In every episode of EastEnders, you can be guaranteed of a few things. For a start, you’ll never sit through the full 30 minutes without hearing an ear-piercing screech or cackle.

Peggy’s bra will have pinged off and blinded a child like in her Carry On days and then she’ll slop a warm pint all over Pat, causing fisticuffs at the bar.

There’s also the iconic music that accompanies the programme. Without those drum beats at the beginning and end of the show, EastEnders wouldn’t have any charm left at all. Kind of like the service in Ian Beale’s café. But things are changing in Albert Square. Soon, a spin off show dubbed E20 will launch, and the team behind the show want you to create the theme tune by doing up the original song.

Of course, there is already a remix of the recognisably anthemic EastEnders theme-tune. Frizzy haired guitar chimp Brian May’s wife Anita Dobson created a version of the song by simply singing over the top of it. She released it and thousands of morons purchased it, thus making her famous. Sadly, you can’t rip off her efforts as the producers of the show want you to make a thirty second remix that captures the sound and feel of living in East London.

For the majority of the population living outside of London, this may be hard to imagine. However, from our knowledge of London, we believe samples of people complaining about late tubes, recordings of coughing from inhaling smog and the sound of pigeon shit hitting the floor will be quite apt. Or as the competition page puts it:

“E20 is to encourage and develop exciting new talent. All the writers and cast are newcomers – and we want to extend this approach to the music production. For that, we need your help. We’re therefore looking for a fresh take on the classic EastEnders theme tune – one that will become the fanfare for a show which celebrates London life, and what it’s like to be young in the capital. All in the space of 30 seconds!”

Awesome, we all we have to do is chop up the beats and splice up the main tune to win the prize? Doesn’t sound too difficult to us. We can already imagine the look of surprise on the judge’s face as present a glitched-up gabba version complete with touches of white noise. Or if we forget the closing date and need to knock something up quick, we’ll just reverse the tune, steal some vocals from YouTube and plonk it on top. Easier than cooking, that is.

Of course, out made up genre of Fizzcorkcore probably won’t win as the current climate of wonky-sounding baselines and big beats will probably clinch it for some nerdy bedroom DJ. But good luck to you all, after winning the competition you’ll then be asked what you’d do to make the show watchable.

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Everyone likes Will Smith. Christ, we can’t think of anyone who doesn’t love this not so fresh-faced rascal.

Since growing up, Will Smith has taken on a variety of film roles. In Men In Black he saved the world from aliens. Likewise, Independence Day saw him repeat the same heroic feat. Come to think of it, didn’t the same thing kind of happen in I Am Legend?

Taking a step back from this extra terrestrial creature stuff, Will wants to make an appearance on Eastenders. Quite likely to save Albert Square from Pat Butcher.

Seeing Will Smith materialise on EastEnders would be like seeing Lily Savage make an appearance on Lost. On paper it just simply wouldn’t work. However, after much tinkering around with the script, even the most traditional of scenes could be twisted to make us, the slobby viewer, believe it’s totally normal. Stranger stuff has happened however. Loose Women has amazingly survived ten years on our screens despite being utterly shit.

If the scriptwriters of EastEnders happen to be reading this, then we’d like to take you through some of the ideas that we’ve bashed out. Using our brief knowledge of the BBC flagship soap, we think that a popular Hollywood actor could boost ratings. Only by a bit, mind.

1 – Will Smith takes over The Queen Vic. Instead of it being the grotty pub we know and love, that crazy American takes full ownership and converts it in to a bar. Say bye-bye to draft beers and pork scratchings. Instead, everything comes with packs of pretzels and beef jerky to wash your bottle of Bud Light down with. Don’t think of causing any fights in Will’s new bar. Trouble won’t be sorted out with the usual high-pitched shrieks. Instead, he’ll use the gun behind the bar.

