SCD: BYE BYE BABY BABY BYE BYE

It’s the semi final and everyone can guess that Emma is going to get the boot (including Emma, by the look of it). Everyone does two dances again and this time everyone is worried about the Argentine Tango, as the professionals are not that good at it either.

BOSOMWATCH
Tess’ breasts look all right this week, though in a nod to the festive season she appears to be wearing a dress made out of bacofoil.

(I actually watched the) RESULTS SHOW (for the first time ever!)
The guest dancers are a bare chested hunk and a lady in a sort of catwoman outfit. She does impossible looking things with her legs while he makes sex faces and throws her repeatedly into the air. Blimey.

The musical act is Cliff Richard :(

Now onto the dancing….

Lovely Mark
Mark’s love rat shame turned out to be no big deal. Ha ha, take that you tabloid bunton bet placers! For the first dance he does the Quickstep, which is the high speed 1920’s style one where they belt around the dance floor and then do flappery leg kicking. Karen falls over during rehearsals – ohs noes, will her sore leg recover in time? (answer: yes). The dance seems alright – very quick and they keep in time with the kicking bits. They look great with Mark in a penguin suit and Karen in a lilac floaty dress and their chemistry is strong as usual. The judges say that he is not quite light enough on his feet though, but he still gets an OK mark.

For the second one they do the Argentine Tango, which is like the regular tango but with lifts and complicated leg tangly type manouvres. Mark looks like he could be latin anyway and is v suave in a black suit and two tone shoes. Karen wears a Chicago-cast-member type black lace dress and they scowl and glide around each other in a sultry stylee. The leg kicking is all v good and there are some nifty lifts. It is very impressive and the crowd go wild. They get a 9 and three 10s and Karen practically has a seizure and then bursts into tears. Even Mark’s normally deadpan wife smiles and jiggles excitedly in her seat. He gets the highest placing of the night once the audience have voted too. Mark to win, though I fear that Karen will actually explode if he does

Slighty less lovely Matt
For the first dance they do the foxtrot and I don’t remember much about it. It was OK and they get a range of marks from a 7 to 9s. For the Argentine Tango, Lilia is wearing a bizarre blue dress with one sleeve and some sort of lacing up her other arm. She does lots of cool things but poor old Matt just has some very slow boring steps to do and doesn’t get to show off his skillz at all. He also still isn’t great at selling a performance like the others and is accused of not being smouldering enough by the judges. He gets OK marks and Arlene shrieks, “I want raw sex!!!” when she gives her mark, to general hilarity. He is bottom by the time the judges have finished but comes second overall.

Baby Spice
Emma knows that she could fly around the studio doing somersaults and shooting fireworks out of her arse and she still wouldn’t get through tonight, but she says she is going to do her best anyway and reminds everyone that it is all for charidee anyway so keep voting (for me) pls thanks.

She does her Argentine Tango first in a sparkly red dress and it is pretty good but apparently not fiery enough. It doesn’t help that her non-wig-wearing partner has never really done it before either. There is a good bit where she sort of leans over at a funny angle and is dragged along the floor.

For her last dance she does a samba in a rather lurid pink and orange dress. It is quite good but they spend too much part on opposite sides of the room and not enough time dancing together. All in all they come second with the judges but the public just don’t seem to have taken to her on this show and she gets the boot, leading to an all male final for the second year in a row. Mark definitely deserves to be there but I’m not really sure about Matt – he is nice enough and has improved enormously over the series but I still think that both Davetta and Emma were better dancers than him.

The X Factor - El Finale!

Many people have dared to dream. Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream today” and of course Lionel Richie, in his 80s soul-sapping dirge Say You, Say Me , spoke of having “a dream, an awesome dream”. Of course dreams do vary in magnitude, King’s dream concerned freeing America from racial hatred, whereas Lionel’s was some bollocks about “people in the park, playing games in the dark”, which strikes me as something to do with dogging. This column had a dream some 12 weeks ago, simply that this show would capture our imagination. It is now at the end that we truly see our folly, as we tune in to this final with a mixture of habitual compulsion, resignation and hatred.

Kate has a fully spangletastic frock on for the Final, although she still seems to be getting her hair done in the Play-Doh barber's shop from the look of it. We are again reminded by her about how important it is that Simon retires with enough money to officially put him above the law, and thus we must vote and vote and vote.

It's FuckOffRay to kick us off, and there is VT of him returning to Liverpool and singing to people etc. Much to my surprise people actually seem to like him, and so the fact he is in the final cannot be some dark Satanic plot to force the population to bludgeon each other to death as I initially thought.

Anyway, he's singing "My Way" again, and to be truthful I think if you didn't have to look at him it would be OK, but unfortunately you do have to look at him and so the sound is superceded by his shit-eating grin, chucky-munster face and throroughly awful ham acting all the way through the song. And to make matters worse when he sings "..shy way" it sounds exactly like "she-wee".

Leona's VT shows her going back to her parents' house and crying as per. She says that "seeing mum and dad has made me realise why I am doing this", so I assume her dad is the editor of Heat and her mum is a human size pile of fifty pound notes.

She comes on to sing the over-wrought warble-fest "I Will Always Love You" dressed in what appears to be a pink S&M dress. I hate this song and it's made even worse by her constant vibrato and falsetto jumps. There is a point where we cut to Simon and he is gazing at her with what can only described as love in his peepers, well she is his type is she not? By the time she has finished the judges are all on the Jester's shoes. I was unmoved.

Next up is a super suprise, as they wheel out Sean from we hate Wigan (spit!) to sing that Richard Marx song that he cried to in the auditions etc and everyone loves him. Apart from me, as beneath all that sickly sweet blubbing and nervousness beats the cold, selfish heart of a Pie Eater - make no mistake about it.

FuckOffRay is back on, singing "That's Life". They seem to be laying on the "plucky underdog" thing pretty thick, with his first two songs both concerned with getting on with it and succeeding even though everyone hates you and your foul chucky-face. Then, halfway through, Westlife come on to sing with him and I muse about whether there has ever been a more despicable mix of acts on a stage at the same time since the days of the Christians and the lions.

Leona returns to sing "A Million Love Songs", and I wonder who may be coming on to sing with her? That's right, it's Take That! With Leona looking so pretty in her snow white dress the lads look like they are missing the other three dwarves. This may work for Leona as Take That are the act to be with at the moment, rather than that collection of cardboard cut-outs from Ireland. At the end Gary gives Simon a good telling about how it is "your responsibility to make this girl a superstar, as she is fifty times better than everyone else, ever, so get her a decent album!". Go angry Gary!

Back we go to FuckOffRay, this time to perform "Fly Me To the Moon". So it's swing all the way for FuckOffRay tonight, the only difference with this one is that it has added Carlton Fresh Prince dance-mincing. I am calming down a bit about him until he sings 'Fill my heart with song and let me SWING or ever more', at which point I log onto www.soyouwantsomeonedead.com

The serious section is finished off by Leona singing "All By Myself", so it's ballads all the way for her, as both acts stick to what they know - understandable really. It was an amazing performance of a dreadful song, and Simon loves her in a very real way.

The show winds up with The Final 12 singing the syrup-fest "That's What Friends Are For", it is pretty woeful and only memorable for Ben singing so loud that his microphone topped out and the shot of Dionne with a face like a malevolent thunderstorm as they didn't even give her a line to sing alone.

Kate winds things up and passes the voting to the coagulated abscess of ignorance, apathy and poor education that is the British public.

FINAL RESULTS SHOW!

So we're back, and apparently eight million people have voted, some of whom for FuckOffRay I assume. Take That come on and sing "Patience", which is an absolute belter of a pop song by the way.

The two finalists then takeit in turns to sing "A Moment Like This". Leona absolutely beasts it as FuckOffRay reveals his limitations by simply crying and nodding his head at the significance of it each time he sings 'some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this". There is then a spectacular amount of fluff as they try to fill an hour up and it proves that the show really didn't need to be this long.

Finally it's results time. And the winner is.......LEONA!!!! The nation cries salt tears of joy as we realise that FuckOffRay won't be number 1 for Christmas, and this ordeal of mediocre entertainment is finally over.

Leona is "speechless", and to be fair I am very happy for her, she is genuinely talented and a very nice girl, or I might simply be happy because she is not FuckOffRay.

