Coupling in the cowshed

What's going on at all at all in Glenroe? The cattle seem to be having an effect on the slowest-paced soap in history, bewitching the natives and rendering their actions ever more unlikely. Have they all caught Mad Cow Disease?

There was Miley on Sunday, calmly - not a sign of a hot and bothered "holy God" - discussing with Fidelma what they would do if she was pregnant and how they must never tell anyone about their preposterous coupling in the cowshed. Mick Lally did the scene well, but it was like he was playing another character - this could not be Miley Byrne at all at all.

Cut to the original setting: A cow looks up cowfully. Says Miley: "D'ya ever wonder, Fidelma, what it'd be like to be an animal?" Could this possibly be supposed to be the cue for their beastly urges to emerge? And what a chat up line, eh? Her reply: "I'd say it's nice." Right. Anyway, don't the two of them fall onto the bale of hay and have their wicked ways with one another. Or presumably that's what happened, since the scene dissolved in a meaningful kind of way into the final theme-twiddles.

Now, the character of Miley - solid, dependable, a bit of a slow eejit betimes (he was banged up in England for not knowing how to conduct himself on a city street or somesuch) - is probably the person one would imagine least likely to indulge in a bit of hanky panky on a bit of a whim. Sure, anyone can do the unexpected, but one hopes for a bit of consistency of character in a soap.

And it's hard to see what Fidelma could have seen in the dozy farmer who looks like he could almost be her grandfather. (Lally, a fine actor, can easily play 10 or 20 years older than himself.) The dacent Miley isn't cut out for this class of a clandestine carry-on.

Still, they came over all amorous in the cowshed after Christmas and now we're in an "is she or isn't she pregnant?" period (that last is the very thing they're hoping for, presumably). Her deciding to marry the doctor boyfriend leads one to suspect a "whose baby is it anyway?" storyline looming over the next nine months. The manure is sure to hit the combine harvester at some stage.

Aside from the sheer lack of credibility, the plotline didn't even have the courage of its convictions - they decide to give the most rock solid, decent lynchpin of the series an out-of-character fling, then lose honesty and bottle and make sure to underline that both parties have drink taken, yer honour. Major cop-out.

On the theme of unlikely infidelities, it looks like Carol still has the hots for her dark traveller lad, Blackie - can there really be any more left to run in that inexplicable liaison? Dick and Terry, now, is another thing - we really could believe it if they got it together again.

And in the incredibility stakes - can we really imagine Dinny flitting off to Spain every now and then? He's an odd character - and not just in the matter of the water pump-house row. "That son of mine stole my whiskey to give to my sheep" (which he's holding as hostages). Sometimes it seems like we're entering the twilight zone here.

He speaks to his elderly-looking son most peculiarly, continually calling him "sir" - "I must say that's very civil of you, sor," in a tone a bit like a garda sergeant of the old school. Has he forgotten Miley's name? Or is he embarrassed about giving him the daft appellation in the first place?

Mike Murphy is supposed to have said on the Arts Show - fictionally, of course - when covering the ex-cleric's pot-boiler, that he couldn't believe that life in an Irish town could be so exciting. Maybe they do have a sense of irony after all.

It's all a bit of a hoot, really, but it makes you wonder what they're up to in Glenroe. If this is a desperate attempt to jizz up the storyline and attract younger viewers, the ridiculous Miley/Fidelma plot development, unintentionally hilariously scripted (though the actors involved have dealt valiantly with the words they were handed), is hardly going to have the desired effect. Meanwhile, loyal older viewers are more likely to be offended by the turn of events in the shed. Perhaps they're actually trying to kill it off altogether by making it slide into its own slurry pit.

Over in Weatherfield the structure of conman Jon's hanky panky with Deardree in Coronation Street has finally come tumbling down, as we always knew it would. The police think it's as incredible as a Glenroe plot - "it's all a bit of Whitehall farce, isn't it?" says the copper - and are giving her a hard time over her story about discovering Jon's double life, finding it hard to believe she could have been so dumb. (If Eunice in Fair City cares to tune in to Coronation Street, she might not make the same mistake with the ex-military, probable con-man Aindreas.)

Deardree has been tearing her hair out and berating herself for being so stupid. "Me? Clever? I've just been taken for the longest ride in history. I'm not clever. I'm stupid beyond belief." Yep, got it right there. The prospect of Deardree with the girls in Prisoner: Cell Block H looms enticingly. After this week's court appearance, Deirdre's current worry is: "Do you get a decent pillow in prison?"

Meanwhile, Emily's male companion - though not of the romantic persuasion - has changed, from Percy "I think you'll find that's correct" - who had no hair - to Spider the ecowarrior - who has lots but never brushes it. This seems to have given a new lease of life to mild-mannered, continually mildlysurprised-looking Emily. She's swapped her hospital rounds for fatigues on the tree-saving warfront along with what social climbing Audrey calls the "grubby little carrot munchers" down at something that sounds like the red wreck (sounds like a washed up Russian ship to me). The adolescent butcher-turned-grocer Ashley - "friend of the homeless, father to the fatherless, the softest nelly you're ever likely to come across," says his Uncle Fred, has "been thrown off course by a burst of female turbulence". That's teenage mother Zoe - "she's a wrong 'un Ashley". The difficulty here is also one of credibility - "the teenage bolter" may be a pretty-ish waif, but is such a grumpy, nasty, utterly unappealing person that it's hard to see how he could have fallen for her. He must be the definition of a soft lad.

But when it comes to twisted relationships, you couldn't beat that of Barry and Lyndsey in Brookside. So far, over the last couple of months he has brutally seen off the Scots extortionists, had her harmless hairdresser fiance mugged for 15 grand, then later pulled a gun on him, hidden yet another secret wife and children, and been exceedingly rude to her mother. Older viewers will recall he killed his bessie mate Terry's wife and child among previous thuggish exploits. It's the way to a girl's heart, obviously, because Are Lynds has been unwilling to see him as he really is. Maybe she's got soap in her eyes.