2 – The park in EastEnders is pretty gash at the minute. There’s a bench in remembrance of Arthur Fowler and that’s about it. Apart from a walkway, some grass and a scattering of dog poo. Using his masters degree of gardening from Stanford University, Will aims to lead a community project in to making a ghetto out of the ghetto. Rival gangs can have their own patch of turf to use residents as a target range.

3 – Charlie Slater has a black cab which he never seems to use any more. Hooking up with his hip-hop homeboy Tim Westwood, Will takes away the keys and pimps up the vehicle. A fat sound system here and some 50-inch tyres will make any motorists want to bow down and kiss the exhaust pipe. And make Albert Square a hotspot for boy racers.

So what draws Will Smith to EastEnders? Digitalspy reports:

“It was so real and gritty. American soaps are all about the beautiful people and being cheesy. This soap had everything. There was fighting, people sleeping around – it had it all going on! I’m a bit busy but when things quieten down I’d love to do a cameo. I could make a big entrance in the pub, as you guys call it, and be like, ‘Hey, girl let’s take this outside’.”

Calling Phil Mitchell a girl? Possibly not the wisest of choices there Will. Before you could harp on about America, the goons will have moved in and you’ll be forced to eat the crap that Ian Beale makes from the café.

And that thing you call an acting career would probably die. We’re just saying.

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9 - Dear BBC, last week you introduced the best character in the history of EastEnders. More of him please – Watch With Mothers

8 - If you want to rot in fairly close proximity to a fairly famous completely dead cadaver, and you have an eBay account, this is your lucky day – Scumbag Millionaire

7 – Rio Ferdinand in ‘likes music but is entirely self-unaware’ shock – My Chemical Toilet

6 - Some cool kids. Some frighteningly cool kids – Interestment

5 – Brad Pitt talks drugs in a way that’s far less interesting than we’ve made it sound – Amy Grindhouse

4 - A boy dancing in the Apple store, completely unaware that this is as good as his life is ever going to get – Best Week Ever

3 - This video takes a while to get going, but is absolutely worth your attention – Geekologie

2 – MERRY CHRISTMAS!! – Shouting At Cows

1 - This just in: Patrick Wolf is a bit of a cock…

Middle-EastEnders is probably a big hit in the Islamic Republic of Iran…

The show’s writers traditionally shy away from the social taboos of go-karting, liking America or talking to women. The British however, have no such idea of tact and religious sensibility. Their version of the show often goes down like halal-packaged pork chops and recent developments in the East End will probably lead to nuclear winter.

BBC soap, EastEnders, plans to feature a gay Muslim, played by an actor who is possibly taking his life into his own hands.

Sharia Law aside, most sensible zealots will tell you that ‘God hates fags’, and Muslims are no exception. Punishable by death in most Islamic countries, homosexuality is definitely not a popular theme in Middle-Eastern soaps. But in Britain, we like to experiment.

New character, Syed Masood (played by actor Marc Elliot) will represent the gay Muslim minority when he shares a kiss with the openly gay Christian Clarke (John Partridge). This could be a big problem for his mother, Zainab (Nina Wadia), who is desperate to marry him off to a suitable woman. EastEnders has always sided with the underdog and Elliot’s controversial character represents a ‘visible minority’ in Britain.

Yusuf Wehebi of  Imaan, a support organisation for gay, lesbian and transgender Muslims said:

“It is entirely possible to be Muslim and gay and there’s many of us in Britain today. It is great that the BBC have had the courage to raise such an important social issue in our society.”

Traditional Muslims don’t seem to be happy on the other hand and accused EastEnders of jumping the gun with wacky Muslims who don’t quite fit the bill. Asghar Bokhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee criticised Elliot’s character, saying:

“There’s a lack of understanding of Muslims already and I think EastEnders really lost an opportunity to present a normal friendly Muslim character to the British public.”

