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Submit Response is a weblog by Jack Mottram, a journalist who lives in Glasgow, Scotland. There are 1303 posts in the archives. You can subscribe to a feed. This post was made on July 3, 2003 and belongs in the misc. category. The previous post was Echo, RSS and Pixies, and the next post is Barry White.

Jimmy Corkhill Is Real

Self-portrait with arm extended by Jimmy Corkhill, Brookside character

For some reason, I read Jimmy Corkhill’s weblog. Given the number of folk from out­side the UK who visit the site, I should explain that Jimmy is a fic­tional char­ac­ter in the soap opera Brook­side (once the best soap on the box, now a shadow of its former self, dumped in a sched­ul­ing grave­yard and ripe for cancellation).

Jimmy’s site is a loving homage to the home­page, right down to the mis­placed <div> tags on the My Pic­tures page and fevered rant­i­ngs, in this case about No. 10, Jimmy’s house, site of both Little Jimmy’s smack over­dose and Trevor Jordache’s murder and sub­se­quent burial under the patio after years of spousal abuse and inces­tu­ous raping. The web­site, which is occa­sion­ally referred to on the tele­vi­sion pro­gramme, is a mix of post­ings about Jimmy’s trials and tribu­la­tions on screen, and gen­eral, webloggy mus­ings on, say, Liv­er­pool being named Euro­pean City of Culture.

As far as I know, this is a first. I’ve never seen a weblog main­tained by a fic­tional char­ac­ter from another medium, although I sup­pose fraud­u­lent per­sonae, like Kaycee Nicole, or picaresque fic­tion in a weblog format, like Flight Risk come close, and I wouldn’t be sur­prised if there was a fanfic blog out there where ‘Mulder’ posts about his tem­pes­tu­ous affair with Scully.

The Brook­side team have always been good at this sort of real­ity bend - char­ac­ters dis­cuss the action in Mead­ow­croft Park, a soap only broad­cast in Brookside-​world, named after Brookside’s own work­ing title, and should any of the char­ac­ters take a trip to Chester, you can be sure of seeing a char­ac­ter from sister soap Hol­lyoaks stroll past in the background.

Unfor­tu­nately, the Mersey TV employee who writes as Jimmy doesn’t update all that often, and the writ­ing falls short of catch­ing Jimmy’s voice, but the blog-​soap crossover does an amaz­ing job of extend­ing the char­ac­ter beyond the con­fines of the soap. It’s not hard to imag­ine the process car­ried fur­ther, with Jimmy flam­ing folk on alt.society.mental-health when he’s for­got­ten to take his lithium, or set­ting up a CaféPress store sell­ing Mil­le­nium Arch com­mem­o­ra­tive mugs. With a little effort, Jimmy Corkhill could be as real as you or I, as far as any of us are on the inter­net. Since Brookside’s pro­duc­ers are unlikely to raise their game in this respect, I’ve half a mind to begin a Neoist metafic­tion project, post­ing around the web as Jimmy Corkhill, giving his home­page when­ever an url is requested.

Posted at 7pm on 03/07/03 by Jack Mottram to the misc. category.
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26 Comments

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  1. bloody hell - now i’m won­der­ing whether you are real.
    ps for those who know a house in france the pic­tures above the fire­place painted by julie jones were bought in a gallery in liv­er­pool. as i put my red dots on the labels jimmy corkill came up to recep­tion and said ’ if that bloke can’t come up with the money put me down for them.’ tough tittie jimmy.

    Posted by bobby at 9pm on 03.07.03

  2. THE CORKHILL

    Posted by Ryan Hopcutt at 2am on 10.07.03

  3. Um, yes. What exactly are you saying, Ryan?

    Posted by Jack Mottram at 1pm on 10.07.03

  4. i think jimmy corkhill is amaz­ing he has enspired me a lot he is my idol i love jimmy

    Posted by gavin jenkins at 2pm on 04.11.03

  5. I THAUGHT JIMMY WAS AMAZ­ING IN LAST NIGHTS EPISODE OF BROOK­SIDE, WELL DONE JIMMY, IF ONLY I WAS AT THE ANGEL OF THE NORTH WHEN TOOK A PISS, I WOULD OF HELD YOUR PENIS FOR YOU

