When it comes to Coronation Street catfights, you can forget Janice Battersby and Sally Webster. You can forget Eileen Grimshaw and Gail Platt. You can even (almost) forget Karen McDonald and Tracy Barlow.

Have a look at this YouTube from 1961, and see Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner really going at it in on the cobbles, with the whole Street out watching. I love youthful Ken Barlow's comment: "It had to happen. It'll clear the air anyway."

More Corrie YouTube clips

Back in the early days of Corrieblog when it was still powered by gas, we mentioned a lovely ska version of the Corrie theme tune by Izzy Royale.

Where Corrieblog leads, the rest of the world follows eventually, and BBC Radio 1 DJ Colin Murray played this very same tune on his show on Tuesday, and it's turning up in various DJ mixes. Here's a nice YouTube to go along with it.

Browsing around on YouTube I found this early screen appearance by Coronation Street icon Pat Phoenix (Elsie Tanner). It's in a short film called Cup Tie Honeymoon, featuring the comedian Sandy Powell. It was shot in 1947 in Manchester and released the following year. It hasn't aged terribly well, but it's interesting to see Pat twelve years before she was first seen in the Street.

More Corrie YouTube

Casey-Lee Jolleys, who played Fred Elliott's mail-order bride Orchid (aka con artist Stacey) in Coronation Street, is one of the stars of a new online Manchester-based soap.

Spinning Jenny is based around PR girl Jenny Hargreaves (Ruth Maher). Casey-Lee plays one of her clients, Miss Ellie - the former lead singer of fictional girl band PowerGirlz. The show will be based around a "Pop Idol"-type format.

Casey-Lee says, "Spinning Jenny is a really exciting project. There are a couple of online soaps, but the producers intend to take Jenny to the next level - where viewers can influence plot lines, vote characters on and off, even provide rawfootage and encourage viewers to upload their own edited versions of the soap!"

Producer Colin Bannon points out that Spinning Jenny is also innovative in the way it interacts with the people of Manchester: "Jenny works in a real city PR agency - Brazen PR - and Brazen staff were scripted into the pilot. Our hope is that many more local people will be keen to get involved and that the drama will be a running commercial for the city. Just contact us and we'll try our best to fit you in."

Watch Spinning Jenny here

No need to describe to you the distinctive, trumpety wail of the Coronation Street theme tune - it's the siren song that calls you to your armchair on a regular basis. Written by Eric Spear (who was reputedly paid £6 for his troubles) it's been little altered in the almost 50 years that Corrie's been on the telly.

But how does it sound to a dog? A lady called Christine Conway has been telling The Sun that her dog, Percy, yelps along every time he hears the Corrie theme tune. Christine says, "It must be something in the pitch of the music that gets him excited and makes him always want to join in. If he is in his bed and hears the music, he will start moving his head from side to side." It has that effect on me, too, and like me, Percy is unmoved by other soap tunes such as Eastenders or Emmerdale.

I had a little rummage over on YouTube, and apparently Percy is not alone. There's a very pretty collie called Ziggy singing along here, a cute little terrier called Murph adding his own harmonies, and a soulful version from a particularly musical Westie. In fact you could watch dogs howling along to the Corrie tune all day long if you wanted to - but you may find that people start avoiding you.

Click the Continue Reading link for a great YouTube clip of cats auditioning for Coronation Street in 1989, and Bill Waddington (Percy Sugden) grappling with a large ginger tom!

Here's a brilliant Corrie-related YouTube that's a couple of years old now. It's from the Comic Relief broadcast in 2005, starring Peter Kay who is lip synching the words to the song Is This The Way To Amarillo. Corrie spotters will catch Ken and Deirdre dancing down a hall behind Peter at the start of the video... *very* un-Ken and Deirdre-like and very good fun! About half way through, you'll see Sally Lyndsay (Shelly Unwin) and later, a group of people come dancing down Corrie's ginnel! Peter Kay himself, of course, guest starred on Corrie as brewery delivery man Eric Gartside who dated Shelley once. There's another Comic Relief video from 2007 here and if you look closely you can spot Coronation Street actors in the audience. I spotted both Sally Whittaker and Michael LeVell among others.

Former Coronation Street favourite Suranne Jones recently visited Sierra Leone on behalf of charity Christian Aid, and talked to young boys who'd been forced to be child soldiers.

A YouTube video of the visit shows Suranne talking to the boys, and she's moved to tears by the account they give of the horrors that they were forced to witness. She watches a drama workshop where the boys act out what has happened to them, and is amazed that they still have a huge capacity for forgiveness, despite the traumas they've endured.

It's a powerful and moving video - click the Continue Reading button to watch it.