Both are slightly missing the point, in our opinion. EastEnders is about a handful of cockneys getting pissed, generally talking rubbish and flaunting the trivial crap of their mundane lives. The show does not contain a moral message, and if it did, we’d all be married to ugly women and doing business in the pub. What’s important is that the show depicts what London really is: a modern Babylon, a weird and wonderful place where anything can happen and anyone can come together. Congrats to the producers for adding some flavour to the meat and potatoes of British television.

So everyone, here’s a moral message from us: Soaps aren’t political broadcasts – They’re fictional scenarios that generate cash. Gay Muslims do exist and British people aren’t that bothered. If you’re offended by everything you see on TV – go and find yourself a cave.

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In Emmerdale for instance, all the characters belong to rival farming tribes and live in the middle of nowhere. Coronation Street is full of a variety of characters, from the old, young and transsexual. But the best has to be EastEnders. It's attempt at showing murky gangster activity is hilarious. All these soaps also have one thing in common. 

It doesn't matter how legendary a soap character is, as soon as they've been killed off they'll never work on television again. For one unlucky EastEnders character, their 14-year stint is soon to be over. But who is it? Find out after the jump.

The most obvious EastEnders character to drown in a mouldy beer keg or vat of boiling chip fat would be serial lady loser Ian Beale. Over the years he’s married various women, had sex with prostitutes and had all sorts of arguments with resident hardman Phil Mitchell. We would have said Grant Mitchell, but he was off filming badly made programs on gangs at the time. 

So we’ve kept you in suspense for long enough, who is going to the unfortunate character to be given the chop? Well it’s someone who has never really had a home and has been passed from family to family in Albert Square. But he is no tramp or student. His storylines have seen him run over, kidnapped and, recently, traded for a pineapple.

Whilst Pat Butcher would have been a reasonable guess, it is actually Wellard the dog. 

Starting off life with the annoying Robbie Jackson, played by the really annoying Dean Gaffney, this loveable pooch occasionally pops up in the odd episode to randomly bark at strangers, dry-hump people's legs, steal sausages from the butchers and terrorise old people. Sonia and Gus have since been in charge of looking after him, but they got bored of having to clean up dog shit and passed him onto some other naive cockney resident of the square. 

Despite the show announcing the death of Wellard, it doesn’t mean he won’t come back in twenty years time as a ghost dog. Remember Dirty Den? Apparently he got shot, fell in a lake and died a bloody death. The truth of the matter is that Dirty Den is immune to bullets and didn’t die. People who say he was brought back to boost ratings are just cynical.

When he wasn’t wanking on the internet, Den came back to try and run the square. This failed and he ended up being killed again and buried in the pub cellar. We expect to see him again in 2046. 

So how will Wellard die? Details haven’t been released yet, but we are willing to bet that a Korean restaurant will buy Ian Beale’s cafe and transform it in to a snack bar using Wellard as the filling for a sandwich.  

Or he’ll just die, take your pick.

After all, anyone who's ever been to the east end of London knows that every five or six weeks a gang of unconvincing, slightly-too-theatrical thugs burst into the local pub for no real reason and kick a pregnant woman over.

That exact thing happened on EastEnders not so long ago, and now Ofcom has criticised the episode. Not because of the unusual and irresponsible level of pre-watershed violence, though – but because it was honestly the single most rubbish thing to appear on television in the last 12 months, other than the failed BBC2 pilot Look! Adrian Chiles In A Bikini! And because of the violence too, actually. A bit.

Ladies, here's a warning – if you ever find yourself pregnant on EastEnders, get out of town as quickly as you can. It doesn't matter where you go – George Street, Up West – but just don't stick around. EastEnders hates pregnant women, so in that respect it's just like the Lost island, only with more depressed pikeys.

If you're pregnant on EastEnders, it means your husband is either doing it with a bruised headed market-stall Gollum, or it means that a mental doctor is going to try to slice open your stomach even though people at home are trying to eat their dinner, or it means that a weird gang of deeply unrealistic football hooligans led by Lenny Henry's put-upon assistant from the Premier Inn adverts are going to kick you over a beer barrel. 