Anyway, that is that. They are already advertising for next year, so see you again then, when hopefully they will manage to find more than one decent singer...

XTRA FACTOR

According to this week's HolyMoly email...

Creepy-Little-Ray-Quinn, favourite to win 'The X Factor' was previously better known for playing bullied and Catholic-guilt-ridden schoolboy Anthony Murray in deader-than-disco soap 'Brookside'.

Ray joined the soap in 2000, playing a 12-year-old who, after months of intimidation, struck back at the school bully Imelda. By smacking her in the head with a rock and drowning her. (Don't vote for this monster! Think of Imelda's parents and what they must be going through every time his fat, hamster-faced grin seeps through the television screen like a pile of yoghurt in a Wolfman wig.)

Odd then, that Ray (listed in the 'under-24 category of the reality show) is listed on an agents website as being a strapping 29-year-old.

Surely a mistake? Surely a grown man of (then) 23 couldn't pass himself off as a 12-year-old actor? No, must be a typo. Either that, or 'grannies favourite' Ray is a tiny bit lacking in the hormone/chromosome department.

For those with a liking for conspiracy theories, the agent's web page has been removed. Nothing to see here. Move on and go about your business.

GHOST HUNTING WITH GIRLS ALOUD

I was hoping that this would be a Scooby Doo type affair where the pop vixens drive round in a van unmasking wicked caretakers etc and so on, but sadly not. Instead the girls are taken round a creepy old ruin by Yvette Fielding, who then tries really hard to make them cry and wet themselves. Who is Yvette Fielding? I am sure she used to be famous for something. In this she has a severe blonde hair helmut and is wearing a pseudo-military black outfit like she is auditioning for “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS” or something.

Nadine (aka the Irish One) is too busy boning the hot gardener from Desperate Housewives scared to go so we are left with geordie bruiser Cheryl Tweedy-Cole (who is very pretty but I don’t like her severe fringe and naff puffa jacket), Sarah (the hard faced blonde one who needs to lay off the self tanning lotion), Nicola (the ginger one who always looks like she stumbled into the video shoot off the street by mistake, here wearing some cute glasses) and Kimberley (um, the other one, who is also v pretty).

Yvette takes them to an old house and then tries to make them scared by saying that lots of people DIED HORRIBLY there and also that lots of other people have seen GHOSTS!!! She then has an impromptu séance and asks the ghosts to make a noise or go “wooooo!” or something. Yeah right, like you are going to obey Yvette sodding Fielding if you’ve been cursed to walk the earth for eternity. Anyway, an obliging production assistant knocks on the wall and the girls all start squealing and swearing like troopers. Ha ha! Nicola sensibly goes to sit in the car, Sarah has a nervous breakdown, Kimberley looks vaguely sarcastic (good for her) and Cheryl decides to bravely confront the ghosts in a Buffy stylee, which is quite funny too (“Why are you so angry, mon, why aye” etc). They turn the lights out and go to night vision, so that all the young lovelies look like dead eyed zombies and there is more nonsense with people banging things and poking them from a distance. Yet more Blair Witch style squealing and comedy swearing. This was set to go on for two whole hours but I bailed out after 30 minutes. It was all total drivel but I suppose it was nice to see that the girls genuinely did seem to get on well – if it had been the Sugarbabes there would have been a corpse in the room when they turned the lights back on!

PS. If someone tells me that they actually did unmask a dastardly caretaker in the last bit I will be very annoyed!

The X Factor - We've Got a Semi-On!

There are many things in life that promise much and fail to deliver: losing your virginity, Razorlight gigs, David Tennant as Doctor Who and the England Cricket team (gutless!) to name but a few. So as we reach the penultimate show in this Parade of Pointlessness that is the X Factor Series 3, must this be added to the list. The final three are the most uninspiring bunch since the Pop Idol when the finalists were Michelle McFatness and Mark, who is so boring I cannot even recall his surname, or the last line-up of the Celebrity Jungle thing where I literally only knew four of them.

To business. There is no theme this week, other than "Songs that make me want to kill Ray", and they are each singing two songs. Kate opens things up by bringing on the acts with their judges, thus LouLou is sat on his own at the desk, Ha Ha! Once again we are reminded that these acts face the dreadful possibility of going home to their normal jobs if voted out, so it is up to us to prop up their ridiculous notion of having a proper career in the music industry by voting for them.

FuckOffRay kicks us off, singing "I've Got A Shit-Eating Smile", looking like a Rat Pack Chucky Doll. He once again looks and performs like the type of person whose mother would dress him up in Lederhosen to go to a birthday party. It is competent, but dreadful, and I fear I cannot write objectively about this person in any way anymore, so my apologies. As my mate pointed out, his performances are a white scouse version of Carlton from The fresh Prince of Bel Air (© Joel Sidney 2006).

Twirly-haired Leona is up next to sing another bloody 90s ballad, because obviously we haven't heard enough of these have we? She does it very well, again, but are we really learning anything about her here? We know she can do gymnastic vocal scanning and I for one doubt she will be building her career on this music, but Simon obviously thinks this is a vote winner, which is really what it is all about when you've got a semi-on.

Ben, unlike the other two, has spent the whole duration of this series getting worse and looking less arsed with every passing week, in between bouts of moaning like a whale with a harpoon through its kidney. Looking at his song selection this week it seems that both he and Sharon have had enough and both want to go home. He kicks off with the uber-dirge to end all dirges, Bryan Adams' soporific vomit-fest "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" and it sounds just like what it is , a high-end pub singer singing a low rent movie ballad which, relative to Leona's performance, sounds even worse than that.

End of Act I, most people are now surely watching the Dancing on the other channel.

Back to the beginning of the Loop of Inadequacy we go, with FuckOffRay coming on to give us the finale of the musical Carousel and Red Scouse Anthem "You'll Never Walk Alone". He spends practically the whole song singing through a stream of perfectly formed tears rolling down his sickly apple cheeks. But why was he crying?

(a) His mind was full of thoughts of the Carousel finale, with Julie singing the song following the tragic death of Billy Bigelow

(b) The sheer hysteria of the semi he has on got to him

(c) He has his hand in his pocket pinching his balls with sharp tweezers to cynically tap into the Hillsborough disaster emotions and the hearts and fingers of the voting public

Answers to nowplease@fuckoffray.com

On to Leona, who is having a go at "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", as made famous once more by staple Radio 2 fodder and dead person Eva Cassidy. It was again technically very good, but surely she must get some upbeat stuff to do in the final? Eh? Oh. She was crying as well.

No doubt Ben wants to cry as he has to follow all of this emotion by no doubt gruffly shouting a version of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", which he duly does. Why did they give him this song? If Sharon had given him "Angel Of Harlem" he would have rocked the joint with it, instead everyone was forced to listen to what sounded like rusty nails being shaken slowlyin a sieve whilst someone played 80s delay guitar in the background - the musical equivalent of Prince's Beef Paste on Mighty White bread.

That's it, Kate goes though the usual nonsense and then hands over to the giant embolism of fag smoke and vitriolic disdain that is the British Public to cast their votes.


RESULTS SHOW

Kate returns, and would you believe it - it is the closest and largest vote in the history of the civilised world! The morons at home have literally made their thumbs bleed on the repeat-dial button to offer an opinion on who they despise the least out of this shower. However as always there is more time for us to give money to Syco Productions vote, whilst we listen to the super-special guest!

Gloria Estefan, who I'm sure used to be able to sing, comes on and tunelessly quacks her way through a medley of her greatest and cheesiest hits. And then, to business...

In no particular order Leona is through, quite why they have to mention the order is a bit strange as there is a safe person, then a bottom two, is not adequately explained. This leaves a bottom two of FuckOffRay and Ben, once again Kate tells us that this is in no particular order, and I would guess she has no particular brain function if she thinks that makes sense. The final act through and thus in the Final is....FuckOffRay!! A great number of people are going to pay for this one day...

So Ben is off home to try and have a career for about 6 months before going back to his tent business. The final is between two of Simon's acts.

The nation is close to the end of this thoroughly dispiriting ordeal by television, plus I'll get my saturday nights back and will no longer get irate emails from people demanding to know where the update is! Sorry it was late by the way...

STRICTLY COME DANCING: SAMBA TO HELL
Lots of gubbins about how this is the hardest SCD EVAH! The dancers pour praise on their celebrity victims, and nobody mentions the tabloids.