    Posted by GAVIN JENKINS at 4pm on 05.11.03

  6. I think Jim​my​Corkhill.com is great as it brings the life of a fic­tional char­ac­ter off the screens now that Brook­side has ended now onto a web­site which people can read and get to know more about Jimmy and what he writes about.
    Id also recomend look­ing at http://​www.​Brook​side.com as you can buy brook­sides­great dvd Unfin­ished busi­ness which is a high-​octane feature-​lenth spe­cial that reveals what hap­pens when deadly ene­mies finally get to settle the score.It is not a battle just for revenge-it’s a battle for survival.

    Posted by Dan at 3pm on 29.12.03

  7. Let me tell you more about brook­sides dvd ‘Unfinished business’Priced at a reas­noable £12.99 at http://​www.​Brook​side.com.
    It about when driven into hiding after the death of Tim O’Leary’s wife Emily aka Jenifer Aniston,drug dealer Terry Gibson hatches a plan to deliver both Tim and his friend Steve into his clutches.Using a Liv­er­pool escort agency and Tim and Steves lim­ou­sine business,he lures them to a remote Welsh farm to exact revenge.But Tim and Steve are not going to make it easy for the pysco­pathic kiler…It’s time to take care of Unfin­ished busi​ness.it fea­ture also a Hol­lyoaks actress.

    Posted by Dan at 3pm on 29.12.03

  8. Let me tell you more about brook­sides dvd ‘Unfinished business’Priced at a reas­noable £12.99 at http://​www.​Brook​side.com.
    It about when driven into hiding after the death of Tim O’Leary’s wife Emily aka Jenifer Aniston,drug dealer Terry Gibson hatches a plan to deliver both Tim and his friend Steve into his clutches.Using a Liv­er­pool escort agency and Tim and Steves lim­ou­sine business,he lures them to a remote Welsh farm to exact revenge.But Tim and Steve are not going to make it easy for the pysco­pathic kiler…It’s time to take care of Unfin­ished busi​ness.It fea­ture also a Hol­lyoaks actress.

    Posted by Dan at 3pm on 29.12.03

  9. Jimmy Corkhill is one of the best tv char­ac­ters ever.
    Every­one takes the piss out of Brook­side and Jimmy coz he had a mental ill­ness but I think the actor was a stal­wart of British tv.
    Yeah Brook­side got rub­bish towards the end but Jimmy car­ried on deliv­er­ing a bril­liant performance.

    Posted by Alison at 1pm on 04.01.04

  10. I Fuckin Love the cork­ers, i miss him loads

    Posted by Marcus Bright at 11pm on 29.02.04

  11. I Fuckin Love the cork­ers, i miss him loads

    Posted by Marcus Bright at 11pm on 29.02.04

  12. Cork­ers is a weener, Dicko is better

    Posted by Disco Pete at 4pm on 17.03.04

  13. seri­ously THE CORKHILL is propa bo i tell thee, dont you all agree that ron dicko is much better than Corkhill with his egg in the nest

    Posted by Ryan Hopcutt at 10pm on 24.03.04

  14. I think Jimmy Corkhill is an inspi­ra­tion to us all. He has over­come alot in his life such as his son dying, having an ugly nag­ging wife, having to except that his daugh­ter is the really annoy­ing Claire Sweeney, he’s had drug related prob­lems and to top it all off he has had mental prob­lems. He over­came all of these and he is a better person than alot of us will ever be.
    if anyone wants to con­tact me about Jimmy my e-mail is Martine_Waite@hotmail.com

    Posted by Martine Waite at 9am on 17.11.04

  15. jimmy could i have your altograth
    plese hear my
    addres is John Gunter
    1 butt close
    Glas­ton­bury som­er­set
    ba6 9hy

    Posted by John at 3pm on 22.04.05

  16. Corkhill is a legend. I’ll never forget his Stafford­shire Bull Ter­rier, “Cracker”, he was a legend too! A real-​life Jimmy Corkhill is actu­ally living in New­port, South Wales. He goes by the name of Scott Falvey, & is a proper Scally…