On November 13 last year, that's exactly what happened during an episode of EastEnders. An entire episode was dedicated to showing what it looks like when a group of posh, overly theatrical gasbags are employed to smash up a pub using one episode of The Bill from 1986 as their sole reference point to what poor people are like.

And that episode of EastEnders was violent. Unusually so. If you missed it, here are some edited highlights. In particular, look out for the 19 second mark, the 33 second mark, 49 seconds, 1:25, 2:42, 2:53, 3:30, 7:02 and 7:09. Not because they're violent, but because in years to come historians will pinpoint these moments as the least-convincing pieces of acting in all of television history…

Violent, huh? Distressing, you might even say. Or rubbish. Rubbish is also accurate. Anyway, Ofcom certainly agrees with the violent part – it got 78 complaints from viewers about the episode, who we imagine were all so alarmed by the Sidekick Thug's rubbery goon face that they all started crying. And Ofcom has upheld the complaints, saying:

"Although EastEnders is not made specifically for children it does attract a significant child audience, and any portrayal of violence needs to be carefully considered. The programme started with the gang attack on the Queen Vic. This involved a sustained, intense and high level of violence, destroying parts of the pub with hammers and bottles and glasses smashing into the furniture, to intimidate the locals, some of whom were injured. Regular viewers of EastEnders are aware that this soap deals, on occasions, with tough social issues. This is balanced, however, with the expectation that it will be suitable for children to view, who form a significant minority of the audience."

Yeah, that told you!

Now, with its wrist slapped, EastEnders will have to heed Ofcom's warning unless it wants another tongue-lashing. Maybe a rethink is in order, which is why we demand that EastEnders sacks all the characters with a violent past immediately and replaces them with an adorable little puppy that can't stop sneezing. It's the only way.

Read more: 

EastEnders violence ruled out of order – Guardian 

There's a very high probability that you just thought 'Shane Richie starring in a remake of Minder for Channel Five'. Because, objectively, that's the very worst thing the human brain will allow you to imagine before it goes wrong and has a stroke.

But guess what? There is going to be a remake of Minder, it is going to be on Channel Five and irritating cockney wideboy gasbag Shane Richie will star in it. On the plus side, if you start destroying your TV with an axe now, there's a good chance you'll miss it.

The life of a soap actor is a hard one, no matter what you think. Not because of the long hours or because you might get punched in the head in a supermarket car park, but because of how it affects your brain. Star in EastEnders, you see, and everyone will start to recognise you. Mistaking the recognition for love, you'll inevitably leave EastEnders with lofty-minded ideas of becoming a film star, only to fail miserably and end up being the star of a Confused.com advert at 3am on Dave+1.

And if that's what goes through the mind of regular actors, imagine what it does to someone like Shane Richie. Sure, Shane Richie won an army of adoring fans when he was Alfie Moon in EastEnders, but he was capable of so much more than that. Don't forget that, as well as acting, Shane Richie was also a mediocre stand-up comedian, the host of a barely-remembered children's game show and the creator of 2003 18-track cabaret masterpiece Shane Richie The Album. He was wasted on EastEnders. Wasted.

Since leaving EastEnders, Shane Richie has gone on to such heady heights as doing some local radio, sinking all his money into a film nobody wanted to see, starring in another flop film about some rats in a toilet and presenting a Sky game show about music lyrics. Which, we're pretty sure, is the same way Ralph Fiennes got so well-respected.

