Coronation actress Georgia May Foote has signed a new 12-month deal that will seal her place in the soap until May 2014. Show bosses were reportedly eager to keep Georgia in the cast, especially after the announcement that Michelle Keegan will be leaving the cobbles.

Following the departure of some of the soaps more glamorous actresses - including Katherine Kelly and Helen Flanagan - a 'source' said to The Sun:

'It is really brilliant news for everyone at Corrie that Georgia has agreed to stay on. She's a brilliant actress who has impressed everyone with the way she has taken to playing Katy.'

The 'source' continued:

'Losing Michelle will be a huge blow. The fact she's won Sexiest Female at the Soap Awards four years running shows just how popular she is. But Georgia has got a real chance of taking her crown this year, which would cement her place as a rising star.'

Georgia joined the soap in 2010, and recent storylines have seen her character Katy break up with Chesney Brown after having a fling with Ryan Connor.

Let's hope Katy and Chesney use the time to make up some of their recent differences!

Madame Tussards have taken the decision to temporarily remove a waxwork of Bill Roache because of 'inappropriate behaviour' from visitors, but have stated they will 'review the decision in light of future events'.

A Corrie spokesperson is yet to comment on the decision, but a source from the Blackpool museum said, 'We make no judgements on recent events, which are in any case far from clear, but over recent days we have received a number of comments relating to the continued inclusion of the figure, but even more importantly witnessed some unacceptable behaviour from a very small number of visitors'.

81 year old Roache, currently facing two historical charges of rape, is said to be 'astounded and deeply horrified' by the allegations, and released a statement earlier this month 'strenuously denying' the charges brought against him.

No idea what the visitors might have been doing to his waxwork: perhaps we're better off not knowing.

While most people would rightly consider it absolutely no-one's business, the red top papers have decided to loudly announce that suspended Corrie actor Michael Le Vell has got himself a new girlfriend.

The Kevin Webster actor, who is currently not appearing on the show while he defends himself against child sex accusations, has been dating 'mum-of-four' (seemingly important detail, that) Blanca Fouché.

There are varying reports about how Bianca and Michael met and how neighbours broke the secret of their romance but, at Corrie Blog Towers, we're really struggling with the prurience of all this.

Let's just say good for him, good for her and here's hoping everything works out for the best. That seems the most dignified way to go.

It seems frankly amazing to me, but according to research carried out by digital TV solution YouView over 1 in 10 of us would spend our last half an hour on planet Earth watching Coronation Street.

Apparently, should the world end tomorrow - as predicted by the Mayan Calendar - 11 per cent of us would rather spend our final moments on the sofa watching Corrie than doing something, let's say, more physical with a loved one/passing stranger.

Other shows that we would choose to watch in the final moments include Dr Who (9%), Downton Abbey (9%), Homeland (8%) and Eastenders (7%).

Surprisingly very few would turn to their TV for some light-relief during their last hours on Earth, with no comedy programmes featuring in the top five at all.

Classic comedy Dad's Army was the first to make an appearance in joint sixth place alongside Gavin and Stacey, with one in 20 (5%) of the 2,000 respondents surveyed looking for laughs in their last hours.

It may come as little shock to some that reality shows The Only Way Is Essex and Made in Chelsea failed to make it into the top ten at all, although together they were still the preferred pick for 3% of the nation.

For more information visit: http://www.youview.com

Former Corrie star Liz Dawn, current breakfast TV presenter Lorraine Kelly and future bargain bin has-beens Little Mix are all to turn up in Weatherfield to appear in A Corrie Christmas, a one-off special in aid of ITV's Test Santa charity appeal.

Lorraine Kelly plays a policewoman, fulfilling her childhood dream apparently: 'I am absolutely beside myself. I am a massive fan of Corrie and have been since I was a little girl. It's always been an ambition of mine to appear, even if it's just in the background of the Rovers having a hot pot or a pint of stout, but this is even better as I get to play a character.'