Bosomwatch: After a couple of really good weeks, the InterContinental Breastly Missiles are back, under an asymmetric blue clingy affair that most right-thinking mothers - even beautiful ex-models - would put back in the wardrobe with a regretful sigh. I spend the whole show expecting (and indeed hoping) that guns would pop out of her breasts and mow Brucie down in a hail of bullets.

We're down to four couples this week, so they each have to do one dance each. I think it's one ballroom + one latin, so we get to see Ramps in a penguin suit, and Ramps in something sparkly, see through and v-necked to the point of obscenity. My cup runneth over.

Lovely Ramps
Waltz: very swoopy and romantic. Karen's sparkly bustier + big net skirt nearly envelops Love Rat Ramps's legs, but the Italian judge calls him Prince Valiant. I think that's a compliment. All 9's for that one!

Jive: Oh no. Why do they make the contestants over 30 do this one? Ramps thrusts manfully to Elvis, but loses his way a bit in the finger clicking, leg kicking part. The stoppy starty choreography doesn't help. Even Arlene takes him to task for being a bit stompy and shit and making a mistake. Mutters from the Ramps camp opposite the judges.

Davetta
American Smooth: Poor old Davetta had a bit of a hard time tonight. Her ballroom dress was surprisingly chaste (for Davetta), but she American Smooths to the judges' satisfaction. Though Arlene says she should stretch her knees. eh?

Rumba: Oh this is such a wanky dance. I hate it. Vincent wears a horrible nylon v neck tunic that looks like something off Blakes 7 and they gimp around and try to be romantic. Davetta doesn't do very well.

Not quite as lovely Matt
Mr P remarks that the sports billies seem to have tapped into special reserves of sportsmanliness to raise their game. I agree. Though Matt's Viennese Waltz was a bit stodgy, and the judges didn't like it - Bitter Craig even gives him a 5. Ouch. Later on Matt says that he "wants a piece of Mark". Join the queue, mate.

Samba: Matt shows off his snake-hipped, Latino wiggly side in black and pink glitter and Lilia wears a wierd giant headband thing that makes her head look like a pumpkin. I don't really like this dance, esp the bit where the man grabs the lady from behind and then they act like a helicopter or something. Len wasn't overwhelmed, which is probably a good thing. He's in a good mood tonight. All 8s from the judges.

Emma
Tango: Red suits her better than that black feathery Moulin Rouge thing she was wearing last week. Emma puts her mean face on, and the band play a stonking cover of a Nelly Furtado song that almost tempts me to take Nelly off my List of Death. But not quite.

BTW, can I just say that the Strictly Come Dancing band is fantastic? There, I just have.

Another bloody Rumba: Gah! She does OK and wears a pretty gold dress, but there's far too much posing and leg waving for my liking. I thought she was a bit hoofy in both dances, but the judges love her. Arlene says she has to watch her hips and be more sexy in the tango. Emma mentions that her boyfriend's watching (cut to Jade from Failed Boy Band Damage grinning under his Dohertyesque trilby).

The results show gives us a taster of the Argentine tango, which appears to involve lots of draping one's self around Brylcreemed males while they sulk around chairs. This week the two lowest-rated couples have to dance again for our votes. It is called a "dance off" which makes me think of the scene in the film of "Starsky and Hutch" but disappointingly they just have to repeat the best dance they did earlier. Davetta grins and throws herself about the floor, and then gets her dress caught on a heel right at the end. Emma pulls off a less hoofy tango, and the GBP votes Davetta out. There are tears all round and actually it is quite sad. Everybody hugs Davetta, and she's in danger of suffocation by Tess's dress, but she survives...

Will Mark's Love Rat Shame scupper his votes next week? I have a feeling that someone at NotW has a lot of money on Emma to win and is prepared to stop at nothing to get big winnings!!

NIGELLA’S FOOD P0RN XXXMAS SPECIAL

Making fun of Nigella is like shooting fish in a barrel, but that’s never stopped me before, ha ha! She is presenting her xmas special series and starts off by wibbling on about how she loves the fruity smells of Christmas. Me too, Nigella, me too! Then we quickly move onto the actual cooking part and have lots of shots of Nigella coyly explaining recipes from behind her raven tresses. Every single ingredient is “lovely”, “fantastic” “gorgeous” etc, so the simplest procedure becomes an orgy of hyperbole;

“Mmm, feel this Mother Pride loaf, it’s lovely, so soft and white. And now I’m opening the beans. They’re so orange and shiny and I love this glossy tomato sauce they come in. It’s so moist and thick….”

etc etc

The things she cooks all look quite easy, though they all look yummy and I would try any of them (mulled wine, mulled cider, gingerbread tree decs, glazed ham, xmas cake – not sure about putting chocolate in the latter though) I was hoping for some more imaginative things but hopefully they will come later in the show. We also get to envy her huge kitchen and check out her xmas decorations (her tree is a bit shit, to be honest).

Top three moments likely to make middle aged men want to touch themselves (in reverse order):

3: When Nigella eats anything
2: Nigella shows us her some of her cookery books and gets so excited that she does a sort of little shimmy that sets her bosoms-a-vibrating
1: Nigella is making mulled wine and passionately exclaims, “My little oranges are bobbing around!”

STRICTLY COME DANCING!!

Everyone is doing two dances this week and they’re all doing different ones, so I’m not going to even try and list them all. Tess Daly passes bodice inspection for the fourth week in a row, so it seems safe to say that the costume designers have got the hang of her norks now.

There are lots of shots of the celebs looking tired and tripping over their own feet while the professionals throw their hands up in despair. Everybody is dead serious and goes on about how hard it is. I'm sure it is, but then so is an eight hour shift on the tills in Tescos, and you don't get to wear an entire bird sanctuary up your bum.

Lovely Mark
They start off doing the foxtrot – I don’t really understand the USP of this dance and I am none the wiser when they are done as it is a pretty poor showing. Disjointed and oddly choreographed. They are slagged off by the judges and get 7s – pretty shit for this part of the tournament. Nooo! Mark can’t go yet!!

The next dance is the samba and this is much better. Mark busts out the unbuttoned glittery shirt, gets his considerable groove on and funkily shakes his hips, while Karen pulls mad faces and jiggles around him. They get 9s from all the judges – phew, perhaps he’s safe after all!

Slightly less lovely Matt
Matt has a similar experience to Mark this week, with one good dance and one shit one. The good one is the ballroomy one, which is possibly a quickstep only I can’t remember it. Oh well. They get good marks anyway

The next one is the goddamn rumba. I am always going on about how much I hate this dance so I won’t do it again (whoops, too late!) Anyway, Cabbie Len speaks for all of us when he says that there are not enough actual dance steps and too much of Matt posing on his knees and Lilia posing with one leg stuck in the air. Heh. They get 7s too. Doh.

Davetta
I don’t like the way that Davetta seems to wear less and less each week. They are really pandering to the jailbait factor. Also, when Tess speaks to her she acts as though Davetta is 3 or something. Just because she’s half your height doesn’t mean that she’s retarded, Tess!

The first dance is the Viennese Waltz and there is lots of ponceing around and not much actual waltzing in it. The judges tell them off for that but then still give them excellent marks.

The next one is possibly the samba and seems to mainly consist of Davetta rubbing her arse against Vincent Slime-oni’s crotch. Vom. The judges say that she is cheeky and saucy and give her fab marks again. Dammit.

Baby Spice
Emma starts off with a waltz too. The judges cream themselves about how romantic it is and how it tells a story (plot: Emma is dancing soppily with a man with a bad haircut. The end.) I think it is quite boring though I am not a huge fan of the waltz anyway. They don’t do anything wrong though, so ho hum. 9s all round!

For the next one they are doing the paso doble (or as I like to think of it; the gay bullfighting one) Emma is gussied up in a hideous short black outfit that makes her look like a plump Vampirella. She stomps and grimaces while Haircut minus 100 toreodorks around her and stamps his feet. The judges love it again, but the audience, and I, do not as she ends up in the bottom two. Gasp!!

Carol Smillie
My boyfriend used to irrationally hate Carol Smillie, but after watching her on this show he likes her now. Hurrah! The first dance could very well be one of the waltzes (can you tell that I didn’t take any notes this week!) and Carol looks glamorous in a sparkly red dress. She does very well and gets her first two nines. Good for her!

