SOMEONE has been decorating Andy the gangster's house in EastEnders (BBC1). They've scrawled the word MURDERER across the wall. This is a surprise, mainly because they've spelt the word correctly. There can't be too many people in Albert Square who could put the letters in the right order, so it should be easy to identify the culprit.

My finger of suspicion would point at frantic father Patrick, who wants to know if Andy gave his son Paul a pair of concrete boots for Christmas. Andy's not telling so Patrick wheels on his secret weapon, namely big Pat and her weapons of mass destruction - her big ear-rings. The sight of her giant ear decorations blowing in the wind would be enough to make anyone sell their granny down the river, let alone tell the truth.

As Patrick prepares for Paul's funeral, Sam tells Paul's brother, Dr Anthony, that his brother was involved in drugs. And she doesn't mean headache pills. Zoe Slater could do with some medicine as she's not feeling well. She worries she really could be pregnant - having told everyone she was when she wasn't in order to stop Dennis from leaving her but he left her anyway, you'll remember.

Anyway, her worst fears are confirmed after she takes a home pregnancy test and finds she's carrying Dirty Den's baby, or Dirty Nappy Den as he'll be called. So she's forced to say that she hasn't lost the baby (the one that didn't exist) and she's still pregnant (for real this time).

Dirty Den tells Zoe he's delighted. She tells him that she's disgusted. But can we feel any sympathy for a silly young girl who let her boyfriend's dirty old dad sleep with her to impregnate her and maintain her lie? Of course not. She deserves all she gets and what she's going to get from Mrs Dirty Den, alias Chrissie the ex-crimper, is a good belting once she finds out.

More drama in the Little Mo/Silly Billy/Alfie Moon triangle. Billy tells Alfie he knows nothing happened between him and Little Mo (or Silly Moo, as she'll be called if she continues behaving in this way). The week is rounded off by the arrival of a stranger in the Square who seems to know a lot of people. But it's Pat who reels with shock when she spots him. Who can he be?

Tommy the bully boy and his wife Angela are celebrating their wedding anniversary in Coronation Street (ITV1) but receive a present they don't like - teenage daughter Kay-tee announces that she's having a bay-bee by her older lover, Mar-in the nurse.

Tommy is livid, which is the only expression he knows. He and Angela feel she should have an abortion. Mar-in, which probably feels the same way, is forced to back his schoolgirl lover. Gail the hamster is on the receiving end of a confession from Silly Sally, who tells all about her affair with her boss. She reckons she's only doing it for the family so they can have a better standard of living. I'm not sure husband Kevin will see it that way when he finds out the truth that the piece of fillet steak he had for his tea was purchased with Sally's immoral earnings.

Cilla sells her son's dog Schmeichel when the lovable canine chews her expensive boots. And Shelley abandons her diet to eat junk food with Sunita. Boyfriend Charlie won't be happen she's piling on the pounds again.

Scheming Chloe continues her manipulation of boyfriend Carl in Emmerdale (ITV1). Trouble is it appears she never was pregnant - shades of EastEnders' Zoe - but has no intention of telling Carl and the King family that. Meanwhile Charity begins at Home Farm by seducing Sadie the bitch's husband Jimmy.

Most alarming of all, a special guest turns up at the memorial service for Alan Turner's missing-presumed-dead finance Shelly. I wonder who that might be?

Published: 27/01/2005