Liz Dawn will return to the cobbles playing the ghost of Vera Duckworth and Little Mix will perform in the Rovers.

Little Mix singer Jade Thirlwall said: 'We've watched (Coronation Street) for years and years. Since we were little, and to be here is surreal but it's amazing, isn't it?'

So Little Mix have watched Corrie since they were little? Does she mean little as in young, small or not well known? Maybe all three.

You can watch a trailer for Text Santa here:

The writers of Corrie are facing an interesting problem as Katy Cavanagh is apparently pregnant. A recent storyline saw Katy's character Julie Carp have her ovaries removed following a cancer scare so Katy will presumably have to be seen onscreen with a very obvious bump for a few months. Cue lots of big jumpers carefully placed props.

The baby will be Katy's third, she already has an 8-year old son and a 5-year old daughter.

Here's a weird one. Well, a load of old rubbish, really.

It's being reported that Corrie's Kym Marsh (who plays knicker factory worker Michelle Connor) is being taken to court on fly-tipping charges.

It seems that rubbish, including her old Corrie scripts was found dumped near her home in Salford, and so she now faces a fine if found guilty.

She claims that she is the victim of a scam, that she paid a man in a yellow jacket £60 to take some rubbish away and was horrified when the summons for fly-tipping appeared.

She will appear before magistrates in September.

Could Snoop Dogg really be set to appear in Coronation Street. It has been rumoured for so long that we are getting a bit fed up of hearing it. But this time, maybe, just maybe. it could be true.

Apparently the rap legend - who has long said he is a fan of the British soap - heard that Geordie singer Cheryl Cole wanted a cameo in Corrie. So he has now got a plan for the two of them to have a storyline together.

Talking to the Daily Star - that most reliable of British tabloids - Snoop said: "People always think I'm playing when I talk about Coronation Street, but I swear it's my favourite show on TV. They got everything - sex, murder, transsexuals. There ain't no other show that can touch it."

Snoop admitted he "couldn't believe it" when he heard Cheryl was keen to appear on the show, and quickly knocked up a potential storyline. "If the producers write a cool storyline for me and Cheryl I guarantee I will clear my schedule and come do a two-week shoot."

"The writers are sick on Corrie," he continued. "I want to see me and Cheryl arrive on the Street as a couple from overseas...Within the first week I would expect Ken Barlow to have seduced Cheryl because you know that dog don't let his age stop his skills with the women. Then a broken-hearted Snoop falls into the arms of a broken-hearted Deirdre."

Well there have been more ridiculous storylines in the past, but not too many.

Image: Press Association

Corrie's Antony Cotton, who plays knicker-stitching barman and keeper of the sacred hotpot Sean Tully, has recorded an appearance on long-running TV show Mr & Mrs with his boyfriend Peter Eccleston.

The show is hosted by Philip Schofield, who now presents alone after Fern Britton left the series. Antony took to Twitter to break the news saying: "Mr & Mrs was a hoot! You'll have to wait until Autumn to see how we got on!"

It's not the first time that a gay couple have appeared on the show, Star Trek star George Takei and his husband Brad appeared in 2010.

She may have proven herself a bunny-boiling, man-beating bad cop but Corrie's Kirtsy (Natalie Gumede) would also appear to be a Vulcan, if stills from an upcoming episode are anything to go by.

One image clearly shows Kirsty administering the Vulcan death grip on Tyrone (Alan Halsall). The incapacitating move was 'popularised' by Mr Spock from Star Trek but it looks like Kirsty has a bit of green blood in her as it seems to be having quite an affect on poor old Ty. Let's see if Kirsty gets beamed up immediately afterwards.

While we're on the subject of Kirsty. Does anyone else think its weird that she is working in the factory? Yes she's been suspended from the police for breaking into the council offices to illegally obtain information but surely she would have been suspended on full pay until her disciplinary hearing? It seems unlikely that she would be allowed to take on other work or that she would need the money. Just a thought.