The next one is the samba or salsa or something and Carol continues her tradition of having very many feathers coming out of her arse. She can’t really pull off the sexy latin vibe but she is very game and attacks all the moves and does quite well. She gets more nines but gets the boot anyway. Such a shame as she had finally transformed herself from Portsmouth FC last season to Portsmouth FC this season. Carol takes the news with the same dignity that she took her numerous slaggings off. Oh no, who is going be the subject of my tortuous football metaphors now???

The X Factor - How Manilow can you go?

It's the Final Fantastic* Four (*Shite). This week we have the pleasure of the company of Barry Manilow, a man whose face appears to be that of a normal person's reflected in the back of a spoon and the acts will be doing a song of his plus a song that have picked all on their own selves.

Kate comes on looking like a bewigged aubergine with 2 eye-slits cut into it, and we are once again reminded that it is "our vote alone!" that can give this largely undeserving bunch of charmless people with questionable talent a recording deal.

We kick off with the MacDiablos, singing the execrable "Can't Smile Without You" which is possibly the most nauseatingly sickly of all of the Conk's songs, which when you consider the rest of his catalogue is sicklier than being force fed melted Fererro Rocher through a hosepipe. Anyway, it is as you expect, a competent performance that is about as interesting Clif Richard's views on royalties law, and sounds exactly like lift music. The Dark One will however ensure their passage obviously.

Next up is Ray, and there is much talk about how he showed he could sing last week, which is fair enough I suppose. Manilow tells him that to make "Mandy" live he must imagine that he is singing to Mandy only, whoever Ray's Mandy may be. I thought it was a weak performance and he struggled with knowing where to breathe. I assume it was weak as he is still inexperienced with the ladies so his Mandy was a wank-sock at home in his bedroom that probably still has Power Rangers wallpaper.

Ben is next, with his usual preamble where he moans and moans about how tough it is and how he wants this more than anything in the world etc etc etc. Shut your face you insufferable tosser! He then sings "I Made It Through the Rain" and it was totally unconvincing, sounding like Axl Rose attempting the love theme from some low-rent braoadway musical. Why everyone thinks this bloke is so good I have no idea.

Leona comes on looking very pretty in a cute outfit and she sings "Could It Be Majic". It is vocally outstanding (again), she moves like a Thunderbird puppet being operated by Stephen Hawking (again), and the judges adore her (again). Quite right too, she is the only real talent in this show.

End of Act 1. Barry makes some obsequeous noises about everyone being aces and we move into Act II - In which they have picked their own songs.

The MacDiablos enter again, this time doing "Shang a Lang", complete with Tartan ties, tartan lighting and tartan scarves in the crowd. It is truly, excruciatingly awful, but also good fun and I fear they may stay in after this, they will then get a recording contract and the Necromanser will send his message throughout the world via bland cover versions. Take Heed!!

Ray decides to sing "My Way" (oh I wonder why). This is not a song for a 19 year old to be singing at all, least of all a nineteen year old whose "Way" has involved being stroked with sickly affection and indulgence by his cloying parents and 'professional scouse' family only to then be foistered upon us every week as some kind of miniature Satan every saturday. By the way, if anyone thinks I'm being harsh about his parents should know that in an interview it turns out that the reason Ray auditioned is beacuse he asked his parents what they want for their birthday and they said "Go for the X Factor, to get you talent truly seen". I rest my case.

Ben has taken the calculated and cynical brave decision to sing a capella, however there are levels of a capella and this one involves a 75 strong gospel choir as backing, mmm. His version of "Somebdy To Love" is alright, certainly better than his first effort anyway. Everyone says how brave he is at the end. NEXT!

Leona finishes us off with "Without You", and it sounded like every other ballad that she has done and showed us nothing we didn't know.

Kate hands over to the congealed pustule of barely hidden xenophobia that is the British Public to make their decision....

RESULTS SHOW

It's once again the biggest vote ever in the world, zzzzzzzz.

Manilow comes on singing some song that was so dull I can't remember it ansd he appears to dance exaclty like Kermit the Frog.

At last the results arrive. In no particular order Ray goes through first - will someone please think of the children! Leona goes through next, thank the Lord, leaving a Bottom Two of the MacDiablos and Ben. There is no judge selection nonsense this week so we go straight to those with the lowest votes and it's the MacDiablos!! So it would seem that the He Who Walks Backwards will not corrupt the world via these lads and he'll have to have another go with Journey South....

The X Factor - Music From The Fillums!

It's "music of the movies" week, and to add to the film theme the contestants have been sent to a premiere this week, with accompanying VT and talking-head rhetoric about 'giving me a taste of the life I want' and 'made me realise I deserve this', and 'look at how all the poor people with their wretched lives of drudgery and futility worship me'. Kate reminds us that this is now the Final Five and that it is more important then ever to get your pudgy, water-retaining fingers to dial the number of your favourite act. This does not apply to me as I no longer have a favourite act, and watching this show is like watching a tranquilised elephant slowly fall to its knees as people point and laugh at the great behemoth's plight. Each act is doing 2 songs each tonight.

Anyhoo, kicking is off is Leona, who has gone for the urban stylee clothes and looks good for it actually, amidst all that frock wearing and warbling she has been doing so far it is easy to forget she is still a teenage girl. She is having a go at "Lady Marmalade" and it's pretty good actually. I warmed to her much more during this and it finally made me see that she is head and shoulders above everyone else, not just technically but with regards potential in the current market. They also took the wise decision to make her stand pretty still and let women in basques and fishnets gyrate around, it seems the penny enscribed 'Leona Can't Dance' has finally dropped.

The MacDiablo Brothers are next up , and they have taken the logical step of singing a Ronan Keating song, seeing as he is also celtic, a protege of LouLou, plus eye-wateringly bland and awful. Their version of "When You Say Nothing At All" is so soporific it could send a glass eye to sleep, whilst at the same time it is not awful either - which is probably why they keep being voted in.

It is almost like Sharon has given up with Ben, as the songs this week are dire, with his first offering being "Live and Let Die". He is at the piano again, and his delivery accompanied with cheesy pyrotechnics make him look and sound like some low-rent, Benidorm Meat Loaf act. He even looks slightly embarrassed for himself and like his heart isn't in it.

Eton Road need a marked improvement on last week now that we are in The Final Five, Simon says on the VT. They are attempting the Solomon Burke classic "Everybody Needs Somebody (To Love)", and it goes OK - but once again Molko's solo sections are shockingly camp, which is not bad in itself it just makes little sense in a cute looking boyband. It worked with Take That, but they were actually meant to look and sound gay at the beginning. Simon is not impressed, and blames it all on LouLou for picking Bad Songs. LouLou then has a big hissy strop and says that he's going to turn Eton Road into the next big boy band whatever happens and that they should pay no attention to nasty Simon because he smells. I'm pleased for them actually as I think this competition is not right for their type of group (is it right for any group really?) . This also means that they might as well come out and fart the The Frog Chorus for their second song as no-one will vote them as it seems they already have a deal in the bag.

And where would this show be without our installment of reverse-samson, chucky-cocked, minge-midget Ray, with his shit eating grin and his paedophile arousing act? Maybe we'd still be listening to Robert, instead of sitting through this bilge every week that's where! During the VT about his day out to a film premiere, he refers to himself constantly in the third person as "Quinny" as in 'Quinny's here everyone, yeah!' Just when you think it is impossible to despise someone any more, they surprise you with something like this... Anyway, he does "The Way You Look Tonight", and it's OK-ish - as long as you don't look at his stupid gurn-grinning face at any point.

End of Act 1. Slight intermission for Westler's hot dogs and Kia-Ora

And back we go again to the beginning for Leona to warble the archetypal "good singer totally overdoing it" song, 'I Will Always Love You'.

Dear Leona,

Please stop singing ballads, please stop scanning all around the melody, please learn to sing a note without vibrato, please cover up those big calves.

Yours, Lee

The MacDiablos continue to mine their rich vein of bland obviousness by singing '(I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles'. I was truly amazed at this, as I didn't think that anyone could make this song sound dull, but they somehow managed it. Incredibly, Simon liked it! Most probably because their satanic guardian had threatened him with an eternity in the fires of hell if he didn't start being a bit more positive.

