Bad news, everyone. Ken Barlow's gone bonkers. He's finally lost the plot and he's taken his real life alter-ego William Roache with him. Being 79 it's hardly surprising, because all old people are rubbish anyway, ISN'T THAT RIGHT, WHOLE NEW AD-AWARE TEENAGE HOLY MOLY DEMOGRAPHIC?

Anyway, while Coronation Street continues to pump most of the nation full of entirely believable storylines about tram explosions, old Billy Roach has been doing his best to warn the rest of us about the decline of mother earth and the coming apocalypse: (Sky TV’s The Moore Show)

“The Earth is a living being with consciousness and it has an understanding.

“And just like we can become enlightened and raise our vibrational level into a higher spiritual level, the Earth can also do the same and this is what is happening.”

“This is what all the prophecies about 2012 are.

“Unfortunately there are some cleansings that will have to take place where negative energy has to be discharged and these will be in the form of earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and tsunamis.”

“The doom and gloom, as they are saying, is that December 21st, 2012, is the end of the Earth. It isn’t, but it’s the change and the end of a lot of things as we know them.”

“We’ll move into the golden age which will be a wonderful age where we’ll all love.

“We’ll communicate telepathically, we’ll all be aware of our spiritual selves, and it will be a beautiful place to be.

“It’s been happening really ever since day one but it’s been speeding up recently because it’s reaching its point when the actual ascension of the Earth will take place next year.

“A lot of people who are sensitive will be aware of it whereas some people will just be aware of all the awful things that are going on – but we need to look at all the bad things as a glorious process of birth. We’re going to be moving into this wonderful period where people will be more loving and more caring.”

Meanwhile, back in crazy town, William explained how homeopathy isn't quite the bag of voodoo crapola we all thought it was:

“That guy [his homeopath] was able to appear on the astral plane, and come into a dream and actually speak to me that way,”

“Nowadays spiritual things are more accepted and it’s going to keep getting bigger. But when I started, these things were very unusual and you had to be careful who you talked to. People would get hostile.”

“I’ve had messages from Edwina [his 18 month old daughter who died] saying her role in the spiritual realms is helping young babies who have gone over and are crying for their mummies,” said Roache.

“She is able to help children in the spirit realm.” 

“I can celebrate and rejoice for Sara, [his wife who died in 2009]” 

“I am absolutely thrilled to bits for her that’s she’s gone home. I don’t worry about Sara as I know I will join her eventually.”

Cripes. Poor bugger seems to have been driven crazy with grief. Seems less funny now. Still, most of you won't have even gotten this far in the article, so well done, and we're sorry it ended so badly.