The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 29

3 The Guardian Thursday November 7 1996 Second Front NEW CHARACTERS: Those that worked CORONATION STREET: The Malletts: Gary (Ian Mercer) and wife Judy (Gaynor Faye). Possibly soap's first sex addicts and surely managers-in-waiting at the Rovers. No 91 7: Arizona Not averse to leaving their own dinner parties to indulge In post-prandial sex in an attempt to conceive during most likely hours of ovulation. Key to success: sex appeal, charisma, wit. Carmel (Catherine Cusack): the Piatt's psychotic Irish nanny.

Brought some much needed excitement to the Piatt household, where Gail had not been seen out of a pinafore for close on a decade. Key to success: unpredictability, sexual tension, lunacy. EASTENDERS: Tiffany (Martine McCutcheon) and Joe Wicks (Paul Nicholls): just two of the new influx of Beautiful Youth attracting a wider audience. Key to success: physical attractiveness, tortured souls, essential niceness. BROOKSIDE: Jimmy Corkhill (Dean Sullivan).

At first thought to be NQB (Not Quite Brookle), he's gone on to become the Close's most wicked but best character. Key to success: immense sex appeal, charm and wit EMMERDALE: The Dingles: the greatest creation of any soap in the past decade. The '-y'''')(fc Appearance: Mostly arid, sparsely populated desert where temperatures can reach 120. Distinguishing features: There's the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley (right), backdrop to every decent Western ever made. Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Alan Ladd, and the boys had to have somewhere to ride into the sunset.

Sounds rough: "The region is altogether valueless. After entering it, there is nothing to do but leave," wrote a government surveyor in 1858. Nirknnmp: Tho land enormous Mandy Dingle (Lisa Riley right) recently won Best Newcomer in the National Television Awards. She cooks, wrestles and gets hurt in love. Key to success: body weight (vast), humour, ability to strike terror into local menfolk.

X3 and those that didn't EMMERDALE: Chef Sean Rossi (Mark Cameron): beautiful man; character's main achievement where time stands still. So what's new? Well times have changed and Arizona seems to be changing with them. Don't tell me, they've converted the Grand Canyon into a huge shopping mall with extensive parking facilities. Nope, something far more monumental than that. They've given their eight electoral votes to Bill Clinton.

Well what's so surprising about that? Almost everybody else did didn't they? Yes but Arizona is different. It hasn't voted for a Democrat since 1948. Clinton broke the longest losing streak in presidential politics. Redneck heaven changing its ways? Well it did attract the ire of everyone from rappers to radicals when it was one of the last states to honour Martin Luther King day as a paid holiday. Their reluctance cost them around $340 million in lost business.

Wow, the Americans take their holidays seriously don't they? Depends on the holiday. When voters finally changed their mind the governor wanted nothing to do with it. "Let them all whoop it up and have a good time," he said. What's their problem? Arizonans still take their image as inhabitants of a rugged backwater of copper mines, cacti and cattle seriously even if nobody else does. I hope you're not suggesting these desert dwellers are anything less than rugged.

Well, the butch cowboys roaming the parched sandy expanses have been replaced by two-career families working in hi-tech industries and Mexicans from across the border. "Most people in the West don't know a Hereford from a Holstein," says one local professor. Are these townies Clinton types then? "They don't give a damn about politics," an independent pollster says. Sounds ideal: Sounds like you won't be invited to cross the bridge to the 21st century. was to bring oyster knife to the village.

Also slept with Kathy (Malandra Burrows), an event that caused even fewer ripples than the unwrapping of the oyster knife. Key to failure: inability to reconcile cutlery with culinary desires of villagers. Zoe's lesbian lover Suzle (Louise Heaney). Spoke in the kind of strangulated tones normally associated with death by hanging. Finally whined her way into the arms of one of the many lesbians who have mysteriously emanated among the Emmerdale hills.