Ben is back at the Piano Of Questionable Value to give us 'Your Song', Elton John's dirge classic. Again he looks about as interested as a puritan on the Guinness brewery tour and sounds totally pub-like, and if he's got what it takes to make the final of this then someone better ring Don Henley and tell him the time is right to make his return.

Another Elton John song is served up by Eton Road, as they give us "Can You Feel The Love Tonight", a song written by Elton about lions whilst he was in the nadir of his First Hair-Weave period. It is pretty bland, the lad with the shaved head really can't sing very well and someone really needs to turn down Molko's mike as all you can hear in the chorus is his Minelli-Cabaret overwrought warbling. But, as I said below it doesn't matter as LouLou is going turn them into a jumpers wearing bland ballad band, if his previous form is anything to go by.

Ray finishes with 'Jailhouse Rock' as I gently finger my shotgun and use every ounce of willpower within me to not take my revenge on the stupid public.

Phew, it was a long one tonight. Kate hands over to the oleaginous pulp of white flesh and blocked vessels that is the British Public to once again waste their hard earned money on this slowly dying Circus of Mediocrity.


RESULTS SHOW

Kate returns to tell us that we have registered the biggest vote in the history of the show, which once again has me pawing at my shotgun. She introduces the bizarre Il Divo who belt out a ridiculous version of 'Without You', but they actually sing "No se, como vivir no con tigo" I think.

Results time, and Ray is first safe, at which point I shoot the dog, the Bottom Two are Ben and Eton Road. Following the sing-off, which confusingly they said they were not going to have last week, both acts stand next to Kate and the judges speak their words. Sharon is crying like a beauty pageant winner (ie pretending) and sends home Eton Road. LouLou is all humpy and says it doesn't matter what happens as Eton Road will be standing up off stools to cover versions of Toni Braxton songs within a year, and sends home Ben. Simon then labours his decision with some time-filling bollocks about not knowing what to do until the producers hold up a sign saying "Stop pretending you are conflicted, credits in 20 seconds", and he sends home Eton Road. Molko cries, as we see the band's X Factor journey and his personal journey from 4 stone to 10 stone judging by the pictures!

Manilow week next week, which means Ray is going to sing "Copa Cobana" and you are all going to pay for your lack of vision...

STRICTLY COME DANCING: another fortnight, another rumba
All slackness is Sarah's fault. Sorry!

Bosomwatch. Much much better this week. A rather nice blue satin confection that minimises the shoulders and makes the cleavage look classy rather than brassy.

Dances this week it is all over the place, with everyone seemingly doing a completely different dance. I am confused.

Cha Cha Cha - lots of wiggling and arm waving and running about. The women wear tight dresses with bits cut out of them and tassles in strategic places. Men wear the standard shirt cut open to navel.

Tango - the national dance of Argentina, if you believe the hype. Lots of stalking about with a slightly pissed-off expression, then pretend slaps, leg waggling and the woman gets thrown roughly to the floor in a final act of passion (probably so the man can go off and watch football or bullfighting or whatver the hell it is they do for fun in Argentina).

Waltz - I think this has fewer ruffles and less spinnery than the Austrian Waltz. Or maybe they're not supposed to eat strudel before the dance? Cabbie Len talks about "rise and fall" and there's lots of swaying and sweeping about in big dresses.

Rumba - More wiggling and booty shaking, as far as I can see, though mainly it is just standing around and pointing. This is supposed to be a "romantic" dance, so it basically reminds me of the kind of expressive dancing they do on X-Factor when the X-muppet sings a soppy ballad.


Baby Spice
This was hmmm...well OK: they bounced about and grinned a lot, but it didn't set the floor on fire. Bit of an Arsenal UEFA Cup performance from Baby and Mr Bad 80s haircut. Have the wheels fallen off the Baby Spice bandwagon???

Claire Bad Girl
Oh for crying out loud, producers. We know Brendan's a bit of a bastard, and we know that Claire answers him back, so please stop showing us shots of Brendan being a bastard and Claire answering him back. Considering these two are supposed to be the raunchy couple, their tango was about as raunchy as a night out in Lechlade and Claire looked uncertain and hesitant rather than haughty and tempestuous.

Lovely Ramps
Don't. Mention. The. Cricket.
Mark's getting intense and worried about the "intimate" nature of the rumba. I'm not surprised, if I had Karen's perky little face staring passionately into mine, I'd be a bit scared too. Anyway, they did quite well, and Ramps was brave enough not to wax his chest, for which Mark is v grateful.

Carol Smillie
She did good. She was worried about looking like an idiot in her cutaway dress, but she rumbaed like a good 'un and finally broke the big 3 0 (in terms of marks anyway, she passed that age barrier EONS ago. Meow!).

Matt Dawson
Talk about a Damascene conversion! There he is, practising the moves at home, reading Fred Astaire biographies rather than watch his own side being tonked by the All Blacks (actually there was probably a barbed comment at Andy Robinson in there). Then on the floor he's all smiles and swoopiness. Cabbie Len loves it. Arlene tells him to watch his arms.

Davetta
Possibly the best tango, but then her partner is Argentine and the worlds best tangoer or something. This doesn't mean he dresses in orange and goes around slapping people, apparently, though Davetta's tequila sunrise dress might be the updated version. Davetta goes to tango acting classes and they perform a stripped down "original" version, with Davetta actually looking quite authentic - like a slightly scared novice prostitute who can dance a bit.

Peter Schmeichel
I can't remember what dance he does - a slow ballroomy one i think. It is OK but not good enough to save him from the chop. Peter resignedly says that he knew he would get the chop as it is birthday and bad things always happen on his birthday. Oh well, he was certainly one of the most gracious competitors that we've had on the show.

I missed the follwing week but Bad Girl Claire got the chop. hurrah - I won't have to look at Brendon's horrid shiny face any more. Surely Carol will be next to go and then hopefully Davetta gets booted out, leaving Mark, Matt and Emma in the final three.

DORKWOOD

So I finally got round to watching the so called adult so called sexy spin off of Doctor Who and it was alriiighhht but not great. First of all we have the many resemblances to Buffy, where it turns out that there is a Hellmouth Dimensional Rift under Sunnydale Cardiff, which allows Demons aliens to roam free round Wales. Captain Jack (devoid of camp sauciness in the episode I saw) and his gang of minionators (girl with severe fringe, japanese girl, clerky bloke from Bleak House, other bloke) have to put an end to such shenanigans, while all wanting to shag each other. Or something.

The one I saw was kind of like the Wrexham Chainsaw Massacre, with cannibalistic nastiness going on in a Remote Welsh Village. At first we think it is scary monsters doing all the person-eatin’ but, in a non shocking twist it turns out to be the villagers. In a further non shocking twist, it turns out that the local coppers are in on it too. I guessed that was going to happen the very second that a police car appeared. Perhaps as part of their special ops training the Torchwoodeers should all be forced to watch a bunch of clichéd horror films. In the end all the minionators are captured and while the cannibals are busy not slaughtering and eating them Capt Jack rides to the rescue and shoots all the baddies in an orgy of slow mo and snappy editing. It is all surprisingly nasty for a beeb production, with some very well done slaughterhouse sets but this does not get away from the fact that nothing really bad happens to any of the main characters. The whole point of films like "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is that lots of the main characters die in unpleasant ways! There is a random passer by bloke who is caught up in the mayhem and even he doesn’t get killed and turned into a nummy snack for the Welsh Wrong’uns. What this programme needs is a bunch of redshirts. Stat!

The X Factor: Number Ones stinking like Number Twos

Here we go again, and this week only the cream of the crop that have risen to the top of the hit parade in this sceptred isle are to be sung. Quite a selection to pick from I'm sure you'll agree, so how we ended up with this bucket of rancid mess is beyond me - it is probably something to do with Westlife being the guests. Oh and tonight's running row between LouLou and Simon is that Simon has been in America all week, and not keeping and eye on his acts in the shower as LouLou has, by the end of the show you will be very bored with this.

Kate saunters on with the now familiar look in her eye that tells us she is about to lose her job at the end of this series, and reminds us that only 6 acts remain and that Simon's company each one needs your money votes in order to buy a new yacht survive. Each judge conveniently has 2 acts and we kick off with everyone's favourite chucky-faced, lego-haired, shit-eating grinned, reverse-Samson...