    Posted by Richard Pollard at 11am on 12.10.05

  17. i think that jimmy corkhill was the best he had every­thing hap­pen­ing to him oh and dicko is a moan­ing git

    Posted by mike beddard at 10pm on 31.10.05

  18. I love you Jimmy Corkhill. Ever since i was a tiny little girl i watched you reli­giously. And it broke my heart when Brook­side went off air. Although i do still have all the old episodes that i watch daily. They have pro­vided me with ours of plea­sure. Espe­cially my Brook­side dvd’s, because i can pause them, and zoom in on your beau­ti­ful, rugged face as i do things to myself. I even called my son Cracker, after Jimmy’s late dog.

    Jimmy, if your read­ing this, get in touch. I love you with all my heart and soul, for eter­nity. You are my soulmate.

    Posted by Gen Crackerpuff at 5pm on 02.11.05

  19. your a ledgand i wouldnt mind a piece of you

    Posted by eddie tierney at 11am on 10.11.05

  20. i have just watched the last episode of brook­side on catch up tv i still dont under­stand why they dropped it best show on tv what is dean sul­li­van doing now cant they replay it all from the start instead of some of the crap we have to watch

    Posted by betsy at 11am on 05.08.07

  21. I was just won­der­ing if their would be any chance in bring­ing brook­side back. I really loved the soap and it was a real shame when they axed it.

    Posted by marie at 8pm on 02.11.07

  22. Jimmy was last seen work­ing in Maplin Elec­tron­ics @ Lake­side Thur­rock after seem­ingly vis­ited Aus­tralia for a few years. The mental ill­ness is still prodomi­nent and he can be seen recit­ing the phrase “i told you” on a number of occassins

    Posted by Malcolm at 2am on 10.02.08

  23. OMG. i could hardly belive my ears when i locked into http://​www.​reman​is​s​ra​dio.net and to my sur­prise, jimmy corkhill on the decks spin­ning old skool hard­core sat­ur­days 12-2 pm.
    He has blessed the tv for many many years, but this!! wow. Move over slip­matt here comes the corker!!!!!
    And yeah the above com­ment left by mal­colm i can vouch for. I too have been given false infor­ma­tion by him in maplins Lake­side.
    Unfor­nately he suf­fers from an accute form of tur­retts desiese forc­ing him to say words like “mother board” and “i told you”

    Posted by DJ Carl Cox at 1pm on 10.02.08

  24. Hi this is my first time to write here but i dont know why they never re screened brook­side which is a real shame as they replaced that pro­gram with holly oaks which is no where near as good as that pro­gram was maybe they might read this and take the pro­gram out of the archives and re show it again for the older gen­er­a­tion who used to watch it

    Posted by beetle juice at 1am on 31.03.08

  25. Hi there just watched the last episode on 4od and just couldn’t believe what ive missed all these years since brook­side fin­ished tv is crap now com­pared to then just wish it was re-​run for us lot hope the tv bosses read these blogs

    Posted by andrew gates at 9am on 05.04.08

  26. I went to an Abba con­cert well Bjorn again lol at Tatton Park and too my suprise Jimmy the Mad Corkhill was seated five foot from us….he as with a huge group of friends mostly Gay cos yeah the great Jimmy is of course Gay and good on him we all have the right to be what we want, I think it wa his sis­ters birthday……anyway he got so pissed that he did not know where he was bless him and his hang­ers on did not seem to care, he looked lost and was talkign away to him­self bless….he was with some people who started fight­ing, the girl was punch­ing another girl for flirt­ing with her bloke it was awful and car­ried on for about an hour before secu­rity asked them to leave, but Jimmy had left before the final fight!!!! He looked lost and not his usual com­i­cal self……He was my heroe in Brook­side as he dealt with all the ashit that most of us cannot….come back Jimmy…..loose the driftwood…..your wicked xxxxxps Cracker was Fab!

    Posted by Jules at 10am on 06.08.08

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