Key to failure: too many lesbians spoilt the plot. EASTENDERS: Singer Frankie (Syan Blake). Still lurking on the sidelines, after trying to seduce Alan. Seduction technique of a lizard. Key to failure: constant look of a whiplash victim, with a neck permanently strained back in an attempt to gaze dolefully into Alan's eyes.

CROSSROADS: The whole cast: disappeared when the show was axed eight years ago. Now being re-shown on UK Gold, we are reminded of Benny, the man who left the motel looking for a spanner and did not return for six months. In one of the stronger plots, he developed a penchant for a goat called Starry. Key to failure: rotten sets, rotten plots, rotten acting. CORONATION STREET: Samlr Rachld (Al Nejari): one of Delrdre's many conquests.

Died, not before time, after a head Injury Inflicted by a gang. Suffered In coma, raising the proverbial question: how could they tell? Key to failure: total inability on part of audience to understand a word he said. Palestine and the Jews EastEnders' Tiffany tortured and nice November 7 1917 by CP Scott WE SPEAK of Palestine as a country, but it is not a country; it is at present little more than a small district of the vast Ottoman tyranny. But it will be a country; it will be the country of the Jews. That is the meaning of the letter which we publish today written by Mr Balfour to Lord Rothschild for communication to the Zionist Federation.

It is at once the fulfilment of an aspiration, the signpost of a destiny. The Government have indeed laid down a policy of great and far-reaching importance, but it is one which can bear its full fruit only by the united efforts of Jews all over the world. What it means is that, assuming our military successes to be continued and the whole of Palestine to be brought securely under our control, then on the conclusion of peace our deliberate policy wDl be to encourage in every way in our power Jewish immigration, to give full security, and a large measure of local autonomy, to the Jewish immi grants, with the view to the ultimate establishment of a Jewish State. Palestine has a special importance for Great Britain because in the hands of a hostile Power, it can be made a secure base from which a land attack on Egypt can be organised. Our interest and practically our sole particular interest in Palestine is that this danger should be effectually guarded against, and that no Power should be seated in Palestine which is, or under circumstances is likely to be, hostile to this country.

The existing Arab population of Palestine is small and at a low stage of civilisation. It contains within itself none of the elements of progress, but it has its rights, and these must be carefully respected. This is clearly laid down in the letter, which declares that 'nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing communities in There is the question of the custody of the Holy Places. This is not expressedly referred to, but will undoubtedly have to be carefully considered, and, with goodwill, should present no great difficulties. the occasional affair or minor criminal offence (and all offending parties are soon removed from the scene), its world is a staid, uneventful one in which it is virtually impossible to find anything that might hold a mirror up to our own lives, and to see in it, and learn from, what is the antithesis of what appears to be taking place in the crumbling moral fabric of society.

No one says the Street has to do any such thing, of course, but it is another reason why Emmerdale, EastEnders and Brookside viewing figures are rising at a time when those for the Street are declining. Coronation Street will bounce back; it always does. It just might have to consider bouncing back to a different place from where it started. either by choice or subconscious desire, who knows a moral framework we keep hearing is lacking in what we must call "real The world of soap is one in which adulterers suffer because of their actions (Cindy, Carol, Alan and David in EastEnders), criminals are punished by law (Grant Mitchell in EastEnders) or by their own consciences (Grant's brother Phil); a world in which nothing good comes of people who deal or take drugs; where families support each other and come together after often long periods of falling out (EastEnders' Mitchells and Fowlers, Emmerdale's Tate and Dingle clans) and children are well looked after. Coronation Street has a one-dimensional moral framework.

Apart from young people. The plot there has centred on how awful young people can be, as with Steve's criminal activities, or how tedious they are (Andy's many bland girlfriends). They may think and talk about sex and alcohol, as young people are wont to do, but alongside their EastEnders' counterparts, they are about as deep as a birdbath. The Street has never even come close to matching EastEnders' scenes, and though it remains brilliant in many respects (when it is good, it is still very, very good), it needs to address the needs of its young audience and, as a result, its young characters, if it is to regain its lost ground. The soap audience has also changed in that it responds to.