I don't want to give away any more storylines but it's all go for Mercedes; she certainly comes with a huge amount of drama in tow! I'm still filming now and will be sad to leave her when the time comes, as it has been such a great job and lovely team to be involved with.
I've spent the past year or so watching episodes from 1988 onwards on YouTube, having currently reached mid-1990. It's been such a delight to watch, with some incredible storylines such as the death of Brian Tilsley, Rita's domestic abuse at the hands of Alan Bradley and Ken's affair with Wendy Crozier.
This year? I am baffled by the phrase 'Netflix and Chill'. Now to me that sounds like pretty much every Friday evening with my other half. We are most certainly watching Netflix and we are most certainly 'chillin' (I think you drop the g if you are cool).
Winning CBB for me was a fantastic experience, and if I could only give one piece of advice to any of the housemates it would be simply this, relax - don't forget to be nice and enjoy every single moment of it!
Beards, as you may have noticed, are back. The chin-strap, the goatee, the neck beard and the Van Dyke, they all have their fans. But with beards sprouting everywhere , like new grass in the spring sunshine, there has inevitably been a backlash.
I am not religious, but I can understand why many people are. Last night I watched Channel 4 documentary Jihadis Next Door and like many others it riled me up too. Maybe not for the reasons you'd expect though.
I feel the same way as Idris Elba. Because as a disabled person, I rarely see "people like me" on television or in the media either. The numbers speak for themselves. There are 11million disabled people living in Britain today. Yet just 2.5% of people on screen are disabled.
With the right support, many people are capable of finding love, whether or not they have a disability. People with a learning disability should have the opportunity to be in a loving relationship if they want to be.
Bowie was also a public relations genius. He played the media as well as he played his music. As a long-time fan, I find it hard to think of an artist who has used the media more consciously than Bowie.
Family broadcasting is big business - there are lots of kid shows on air. As the gatekeepers of screen time, mums often play a role in which TV programs their children like. What your kids watch says a lot about you as a parent. For instance...
During my second pregnancy I thought I would get the care I needed but it was not the case. Six weeks before I was due to give birth I was threatened with induction and told if I didn't agree I had to find a new hospital. There is no evidence that induction prevents psychosis. It was lamentable.
How are the resolutions going? This year I decided to absolutely not make any new year's resolutions. I've made many in my time and have found, after a good few years of research, that they are more often than not, pointless.
A young boy - a 14-year-old - lay sobbing in his bed. For eight minutes he had been dragged, marched and restrained across the prison. Worse, as we examined the footage of the restraint we saw the fingers of a duty operations manager - one of the most senior floor staff at the prison - close around the windpipe of a 14-year-old, of a child. The boy was crying out "I can't breathe".
An enormous benefit of mindfulness is that you get a free ticket to that rare destination: the present. Okay, I hear you say, 'What's so great about being in the present moment? What if I don't want to stare at a butterfly wing or hear the single ting of a windchime? I have places to go, people to meet.'
Within minutes, he was next to me watching it. When Supergirl saved her sister Alex by landing that airplane in the bay, he was hooked. By the end, he was whizzing around the living room flying around like a superhero.
We knew Dad's illness was terminal, none of us were ready for how quickly it progressed. None of us were prepared to say goodbye quite so soon. When I received the call to say Dad had died, I felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. Nothing you do can steady your soul for that moment, the moment your life changes forever.