Nearly 10 million people tuned into watch a TV funeral last night. Yep, Frank Butcher had a second funeral (the first one was a fake in Spain) which saw the return of his long faced offsprings Janine, Ricky and Diane… as well as a cameo of former daughter-in-law Bianca. So what’s the best way to remember the rougish Frank? Well, I think we all recall the horrific ‘bow-tie’ incident, and of course, Eastenders wouldn’t let his passing pass without a nod to it. However, it seems that the best way to remember Frank would be by getting Peggy and Pat to recall all the things he liked eating the best. Nearly 10 million of us sat through “Cheese, ham, tuna! And don’t forget the chocolate biscuits! Swiss roll! Jam! He always had a sweet tooth!” Then, after the gluttony, came the fighting.

Basically, Francis Aloysius Butcher’s dying wish was to have a good ol’ cock-er-ney knees-up (the kind that only exists in TVland) and Peggy and Pat were hellbent on making it an event. It began with “loads of fillings” and ended up in a royal catfight. Something tells me that a pair of women fighting over him is what he really would have wanted. Peggy sneered and sniped at Frank’s memory, calling him every name under the sun (granted, it’s a sun that rarely shines on Albert Square… the place with the most gloom in Britain) with Pat defending him at every turn.

Somehow, it ended up all about sex. It was encapsulated by Peggy referring to the thought of Frank and Pat going at it hammer and tongues as “hardly a pretty sight” and Pat stiffening her fuschia lips and hinting that they were at it all the time. Pat straightened her back in defiance and Peggy puffed her chest out like an angry little sparrow. They exchanged a decent pair of haymakers and bolted.

The show was interspersed with loads of cut-backs, in black and white, of Frank’s ‘finest moments’. Singing on the karaoke and then, the bow-tie. He’d left offending item as a special gift to Pat. I don’t think I was alone in my shouting “It’s the bow-tie! It’s the bow-tie!” when Pat was given the mystery gift by Ricky.

As this episode was dedicated entirely to the memory of Frank Butcher, it felt all weird and out-of-synch and thus, is now sitting in the ‘Weird Soap Moments’ hall of fame. Frank’s funeral is up their with ‘Bouncer’s Dream’ and the time that woman died in a supermarket freezer in Corrie… and 10 million of us where there to witness it.