There’s a tramp heading back to Albert Square. Cat Slater is already back behind the bar of the Vic, Janine ‘Black Widow’ Butcher is about to claim another victim and Cindy Beale has assumed a new identity behind the bar of the Rovers in Weatherfield  so it’s none of those. So who can it be? That’s right, it’s none other than Walford’s least successful entrepreneur Ian Beale.

Over the years I’ve had a love/hate relationships with soaps, neither preferring one nor the other, dipping in and out occasionally, sometimes with months inbetween but never really feeling like I’ve missed much after a couple of episodes catching up. Dot is still alive, Carla on Corrie is still beautiful and Ian Beale is still, pathetic.

The offspring of dysfunctional Kathy and Pete Beale, Ian has roamed the streets of Walford from day one. Like a snivelling pinball he’s bounced from woman to woman, business to business and Mitchell to Mitchell never really achieving very much, and on the odd moment he has, it’s been quickly taken away from him, usually by a woman, leaving him crying and suicidal on Arthur’s bench. He loved that place you know.

Lets be honest, if most of us had had Ian’s run in life we’d have walked up to Phil Mitchell, called him ‘baldie’ and let nature take it’s course a long long time ago, yet the writers on Britain’s most depressing soap continue to give Ian life like a sad eyed puppy that you just can’t put down because it licks you as you take the cap off the needle.

I’m firmly of the belief that it’s time Ian Beale went out in blaze of glory, back from sleeping rough on the streets, I’d like to see Ian take his revenge, Kill Beale Tarantino style on all those who’ve wronged him over the years.

Beheading Cindy Beale in the Rovers, revealing in the Vic that Jane was actually a man, running Mandy through with one of her high heels in the Minute Mart and then a final showdown with Phil Mitchell in the arches where inevitably Ian snivels, whimpers, cries and is sent to the crusher in the boot of Phil’s old Jag.

So come on Eastenders team, it’s time to give the viewers what they want, one last hurrah for the snivelling entrepreneur.

Ian Beale must die.

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