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`Please, take it off." She paused. "For me." But no, it wasn't said breathily, and no, Fair City hasn't turned into an Irish Eurotrash. 'Twas, in fact, an altercation about a waistcoat, between gutsy Kay the publican and her lover, the heretofore seemingly gutless priest Father Malachy. He has abandoned one kind of fancy dress and is wondering how to dress down for his new role as a barman. Clearly his dress sense leaves a lot to be desired - lucky for him that up to now he mostly wore frocks (of the priestly rather than cross-dressing type).

Father Malachy is back, only he's Mister Malachy now, and within 10 minutes of his sudden return he's ensconced behind the bar in Kay's pub, pulling pints of plain (clothes) and overhearing confessions (well, gossip about himself).

Soapland is necessarily a black and white place, and things happen with a speed they never would in real life - like getting over a death, or the end of a relationship, or chucking the chasuble and going public on a new life among those who up to a couple of months ago knew you as Father. One minute Father Malachy apparently loses his nerve and does a runner, leaving a confused and upset Kay without a word, never to be heard of again, the next he wanders into the pub one morning and after five minutes' chat with Kay he is back in her arms, forgiven, being told "you're my partner now" and emptying ashtrays. It does lead to a bit of fun, though, with the news spreading like wildfire among the natives. As Charlie and Mags gobble up the news in the bistro, speak of the devil, Kay passes. "Well, I must make tracks," says Kay. "No rest for the wicked, hah?" says Mags, without malice. "What?" says Kay sharply. And the ever charming and sensitive Paul tells Malachy that "if Kay ever runs out of wine you only have to do the old one-two over the water".

Mister Malachy's Auntie Eunice reacts in a predictably over-the-top way to the news of the spoiled priest in the family. Mind you, she discovered the news in the worst possible way - by walking in on them, mid-snog. "In just a few minutes your life can come tumbling down around you . . . Goodbye Malachy, I don't ever want to see you again." That'll be hard, since she lives across the road.

Anyone who remembers the series Bewitched from the 1970s, may well associate the name Samantha with a witch, albeit a good one. Could that unconscious memory be influencing the scriptwriters in Coronation Street, who took a fit and turned barmaid Samantha into a witch without any apparent reason? She lied to all in sight, manipulating events behind the scenes with a wicked glint in her eye so that one person was set against another. Anyway, after creating the mayhem she roared off on her broomstick - sorry, motorbike - and left the series.

Before she went, she created ructions between moaning mechanic Kevin and long-suffering Sally, or Kev-IN and Sall-EH as they call each other. "It's doing me 'ead in," wails Are Kev. A split might not be a bad thing for Sal's eardrums, since Kev seems to conduct all his neanderthal conversations at a roar. Sally, in any case, after finishing with street hunk Chris, seems to have her eyes on the latest Street ride, Les's slightly shady son, Greg. Kev and Sally is one of three recent Corrie splits - there's also Judy and Gary, probably the most well-adjusted pair around until she told him she'd slept with an amusement arcade bloke for the money to buy back a baby (don't ask), and the comedy split - Les and Janice. After she threw him out he took up residence in a bachelor pad - a banjaxed van outside their front door (calling in to the neighbours of a morning to use the facilities: "I've brought me own loo paper"). "There's always been a bit of the gypsy in me," he tells daughter Toyah (or Toyota as Fred Elliott calls her). "I thought gypsies were supposed to roam," says she. But really, the way they brought Les and Janice back together (and they've been canoodling ever since) was another case of the scriptwriters losing the run of themselves - a scene of surreal nuttiness, with Les transformed into a Tony Bennett type crooning I'm Not In Love on the street, complete with flashing disco lights.

Young Nick and Leanne have sort of patched things up after the childish Nick used her as bait to trap his dad's killer, Tommy Tiernan-lookalike Darren. Fred, meanwhile, has lasciviously come on board as campaign manager in Audrey's bid for council ("I think I can do for this town what Thatcher did for the country"). Fred, dentures gleaming, promises "owt that Alf can't manage, I'll do for you. It'll be hands-on management. I say it'll be hands-on management."

Meanwhile, there is a bewildering number of new characters in Brookside, mostly connected in some way with the new dodgy builder. There are so many anonymous-looking young folk, in fact, that it's hard to keep track of them all. But while we've barely had a character-establishing chance to tell one from the other, two of them have cooked up a crisis pregnancy.

The omens aren't good for their long-term health on the little cul de sac that's had murder, a plague, several fires and an explosion or two - Brookside is in danger of running out of catastrophic disasters. We don't know who half these new folk are; all we know is something terrible is going to happen to them. Tune in next week to find out if they have been abducted by aliens, fallen into a volcano or been attacked by flesh-eating zombies from the Brookside graveyard - Beth and Trevor Jordache, Tony Dixon, Terry's dad (who was really George fromGeorge And Mildred) and the mini-zombies Matthew and Emily, back for revenge for their parents' planning to replace them with a newer model by buying a baby.

Speaking of zombies, over on Albert Square tough guy Graunt Mitchell is back in EastEnders after an extended break. As he passes his wife Tiffany's long estranged parents rowing bitterly he grunts sarcastically in Tiff's ear: "Happy families". Could be an alternative, ironic title for the whole of EastEnders.