Ray is doing something different this week, I pray that instead of swing the "something " is to do a Jim Rose Circus Sideshow type act involving beating himself about the neck and face with a vinegar soaked bat with nails through it. Alas, he has chosen to sing "Livin' La Vida Loca!" instead. They have dressed him in very tight clothing and what appears to be winkle picker shoes, which makes him look like an action man that has been shrunk in the wash, and he once again minces about like a schoolboy doing a cringingly awful impression of a teacher at an end of term concert. Thing about Ricky Martin is, even though he is blatantly as gay as Christmas, he could do raunchy very well, and the thing with Ray is that he can't. At all. Ever. And the whole point of doing hip thrusts is to make the opposite sex feel like they want you to do it to them - Imagine that little tosser sweating and heaving atop you eh girls? He looks ridiculous, and his vocal was dodgy, although I think this is a harder song to sing than people give credit for. Sharon was correct at the end when she said he is like "panto boy", although I prefer to pronounce it "awful bastard".

Why oh why of why did they give Robert the awful "You Are Not Alone" to Sing? Surely Sharon must realise that it was a terrible song to start with, and added to this everything associated with Michael Jackson is now tainted and doomed (apart from Off The Wall, that is still a belter of an LP). The beginning is a bit poor as the backing track is full of synthesiser pips, peeps and boings, but once the gospel choir rip in and Robert opens his lungs it picks up. The judges are very complimentary, even Simon.

Eton Road have finally been given a decent song this week with "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" by the Scissor Sisters being served up. I was looking forward to this, but made a schoolboy error in forgetting Rule number one about the X Factor (see Eton Rd from last week). It was pretty terrible actually, the chorus in particular sounded like three blokes talking in unison whilst a eunuch town crier screeched in the background. Obviously LouLou was sucked into thinking that anyone camp with a falsetto can sing Scissor Sisters - which does them a great dis-service. They had no choreography at all this week, which makes me think that they actually can't dance at all and as much as I like these lads they keep being rubbish, which is leading me to believe that they are actually not very good and are guilty of flattering to deceive - Molko being the prime suspect.

Leona is next up to give us her version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water". Before this even started I knew what this would be like, and was not proved wrong. Started off soft and whispery with far too much vibrato, got a bit louder and by the end she was jumping around the octaves, in and out of falsetto and waving her arms about (with far too much vibrato). I thought it was rubbish personally, again her vocal quality is great but these songs are not a training session, they are meant to be an emotional rendition that connects with the audience. I liken it to those freestyle footballers who can do 3000 keep ups using every part of their body, sure it's impressive, but none of them will score a goal in a World Cup Final will they? The judges rave again, she cries again...

So they have finally caved in and give Ben Joe Cocker's "With A Little Help From My Friends", thus in my eyes cementing exactly what he is. He is on the piano again, and dressed in what has become his weekly uniform of black shirt, boot-cut jeans and boots. It was basically exactly like Joe Cocker and if he hadn't also been playing piano, it would have been even more so. Simon thought it was great and wants a Ben vs Leona Final, which he feels would be "the television event of the year"! Of course it would, schedulers pray to every God they believe in for a contest between a sub-Mariah Carey warbler and a dull Soft Rock spewing coke-head don't they?

And finally we come to The MacDiablo Bros, a very boring pair singing a very boring song in what is fast becoming a very boring competition. Their version of "Love Is All Around" made me so bored I nearly shat concrete, they can sing in tune but they are so monotone it is ridiculous, they can't hit any impressive notes and they do the same harmonies in EVERY SONG. They are the musical equivalent of being slowly drizzled on at a church fete. However none of that matters as they are Lucifer's chosen ones are have a personal assistant who is dead ringer for Lance Henriksen in Omen II.

So that is it, unlike Vanessa Williams they saved the worst 'til last and Kate hands over to the clustered miasma of cigarette smoke and beery breath that is the British public, for them to make a no doubt idiotic decision...

RESULTS SHOW

I tuned in late for this and so mercifully missed Westlife crooning and getting up off stools in gloriously banal unison. The acts come back on and Kate trots out her mantra about the highest and closest vote in the history of the world ever. The first one safe is fucking Ray, then the MacDiablos (I am seriously losing my sense of humour about his now), then a once again weeping Leona, then Ben.

This leaves a bottom 2 of Eton Road and Robert to face the Final Sing-off of Mediocrity, Simon says he will base his decision on the performance. They are both about the same as before really and we pass over to the judges. Sharon talks about how they are both great and ace and the like but she has to send Eton Road home. LouLou starts crying (!?) at the injustice of it all, even though he's the one who keep championing that satanic Scottish pair, and sends home Robert. Simon then says that he is basing his decision on which act has the most potential to develop, thus not so much moving the goalposts as knocking down the stadium, and sends home Robert.

Robert takes it well but gets a little bit Darius-style ranty about recording an album.

Next week they are all singing two songs - that's twice the Ray and twice the MacDiablos for everyone! I anticipate my killing spree will start soon after...

MAKE ME A SUPERMODEL: THE FINAL WALK-OFF
Gosh, is this over already. Well, after many many tears, tantrums, made-up snogginess and pouting, the finalists are:

Albert
Despite only having one look, it is a very very good look and about as close to Blue Steel that a man can get. He is also well fit and quite nice.

Jen
I'm really pleased that the utterly gorgeous size 12 single mother from Wigan has beaten the skinny teens in personality, professionalism and the public vote. Mainly because the judges hate her so much, and also because her waist is only one inch smaller than mine, and my arse is wayyy smaller than that.

Luke
Boys like Luke are ten a penny in Croydon. But he's lovely, and he seems to enjoy the attention; even if he is a bit half-arsed about this so-called romance with Marianne.

Marianne
The vegan Danish girl cried when they cut her white blond locks into a very fetching pixie cut. Then spent the last week moaning about how Jen got the sympathy vote because she's "big" and Marianne has to justify being thin. No Marianne, Jen got the vote because she's a nice girl with a pretty face, and not a moaning little madam. Follows Luke around like a lost puppy.

The walk-offs have been hosted all series by Fearne Cotton - the embodiment of all that is wrong with Young People Today.

So, there's a catwalk. The models sashay down the catwalk in clothes of varying ridiculousness, and the friendsandrelations whoop like loons . At the end of the catwalk, the judges: Former Top Model Rachel Hunter; Some escapee from a Kylie video called Perou; Dylan Whatsisname from GQ; and a lady from Select Models.

In former weeks, we've had themes like "Marie Antoinette" (girdles, big wigs, cake); "Country(tweed and more tweed, saucy activities with rocking horses); "Goth" (black clothes, black wigs...accessorised with kids made up like Wednesday Addams..).

This week it's about "Hollywood Glamour". So the girls wear posh frocks: Marianne does that back-bent dragging head behind hips walk in a floor-length see-through thing and Nicole Kidman hair; Jen is in slimming sparkly black. The boys have forgotten their shirts again.

The judges praise Marianne's look, the glamour, the walk, the hair... and mumble something about Jen looking quite nice for a FAT LASS. Marianne is voted off. The judges look sad. Ha ha!

The next round is the swimwear round and the judges are getting desperate now. Jen is forced into three silver triangles that emphases the small boobage and round hippage, but still manages to look quite hot. The boys seem to wear hernia belts, black socks and brogues. As my nan used to say: "Is that the fashion?". Dylan abandons all pretence of politeness, and compares Jen to Diana Dors. You know, the FAT BIRD. Rachel just mumbles into the floor, and...it works. Bye bye Jen. Fearne is slightly embarrassed and keeps saying: "well at least you'll see your kid again, eh?"

The final walk off is trousers. What do male fashionistas have against shirts? Albert strolls up to the end like he really doesn't care and shoots the Blue Steel. Luke struts his funky stuff with The Magnum. Albert wins. But Select Models lady is giving both boys a contract because she can't stop hyperventilating over Luke. So what was the point again?

STRICTLY COME DANCING
The dances this week are as follows:

American Smooth – this one is a ballroom dance with a 1940s Hollywood stylee. There is leg kicking and the dancers are supposed to “break hold” and prance around separately for a bit. Also lifts are allowed, so no doubt Brendon is creaming his pants at the thought of that.

Samba – this is the quintessential latin type dance, with lots of shimmying, pointing and fast fancy footwork.

Bosomwatch – Tess is wearing a pretty red dress with a sensible fitted bodice that makes her breasts look like they are a normal shape for once.

