Newspaper wins award for Rovers revamp nonsense

Remember a while back when there were rumours that Corrie's Rovers Return was going to get a massive revamp? It was going to be turned into a wine bar, there would be cream leather seats, Michael Buble would be singing there on a nightly basis?

I just made the last one up, but the rest of it was pretty much made up by the Daily Star, which even ran a campaign to "Save Our Rovers." Even HRH Prince Charles was quoted as saying he'd be "most saddened indeed" if the threatened refurb took place. In the end, ITV was forced to issue a denial , and when the decorators finally came in to Weatherfield's finest hostelry, there was a bit of new wallpaper and some reupholstering and life carried on pretty much as usual.

But the Daily Star has now been "awarded" with a Shafta award for the story. The awards, sponsored by Vodafone, "celebrate the finest inventions to have graced the pages of the nation's tabloid press and gossip magazines," according to Media Guardian.

Good grief, they don't need even more encouragement to come up with nonsense, do they? Standards were much higher back in the days when Ken Barlow was in charge of the Weatherfield Recorder.