands, Junia (a mule) rooted herself to a halt and perked her ears. After a bit of coaxing, I urged her on into the belly of the woods. Inside, dark earth, leaves, rotting logs and crawling moss rose among the pine saplings, cottonwoods and honey locusts and the canopied the beaten path, pulling me deeper into my thoughts.”

Book Women travelled through tough parts of the countryside to deliver their parcels of books, magazines, and newspapers, but after going through woods and streams, Bluet finds herself on Lovett’s Ridge:

“Layers of dark-blue mountains stacked in the distance, at every turn their cuts rolling, deepening, then lightening to shades of blue-greens from the day’s passing clouds. The air blew fresh and breezy. Scents of apple blossoms lifted from a nearby tree, and honeysuckles clung to a crumbling split-rail fence as swallowtails and fat-legged bees flitted above the old timbers and dipped for nectar. Ii was a alive. You could feel the heartbeat of this mountain…”

We celebrate Independence Day in Troublesome Creek.

“Women carried cakes, pies, and tasty eats and arranged them on red-checkered cloth tables. Menfolk sliced watermelon and made a dandy spread of deer sausage and other game they’d trapped for the festivities. Folks gathered at the Company store to chatter. Families claimed patches of grass in shady spots and spread out quilts and baskets groaning with prized recipes.”

A copy of these books was provided by HarperCollins Canada and Second Story Press for an honest review. The opinions are my own.

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