To donate to Christian Aid, click here

Richard Fleeshman, ex-Corrie's Craig Harris, is ready to go with his second single off his debut CD, Neon. The single is called Hold Me Close and will be released on February 18. He'll be starting a tour to promote the new music so keep an eye out for appearances in your local area. The new video has debuted, as well. You can watch the new video here on YouTube. He wrote the song when he first moved to London and saw two people flirting on the tube but who then went their separate ways when they got off.

Some enterprising soul has decided to capitalise on Amy Winehouse's recent Hilda Ogden makeover to produce this version of Amy singing Rehab - with added Hilda!

See also: Amy Winehouse official website

This is the music that Jack Duckworth has chosen for Vera's funeral, to be shown on Coronation Street tonight: I Can't Stop Loving You, by Ray Charles. Listen to the lyrics and weep.

A lovely thing from YouTube - Pat Phoenix (Coronation Street's Elsie Tanner) in 1962 on an old, scratchy 7" record, painting a verbal picture of life in 60s Weatherfield: "Rain, and more rain, wet rooftops, 'ouses 'uddled together under a yellow blanket of smoke... and London is a foreign shore." Beautiful.

Have a look at this YouTube video, and then click the Continue Reading link to find out what it's got to do with Coronation Street.

Coronation Street's Wendi Peters talks to Canadian radio host Bob Bratina.

This is from a 1988 promotional film for British Gas called Gas Lines. It's nice to see Hilda's curlers and wrapover apron back in the Street!

More Corrie YouTube

We're almost at the end of our A to Z feature. Today's entry is the letter Y for Youtube, a great video sharing site where you can find all kinds of Coronation Street clips and video of former and current actors in a large variety of appearances, either in other tv shows or movies or appearances in game shows, talk shows, interviews and other entertainment. YouTube is search friendly. Just pop over and plug in "Coronation Street", a character or actor name and see what you come up with. Some of the ones we've come across are all in our YouTube section right here on Corrieblog!

We hope you enjoyed our A-Z look at Coronation Street.

Holy Hannah!!! I was just looking for something else on YouTube and stumbled across this absolutely amazing clip of Julie Goodyear as Marlene Dietrich on Stars in Their Eyes! Quite possibly the Best. Thing. Ever! It was a show aired in 2003, according to IMDB, which also featured Coronation Street's Jane Danson as Madonna but there doesn't seem to be YouTube out there for that.

We keep lots of fab Corrie Youtube video clips over here.

With growing speculation over how Big Jim will return to Coronation Street, I unearthed this smashing YouTube video featuring a short spat between Liz and Jim McDonald. This is from around 1993 when Liz became manageress at the more classy Queen's pub.

Who can forget this wonderful Queen tribute video with the lads done up in drag representing Coronation Street characters? It’s definitely a tribute to Coronation Street with Freddie wearing the short skirts and big blonde hair, reminiscent of Bet Lynch. Don't you think Roger (the blonde in the school outfit) looks a bit like Jenny Bradley? Watch it on YouTube!

I stumbled across this magnificent tribute video to Coronation Street heroine, Eileen Grimshaw, featuring some splendid clips of her coming to terms with Todd's sexuality. Enjoy!

This is my little video tribute to our fantastic editor, Flaming Nora. As well as being an addict of Spider Nugent, Glenda cites Rita as her favourite ever character, so here is a special clip of Rita singing the closing song in 1973. I didn't realise how emotive the lyrics are until after I had made it. Sorry!

The party's not over, Glenda, it's just the 'end of part one'. Good luck in all that you do.

After struggling to find some decent photographs of Zoe Tattersall this morning, the blessed YouTube has brought me some relief. We can bring you an entire episode featuring Zoe. This is the episode where she sets fire to Shannon's pram. Click below for the second part.

Here's yet another version of the Coronation Street theme tune to add to our Corrieblog music box. It's a lovely brass band version played by a Cambridge band. Just imagine wandering through a city to hear that, it'd make your day wouldn't it? Well, I know it would make mine even if not quite all of the right notes are played in the right order.

This is one of the best YouTubes I think I have ever seen! It's the Royal Variety Performance from 1966 featuring some of Coronation Street's best-known characters such as Ena Sharples, Elsie Tanner and Len Fairclough. What a gem! [Ben]

Tyrone is over in Spain at the minute after his mum Jackie Dobbs was arrested for shoplifting a pair of flip-flops in Benidorm. And for those who can't remember Jackie Dobbs, played by Margi Clarke, here's a short YouTube of Jackie on the Street in former prison cell-mate Deirdre's flat.

There's been some discussion as to who could be the future Coronation Street babes. Well, it's my birthday today, oh yes, and as editor's privilege, with thanks to Corrieblogger Ben, here's who my very own Mr Flaming has always reckoned is the sassiest babe on the Street. I dedicate this 1977 YouTube clip to Sunny Jim with lots of birthday love from Flaming Nora.