Corrie's Ryan Thomas (Jason Grimshaw) has been joking that he would like to overtake William Roach (Ken Barlow) in the bedroom stakes.

William recently boasted to having slept with over 1,000 women and now Ryan has told the People that: "I'll have a go. I'll see if I can beat him."
He went on: "Bill is a god. He's even more godly since he announced he has slept with 1,000 women. He is an absolute legend. Bill is so cool, such a cool guy. And nobody can say a bad word about him. He doesn't exploit it at all. It wasn't done in a seedy way."

Ryan has a daughter with his former partner (on-screen and off) Tina O'Brien but doesn't seem keen on the quiet life: "I'm not thinking about settling down. I'm nearly 28. I'm having a good time and that's what it's all about. Going out is all part and parcel of being a young lad. We all like a good party, myself included. When I'm in nightclubs, girls do throw themselves at me but it's all done in good taste. The majority of them are quite respectful. I'm quite lucky. I get some good girls. I'm not silly with it though and know what I'm doing. I have some good people around me."

Sounds like he could beat William within a few weeks if he put his mind to it.

In one of the biggest Corrie stories to break for many years, a Cumbrian donkey has been named after Tina McIntyre.

The donkey was born in Pennington last Wednesday and its owner Steve Graham decided to continue his tradition of naming the first born donkey every year after a Corrie character.

He told the North-West Evening Mail: "She's our first one this year and we like to keep up the tradition of naming them all after Coronation Street characters. Because she's a new addition it won't be for about three years, when we start training them, that she'll be in action."

Difficult to see how we're going to we're top that story.

Yes, yes, yes, we all know there's a murder to be solved on Coronation Street but a far bigger mystery is to be found round the corner in Rosamund Street - who, exactly, is running Barlow's Bookies?

Think about it, right now Peter is always drunk, Leanne is storming around Weatherfield trying to reclaim Simon and Deidre was seen in tonight's episode absolutely not at work. That's all the known staff of the turf accountants accounted for, so who's manning the tills?

It's an important question as bookmakers have a responsibility to their punters to be open for them to collect their winnings. Even fictional ones. Imagine if you'd bet on who killed Frank Foster and won, you'd expect to be able to turn up and collect your money. Unless Peter did it, in which case you would expect the bookies to be closed as he would be in prison. But then Deidre could open up. Except she would be minding Simon. I suppose Ken could look after Simon while......sorry....I'm getting very confused here. Please excuse me while I go and remind myself it's not real.

So, this one is a bit weird.

We all know that Nationwide pay ITV a LOT of money to have one of their cashpoints in Dev's corner shop. It's called product placement and it's been going on a few months.

Well now it seems that research shows that because 7 out of 10 Corrie viewers correctly identified the Nationwide logo the day after the show they are renewing the product placement contract.

It doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that the Nationwide logo has been a feature of our high streets and on TV for many, many years now and it's virtually impossible to not recognise it. The fact that people recognise the logo is enough for them to give more money to ITV.

It's a mad world.

Every Corrie fan knows that the soap is set in Weatherfield and that Weatherfield is a fictional suburb of Manchester. But after two mentions of Salford in a recent episode writer Jonathan Harvey has taken to Twitter to try and explain what's what.

During last Friday's episodes Roy Cropper (David Neilson) referred to Rosamund Street as a 'Salford backstreet' and later Jason Grimshaw (Ryan Thomas) called himself a 'simple Salford lad'. This led fans on Twitter to ask Jonathan what it all meant and question his geographical veracity. '"It has always been set in Salford,' he tweeted as a response 'Weatherfield is a fictional borough of Salford, has been since ep 1'.