Matt Matt’s partner arranges for an acting coach to come in to try and cure him of his half-arsedness. Cue comedy shots of Matt moo-ing like a cow and doing stupid acting exercises. It all works though and he actually manages to stop looking like he is waiting for a bus whilst American Smoothing

Baby Spice Emma does the Samba in a black and red feathery dress and after whining all week about how hard it is, does excellently as usual and gets great marks. Aye Carumba! I have looked v hard at her partner’s hair and, as an expert in shoddy men's barbering, think it is NOT a wig but more the result of having a very bad transition between the bits of hair that are cut with clippers and the bits that are cut with scissors.

Davetta off EE She apparently had a bratty fit last week after Craig told her she wasn’t attacking the moves enough. This week it is boxing lessons to improve her feistiness and it seems to pay off. Sleazy partner (who is less sleazy now, actually) devises an insanely fast and complicated routine which she just about pulls off (though it looks like she is being dragged around like a puppet half the time) and the judges tell him to chill the hell out in future.

Carol Smillie Carol is determined to break into UEFA Cup contention and masters some tricky lifts for her American smooth, only for the judges to say that she is still a “rough diamond” and needs to improve her arms, neck, shoulders etc etc. She looked pretty good to me but what do I know? Carol is gutted. I think the problem is that her (very tall, very gay looking) partner is not a great teacher and isn’t spending enough time on the basics.

Lovely Mark Ramprakash Apparently has trouble getting into the AS this week so brings on his adorable daughter and her dance class to cheer him up. Oh Mark! Isn’t it a bit early to be wheeling out the big guns?? You need to save the daughter malarkey for when the competition is really tight. Anyway, he looks as good as always (though the judges criticise some of his footwork) and gets pretty good marks (though not as good as usual). I would also like to mention his partner, who seems to be really enjoying dancing with him, is v enthusiastic/borderline hysterical and who has kind of a mad face. They make a pretty good pair, with him being so reticent and quiet.

Peter Schmeichel Peter is dancing the samba this week. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. It is as amusing and wooden as expected, with Peter sort of strolling around and doing the occasional shoulder shake while his partner does all the dancing. Everyone damns him with faint praise for being game for a laugh and say they look forward to his next ballroom dance. Um no, actually I am looking forward to his next latin dance. He gets terrible marks but the legions of Man U sheep fans save him to dance again.

Bad “Girl” Apparently Claire is sick of being called a dirty sex vixen and wants to demonstrate that she can be classy (ie not get her tits out) for this week’s American Smooth. One of her toenails falls out in rehearsal due to the rigours of wearing strappy high heeled shoes for weeks on end. Ew. In the dance she does pretty well and Brendon only does one lift – gasp!!! They get pretty good scores but still end up in the bottom two.

Ray off Corrie Ray does the samba and is OK but not great. He stands around a lot pointing and smirking while his partner twirls around like a highly feathered dervish. The judges all “expected better” and give him average marks and then are gutted when he gets the boot. Bye bye, Ray! I will miss your hunky arms!

The X Factor - This week, it's all about the Love..

This week's show ain't got nothing but love for yer as the final seven acts get down to the business of being shockingly mediocre for another week. Kate intoduces the show and is bedecked in a very lovely black dress this week, myself and the wife couldn't tell if it was simply a dress, or a dress/shrug combo - either way it was a belter, which is more than can be said for Kate herself..

Simon and LouLou seem to have made up after last weeks scripted falling out, and is all is ready for Ben to kick us off with the Power-Balladtastic "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing". However it seems that everyone is doing a "Going Back to my old Shitty Life" VT this week prior to singing. Ben spends the whole of his crying over footage of marquees being put up, as he tells how all he ever wanted to was music and once he even (GASP!) contemplated giving up, and if he has to go back to his old job then blah blah blah weep weep. What a load of bollocks, and considering most of the viewing audience have to face their own shitty jobs on Monday morning then rather ignorant as well if you ask me. He is playing a guitar this week, which when combined with his ability to play the piano sends him into the musical stratosphere as far the The X Factor is concerned, however he appears to me to be miming it. Anyway it starts badly, he then stands up off his stool as the drums (with obligatory soft-rock reverb) come in and it gets one peekogram better. It then spirals down through the floor into the shit-cellar as he sings to a couple of poor women in the audience about 2 inches from their face, and when he returns to the stage there is a front fan blowing his hair back and dry ice sloshing about. It was bloody awful and worthy of the Cardigan Room at Butlin's, Pwllheli. Simon has it right when he says that is was a bit bland and the crying on the VT was silly and unnecessary.

The MacDiablos are up next singing "She's The One", and they do an Ok job of it. To be fair to them they are always in tune and their harmonies are nice, but the are just very mediocre, bland and lacking in chemistry. I would've thought that since they have obviously done a deal with devil to stay in every week that Old Nick would've given them a bit of snazz, pizazz and jizz-jazz, but it is not to be. LouLou says that it was their best week yet, which is a bit like saying it's better to have your hand trapped in a slamming car door than have it sliced off with a rusty hacksaw.

Everyones favourite lego-haired, pig-nosed, chucky-faced midget Ray is next, singing Iron Maiden's "2 Minutes to Midnight", oh sorry I mean fucking swing again! He is dressed like 'Mini Pops does Rat-Pack' (again) and doing "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". Everything he does is extremely proficient in his defence, but he looks exactly like that precocious 12 year old who gets the lead part in all the school plays and whose parents make him stand up to do songs and impressions at family parties, much to the chagrin of the rest of the family who want to punch him. I agree with LouLou on this one, in that I cannot see him being a recording artist, I can however see a future for him doing winter season in Great Yarmouth in a Jimmy Clitheroe tribute.

Nikitta is up next singing Donna Summer's "Last Dance", she is not really flat at all this week, she is however still nasal, but credit to wardrobe as they finally put her in a decent frock. She talks about her mum in her VT beforehand and we get another look at the Auntie who Sharon got rid of in favour of the weeping wheelchair woman and credit to Nikitta, she didn't do any crying. She once again stomps round like Peter Schmeichel trying to so Salsa (bless him!), and it was all very forgettable, unfortunately for her.

When I heard Eton Road were doing The Beatles "From Me To You" this week I was little disappointed as I would've preferred something a bit more modern from them, but I was still looking forward to it. Rule Number 1: Never have expectations of the X Factor. It was pretty shocking, they all came on dressed as members of 'Dexy's Midnight Runners' meets 'Half A Shilling', and looked liked they had been choreographed by whoever did Buck's Fizz for Eurovision, only without the flair for ripping off clothes. The vocals were OK but they all just sang together meaning no unique voice could be made out, at least not until it all just suddenly stopped and Molko sang the bridge in the style of a castrated hyena. Lou Lou wants shooting for this, these lads can sing, they look good and they all went to dance school - this arrangement and sub-Stylistics level dance routine is a disgrace.

Leona's VT showed her going back to the solicitors in which she used to work, and then crying, it also showed her seeing her family, and then crying, then more crying - pull yourself together mard-arse! She belts out a stunning vocal performance of "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word", however I have to say she still leaves me cold, as much as I admire her technical ability. However, she really needs to tone down on the vibrato0o0o0o0o and the end of every liIiIiIiIiIne, as it is very irritating. Simon comes over all Soccer A.M and says she was "World Class".

And finally it's Robert. His VT shows him going back to the 'Orspital where he works and spending time with his family, who it would seem are no strangers to the KFC Bargain Bucket. He tells us how the song he is singing, "Always & Forever", he also sang at his sisters funeral so it means a lot to him. There is no mention of how she died, so we must draw our own conclusions. I thought his was the performance of the night personally, absolutely raw with emotion (well as much as an 80s soul song by 'Heatwave' can be) and a fabulous vocal delivery. Simon said it has put him "right back in this competition" (drink!). Robert does a small speech about how it was for anyone who has ever loved a lover in a loving way through love, or something.

Kate wraps up and hands the decision over to the pasty globule of massed latent heart disease that is the British Public.

RESULTS SHOW

Kate is back on, and apparently it's been the closest vote in the history of the show, with the stupid public literally stuffing money into Simon Cowell's high slung pockets via their telephones.

This week's special guest is Julio Double-Glesias, here to plug his new album of love songs, and he has a stab at "I Wanna Know What Love Is". Now I'm struggling to find the words to describe how really awfully bad it was, although I know that baffling, abject and execrable must figure in it somewhere. Once this freakshow has moved on, it's results time!