But now Shane Richie is ready to make the leap into the big time once more, with a remake of a show that everyone already got sick of once for Channel Five. That's right, after hearing about six or seven people comparing Alfie Moon to Arthur Daley, Shane Richie's going to star in Minder. The Times reports:

With his camel-hair coat, money-making schemes and dodgy motors, “Arfur” Daley embodied the Thatcherite entreprenurial spirit. His catch-phrases became common parlance… The ITV show continued with George Cole alone until 1994, and his role will go to Shane Richie, who played the publican Alfie Moon in EastEnders. Although no decision has been made on the “minder” role, the producers may ask Dennis Waterman, 59, to play some part in the new show… “Scripts are in development with a view to a series being commissioned later in the year,” said a Five spokesman. It could be ready this autumn.

Great. Can't wait to see those scripts. Scene one – Shane Richie gets fold of some interchangeable dodgy goods and tries to sell them while being all twinkly-eyed. Scene two – Shane Richie winks a lot and does that put-on Sid James laugh for 35 minutes solid until everyone around him gets bored, stands up and wanders off. Scene three – Shane Richie sings Everybody Wants To Rule The World and winks a lot. End credits. Commission x 12. 

There is one plus side to all this, though – Shane Richie's Minder will be on Channel Five. Which will at least keep him away from anything we're ever likely to actually watch.

Read more:

Revival of Minder will set the scene for a new Arthur Daley – Times 

However, sometimes this little violent whirlpool leaks out from inside our heads and ends up elsewhere, like the outside of Lacey Turner's head.

Basically, Lacey Turner, who plays Stacey in EastEnders, got beaten up in a car park. In a supermarket car park. 

Even though it's a TV show that preposterously assumes there's a corner of East London not full of preening, self-involved, asymmetrical-haircutted fashion students with rich parents, a collection of brightly-coloured plastic sunglasses and a well-established eating disorder, EastEnders still has the power to shock.

Although it mainly shocks by occasionally sneaking in scenes of Hostel-style torture porn at 7:30pm and by keeping Bobby Davro in gainful employment, sometimes EastEnders can shock in the real world, too. Past examples of this include Dirty Den webcamming his cock to a journalist and Letitia Dean's big red face on Strictly Come Dancing. And a present example of this is EastEnders star Lacey Turner getting lamped in the head in a supermarket car park.

Apparently Lacey Turner was punched in the head after leaving a nightclub with Aaron Sidwell, who plays that boy in EastEnders who was so mentally ill that he kidnapped his dad and shot his dad's wife and then suddenly got better for no logical reason whatsoever. Now reports Lacey's nightclub attack in more detail than we could ever hope to:

A fellow guest at the club says: 'I left at around the same time and saw Lacey and Aaron walking across a nearby car park when the group of men approached them. There were a few words exchanged and suddenly one of the blokes lashed out. He hit her with a very powerful punch — it knocked her to the ground. She looked really shaken up and had to be helped to her feet. Everyone stopped. They couldn't believe what had happened. A couple of people helped her into a car and she went home.' 

It sounds shocking, we know, and it can't have been especially pleasant for Lacey Turner either, but she wasn't badly injured enough to affect her work. And if you think that's bad, just wait until next week – the bloke who plays Ian Beale is going to have a bottle fight with a sailor after an illegal dogfight turns sour.

Read more:

SHOCK! EastEnders' Lacey Turner attacked – Now 

Just when you think you’ve got the world sussed to a point where you can put your feet up and relax, that pesky God character whips the carpet from under your feet and, suddenly, from out of nowhere – and we really mean nowhere – Sonia from EastEnders would definitely get it.

“Yeah, whatever, hecklerspray,” we can hear you thinking, “I used to like you but you’re getting weird. What next? An opinion piece on why ‘bestiality’ is underrated? Get out of my face."

It’s OK. We understand. Do not fear. It’s a big step. After all, Sonia is to the hard-on what George Bush is to Iraqi children. But hey, that was yesterday, and today things are different – not for the Iraqi children – but Sonia (life name: Natalie Cassidy) is now, how you say… worth a squirt? The 24-year-old, who in a few months – using a revolutionary technique where you exercise more than you eat – has lost 2 1⁄2 stone and dropped from a size 16 to an 8. She said:

“After playing Sonia in EastEnders for 12 years, I thought it'd be good to change my image. I was 10st 8lb (she's 5ft 4in) when I started this diet, but it was my body mass index that scared me. I wasn't just obese – I was off the scale.”

