Leanne Battersby is fully immersed in the teachings of The Altovalent Institute. They’ve instructed her to ‘eliminate the unexpected’ by tuning her mind to all eventually possibilities, and then ‘using it to bend reality’. For some reason, she doesn’t seem to have tuned her mind to the possibility that she’s being conned out of her money. For his part, Nick Tilsley thinks it sounds a bit like The Matrix.
Stu Carpenter spent years behind bars for a a crime he didn’t commit, so he can empathise with Roy Cropper’s current plight. He visits the cafe owner to offer words of support. Stu observes that ‘the bloke who invented the internet’ (Sir Tim Berners-Lee) received a knighthood for his efforts, yet his creation has spawned a legion of vindictive online trolls. Magnanimous as ever, Roy points out that similar things were said about the creator of the printing press (15th Century inventor Johannes Gutenburg). He believes the fault lies with individuals who use the internet to spread hate, rather than the technology itself. Later, Nina Lucas sums the situation up when she says ‘haters gonna hate’, a phrase deriving from the 2000 3LW track Playas Gon’ Play.
As a trained mental health professional, Toyah Habeeb sees through the simplistic but costly guff being touted by The Altovalent Institute. She tells the organisation’s Rowan Cunliffe what she thinks, and he storms off. If his philosophy is so effective, how come he doesn’t bend reality to defeat her argument? However, Leanne follows the Donald Trump and Liz Truss principle of treating facts and expertise as enemies of a self-constructed truth. She remains loyal to The Institute, unable to see what a complete and utter cult it actually is.
Coronation Street episode 11236/11237. Originally aired 10th April 2024.