According to Wikipedia (and who are we to argue with them) Weatherfield is based on Salford and a fictional borough of Manchester, not quite the same thing as Jonathan claimed. Despite it not really mattering, however, several tweeters remained unsatisfied by this admittedly fudged response. Some even suggested that the writer was deliberately re-writing the show's history to fit in with the planned moved to a new set at Salford Quays.

Jonathan then tweeted: 'Weatherfield has always been a district or suburb of Salford and not Manchester. I was being loyal to the original episodes. For those of you convinced by references to Salford tonight in Corrie. Weatherfield is and always has been a district of Salford, not manc'.

To be fair, the confusion was caused by the writer, who could have just had the characters say Weatherfield instead of Salford. Bet he does next time.

Here we go again. It's only Monday and already there is another clutch of lightweight nothings dressed up as Corrie stories doing the rounds.

Here are the top 3:

1) Stephanie Beacham isn't returning to Corrie

2) Tina O'Brien isn't returning to Corrie either (just like she wasn't a couple of weeks ago).

3) William Roache hired a pet psychic to talk to his dogs.

Now, admittedly, that last story would normally justify further investigation, but we've looked into it and it's really too daft to be bothering with.

Hopefully we'll have some proper stories for you as sson as something actually happens.

Corrie's Michelle Keegan has been talking to Inside Soap about her hopes for her character Tina McIntyre. She says she'd like to see her get together with Tommy Duckworth (Chris Fountain) and become the modern day Jack and vera.

She said: 'Tina still sees Tommy as a friend. But they're very well suited. In some ways, Tina and Tommy are like a young Jack and Vera - she wears the trousers and he's the one always getting things wrong.'

Having previously said that she would like to see Tina single for a while it now looks like Michelle is itching to get her hooked up with a new bloke after she recently dumped Weatherfield's hunky physician, Dr Matt.

OK, so we're as guilty as any of occasionally reporting a Corrie story that is actually a non-story tarted up a bit, but at the moment there seems to be more than normal flying around. With Christmas coming up journalists, PRs and publicity departments are winding down and dumping all their excess baggage before diving into the mince pies. We thought we'd do the same, tie all the duff stories up together and get them out of our system. Ready? Here we go:

Kate Ford isn't leaving Corrie - you heard that right, someone isn't doing something we never though she was in the first place.

Cheryl Cole isn't going to be in Corrie - Cheryl Cole has said she like Coronation Street and when someone suggested she should take a part in it she did what anyone seeking publicity does and said she'd love to. But she won't, you watch.

Michelle Keegan would like it if Cheryl Cole was in Corrie - but she won't be, so don't worry about it.

Helen Flanagan has bought a bag - nothing to see here, move along.

Emily Bishop to star in next year's Strictly Come Dancing - we made this one up, pass it on.

There you go, our cupboard is bare, we'll back with some proper stories ASAP.

Veteran DJ and Corrie fan has said that he wouldn't mind ending up as a permanent fixture on the soap, even after his death. He told the ITV breakfast show Daybreak: 'I've only got one ambition in life. When I die I want to be stuffed and end up in the Rovers Return. That would be my idea of fun.'

Well, we at Corrie Blog say ace, let's do it. Let's have him down the taxidermist as soon as he pops and have him mounted next to the Rover's dart board in a grizzly bear-style attack pose. That wouldn't be weird at all.

OK. Let's assume that every household on Coronation Street owns at least one car. Certainly Ken does, Dev does, Rita does, Tina does, Nick does, Lloyd does, Roy does, Peter does and Steve does. The factory has a van and Kevin has a tow truck. Mary even owns a motorhome! That's a very conservative guess of a minimum of 12 vehicles owned by the residents of a small terraced street. Where do they all park?

The tow truck and van are only ever seen on the street if they are needed for kidnappings or other nefarious purposes. No-one knew Rita had a car until it was blocked in this week yet now it appears she normally parks it next to the shop. First we've heard. Whenever anyone needs a lift to the hospital (which is quite often) there's always a car available, yet we never see them parked in the street.