Back in 2004 her breasts were enlarged from a 36A to a 36D, but because of her weight loss, Natalie is now a 32E and is loving the attention she's getting from the opposite sex (men).

“I know it's shallow, but I do. I get wolf whistled at in the street and I don't turn round because I'm not used to it. I was always bubbly and confident before, but it does make you feel better about yourself. I've become a bit of a fox. I've just started seeing someone. He's lovely. We met on my last job, so it's quite new – and that's all I'm telling.”

Unbelievable. As Bob Dylan once prophesied, "If your time to you is worth savin/ Then you better start swimmin/ Or you'll sink like a stone/ For the times they are a-changin."  

And if by ‘swimming’ he actually meant ‘masturbating’ (which he probably did), then tonight, in that sacred five minutes of alone-time when the wife’s asleep, allow Sonia Jackson to traipse into your world (with or without trumpet – the choice is yours) – and turn it upside down… or else you’ll sink like a stone.

Read more:

Natalie Cassidy: How I lost 2½st – Now

But even though Patsy Palmer's workout DVD/ dog show-based career has seen her get deified by all of the world's religious leaders and effectively bring an end to the Middle East crisis by herself with an innovative mixture of three-legged dogs and full-arm squat-thrusts to copyright-free dance music, Patsy Palmer has decided to return to her roots with an announcement that she'll become an EastEnders cast-member again early next year.

Oh, you know, Patsy Palmer. The ginger one. Played Bianca. Shouted a lot. Google her or something.

No matter how you look at it, EastEnders hasn't had a vintage year. Its planned baby abduction storyline went awry when the whole Madeleine McCann thing happened, only for EastEnders to replace it at the last minute with a terrifying belly-slashing torture scene. The Vic is now run by hard-faced Terrahawk who looks like Alan Sugar. One episode genuinely revolved around sibling telepathy. Bobby Davro. But don't worry, because back to save the day is Patsy Palmer, the woman who won the nation's heart by being ginger and screaming the word "Rickaaaay!" four billion times an episode for six years solid like some sort of awful pikey rape alarm.

Patsy Palmer never really consolidated on the fame she found in EastEnders, with just a few stints on some short-lived TV shows, a couple of plays, the obligatory 'poor me, I took too many drugs' autobiography and a line of tanning products for ginger people to her name. But get ready to see Patsy Palmer on your screens again soon, because it's been announced that she's reprising her EastEnders role as Bianca Jackson as soon as January – and, at The Times reports, her first scene will involve her riding into Albert Square on a bright orange horse while playing circus music on a tuba:

According to the BBC the older Bianca will not be too different. She will still be having trouble with her love life and will arrive back in the East End with her son by Ricky, called Liam, and a string of children fathered by other men. The BBC said she will be "at rock bottom and struggling to survive". Palmer, who is originally from Bethnal Green in London, said: "I'm really excited about rejoining the cast and working with old friends again. I can't wait to explore what Bianca has been doing with her life and seeing what she is going to get up to next."

Maybe we invented that horse bit, in retrospect. But, still, it'll be good to see Patsy Palmer returning to EastEnders for what seems like an extended stay and not just for one confusing episode like when Phil Mitchell broke out of prison and spent 30 minutes kicking down doors and flushing Ian Beale's head down a toilet and then going back to prison at the end.

But, like Patsy Palmer, we can't wait to see what storylines the EastEnders team comes up with for Bianca. We're secretly hoping that she'll run off with Max Branning and conceive a baby so ginger that it generates electricity just by moving its arms, but that's just us.

Read more:

Patsy Palmer Rejoins EastEnders – The Times