If Coronation Street was real it would be jam packed with resident's cars, all parked in front of their houses as none of them have garages and the back alley is too tight for anything but a bike. It's not like there's even any yellow lines to stop them parking on the cobbles.

Either there is a resident's-only car park just out of sight on Rosamund Street or there is some sort of elaborate, invisible underground valet parking system in place. We think it's about time we were told the truth!

The new Coronation Street set in Salford Quays may have a major problem with wildlife making noise during filming. The soap is due to move into a new purpose-built set in Salford Quays but nearby waterways are home to thousands of ducks, geese, swans and gulls and the noise they may prove a significant headache for the sound department.

The only ducks previously seen in Weatherfield wree the ones found on Hilda Ogden's living room wall but now any outdoor scenes may be soundtracked by honking, shrieking or quacking rather than the familiar cooing of Jack Duckworth's pigeons.

Ghost of Pat Phoenix stalks the Coronation Street set, says the Sun. "So many people have seen and felt the same things that there has to be something in it," says Sue Cleaver.

They try to make Peter Barlow go to rehab, but he says "no, no, no," according to the Star.

There's an excellent interview with Corrie producer Kim Crowther over at Digital Spy.

Over on ITV.com, there's a video of Jennie McAlpine, Katy Cavanagh and Craig Charles when they appeared on This Morning. They also have the nominations for ther British Soap Awards, and one of them is pocket-sized genius Alex Bain (Simon). Hurrah!

Showbiz gossip site Holy Moly's weekly newsletter produced this little rant which was apparently emailed to ITV by a Corrie viewer: "On Monday evenings episode of Coronation Street Peter Barlow apparently (according to the dialogue and the pack produced from his jacket pocket) just purchased a packet of Gypsy Creams from Dev's Corner Shop. I was amazed as I haven't seen a packet of these biscuits for years. Can you tell me where your props department bought them from and are they available to the general public or have they made quite a monumental mistake? Either that or Dev must have a very old supply of these and the sell by date must have long expired."

The deeply wonderful NiceCupOfTeaAndaSitDown website (what do you mean, you don't have it bookmarked already?) confirms that the Gypsy Cream is, indeed, a rare breed. "We don't know of any mass produced Gypsy cream being available any place in the UK right now, although we have heard that some small bakers make them. The distantly related Romany Creams can be found in South Africa made by Bakers, or made under license in Australia as Kingstons made by Arnotts," they advise.

Eric Spear's iconic Coronation Street theme tune has come in at number ten in a survey of the favourite sounds of people in Britain. Since the other nine sounds were birdsong, children laughing, heavy rain, wind whistling through trees, ice cream van jingles, applause at cricket, waves breaking, hearing someone say "I love you" and the chimes of Big Ben, then this officially means that Coronation Street is the favourite piece of music.

Before we get too excited, it's perhaps significant that the company who commissioned the survey, Amplifon, makes hearing aids.

Thank you to everyone who replied to my question about the painting that hangs inside the Barlows' hallway. Tainted Love, Sue B and Abby Krim all thought it must have something to do with the scouting movement and its affiliation with the church. Edward Godding said that he'd had a friend in Bolton who had the same picture in his house, and now that he's been living in Canada since 1958, seeing the painting always reminds him of his friend Frank. Mike remembered that the painting was in the house when it belonged to Uncle Albert.

Another Canadian Corrieblogger, Pauline Hunt, came up with the full story. The picture is called The Pathfinder and was painted by Ernest Carlos, who founded the 107th London Scout Troop. His paintings portrayed the meaning of scouting, and his work was very popular, with many reproductions of The Pathfinder being displayed in scout headquarters worldwide. It has also been reproduced as cards and as a stained glass window in several churches. It has featured in Coronation Street since the very beginnings of the show in 1960. If you'd like to know more about this fascinating picture, have a look here. Thanks to Pauline for uncovering the information.