Long story short the MacDiablos are through again, and Ray (hurrah!) and Nikitta (meh..) are in the bottom two and face the Sing-Off Showdown of Righteousness and Truth! Nikitta is actually a bit better this time around, and Ray hits critical level on the "Punch Me" scale.

Sharon saves Ray, LouLou saves Nikitta. Simon thinks for ages and a row nearly breaks out in the crowd between the hecklers, he then makes noises about the audience possibly being bored with Ray. He then says "I've changed my mind, I'm sending Nikitta home", nobody is actually sure what he changed his mind from or why. To Nikitta's credit she deals with it all stoically and with great maturity for an 18 year old, pay attention Leona!

See you next week, when maybe Louis will finally get Eton Road a decent song.

AMERICAN TELLY!!

Well I have an excuse for being slack as I have been on holiday in New York! We had the telly on every now and again but the only things that stood out were...

DANCE WITH THE STARS!!
This is the US version of Strictly Come Dancing and the format is exactly the same only slighty more American and with more filler. Cabbie Len and Bruno are on the judging panel with a pretty American lady. When they give their votes they stand up and shout "TEN!!!!" The three remaining competitors were some older ex footballer bloke, Joey Lawrence (whom I vaguely recall as a teen TV star with a mullet and a v short pop career - now he is v bald and muscley and kept going on about god and his family. vom) and a v plasticky/handsome young latino guy I had never heard of. Joey was eliminated ha ha. Hot latino guy to win!!

FASHION HOUSE
Oh my god, this was hilariously bad. It basically stars Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild (looking like a laminated version of Paris Hilton these days) as fashion designers who are rivals in business! and love! The plot makes no sense. At one point Bo is hiding in hospital with a fake heart attack and Morgan is trying to stab her with a syringe, next thing Bo is having catfights with gang girls in prison. Eh? In between there are many scenes of Bo and Morgan slapping each other, scenes where pretty girls talk about stuff and try unsuccessfully to make sad/troubled/devious facial expressions and scenes where hunky men talk about stuff and then stare at each other intensely as though they are about to start gaying up (though they sadly don't). Basically anything not involving slapping is like the bits of porn between sex scenes. I can't see any UK channel buying it, but it would work as a Prisoner Cell Block H style late night cult thing.

STRICTLY COME DANCING: IT TAKES TWO (TRIES)
We've been very bad and missed covering Bad Love Island Boy's "outburst", which only served to create more controversy that really put the disintegration of Iraqi society in a bloody civil war brought on partly by British and American intervention into perspective, I can tell you.

Brendan is convinced that the judges hate him. He's right. Arlene looks like she'd rather chew a million wasps than spend another minute in the same room as him. Over the past few weeks, Bad Girl Lady has been comparing Brendan with a recalcitrant labrador puppy, and Brendan's just ANGRY! To be honest, they've been a bit crap. The dances involve lots of posing and pacing about, with pointing and "foxy" looks from a barely-clad Bad Girl Lady.

Davetta's been secretly voting for Spice, or so her slimy partner says. I think it's all a stunt. Davetta has been doing quite well: she did a pretty good salsa, and her foxtrot was competent, but the spark seems to have gone.

I'd like to know what Carol Smillie has against birds. Nearly every outfit has featured feathers of some description, sticking out of her head, hemmed into her dress...again, another very Aston Villa performance over the past fortnight. Actually given the state of Aston Villa, I'd say a very Christian Gross-era Tottenham performance. Cute kids though.

Casualty Blonde finally got the chop. Her partner tried not to look pleased. Last week Jan Ravens pulled out all the stops: Viennese waltz with mega ruffles, winsome children in the front row, begging their mother not to fail. It didn't work. Poor old Anton had to drag her around the dance floor, and her hair made her look old. She made a tearful exit, and the papers featured a cross Mr Ravens. I don't know why he was cross, just that he was.

Baby Spice: It's a wig, I tells yer! She's damn good.

Mark Ramprakash. In the words of my Auntie Val: "Phwoarrrr..." The Pasa Doble was a bit of a comedy routine with capes being waved all over the place. Then they had to start the Salsa again because his microphone got caught up in his partner's sequins halfway through. Why he couldn't play cricket like this when the Aussies were tonking us big style, I'll never know. Actually he was rather good. Very good in fact. Just not as good as he is at dancing. To be honest, if we decided to play the Strictly Come Dancing Ashes, we'd probably still get trashed by some last minute bravura cape waving by Glenn McGrath. Not that we'll get trashed this year, oh no...[that's enough cricket talk - Ed].

Can't remember any of the others. They all did OK - enough to get through anyway.

Next week: back to proper updates, with special guest reviewers Mr P and Baby Ceej!

MAKE ME A SUPERMODEL UPDATE

The four worst models (English Rose, Brown Hair Helmut Boy, Swedish Blonde, Muscular Baldy) are put on warning and have to do extra humiliating tasks to prove their modelocity – in one bit they have to stand on boxes outside the Tate Modern and basically strip whilst passers-by throw monopoly money at them. Yikes. Muscular Baldy sensibly gets his 6-pack out at the earliest opportunity and Swedish Blonde surprises the judges by not whining. English Rose and Lego Hair get the boot. Buh bye models, we hardly knew you.

The boys are allowed to do face painting and play dressing up while the girls go on a shoot. I thought that those were activities to amuse 5 yr old children but never mind. The judges say that Hot Albert has an artistic streak. I hope this is secret code for GAY.

The girls go to Billingsgate Fish Market where a photographer called Lars tries to make them cry by making them pose on mounds of ice/dead fish etc. He has a regulation gay baldy potato face assistant. You just know they are making misogynistic comments re “fish” as soon as they are off camera. Dicks. Anyway, the girls take it like troopers, even the Swedish Blonde who is a vegan. Eritriean Girl is dressed up as a xmas tree decoration and has to lie on a pile of ice. Shelley Duval has to stab fishes with knives, which she does with disturbing relish.

Then they all have to do a task where they pretend to advertise products and have to talk about pro-v pentapeptides etc on camera. They are nearly all rubbish and Rachael Hunter tells them that if they are being paid £2million for a commercial they have to act like they mean it. Yeah right, as if Rachael “I am only famous for letting Rod Stewart bone me and now I am on Channel 5” Hunter ever earned that much.

Back at the Model Cave, there are signs of tension. Hott Albert and James Who Is Gay are sick of Wazzock and Wiry Baldy’s juvenile behaviour. James Who Is Gay still thinks his gayness puts him on another level to the straight boys - a lower level, the way he is carrying on. Eritrean girl hates Muscular Baldy (who admittedly is a dick, but he's still fit) and everyone is sick of Shelly Duval whining and crying all the time (a bit like the real Shelly Duval then…).

Next time: Northern Blonde tells Shelly Duval off for “shhhh-ing” her in a disrespectful fashion. Fight! Fight! Also I will go out on a limb and predict that there will be a scene where all the boys have to strip down to their pants.

STRICTLY COME DANCING
This week I have come to the conclusion that former model Tess Daly only acquired the multi-directional ICBM breasts after she gave birth, and still isn't quite sure what to do with them. Certainly they need a bit more support than a sparkly strap cutting into her armpits and a bit of tea coloured velourette.

This week, the chaps were dancing the tango - originally formulated in the brothels of Buenos Aires, the competition version involves lots of leg tangling, shaking of heads and throwing around of the lady partner with a look of disdain. You seem to spend half the time dancing lasciviously with someone without even looking at them, which reminds Mark of a typical night in a gay club.

The girls were dancing the jive, which pretty much sounds the death knell for anybody over thirty. Jiving requires that you wear your hair in some strange Sigue Sigue Sputnik-style quiff and do lots of sprightly leg kicking, spinning and general bouncing about.

In other news, Tarbuck is OUT due to ill health and Flamboyant Italian Judge shocks the nation by saying "Bullshit" before the watershed. Gasp!

THE GIRLS

Smiley Carol Smillie
SARAH:...writes down her moves on a clipboard, thus proving Mark's girly swot comment. They try to sex it up this week, but I think they went wrong with the choice of Madonna's Hanky Panky for the music. Possibly one of the least sexy songs ever written. Didn't like the ostrich features up Carol's bum either.

MARK: Carol's Big Bird/Chicken outfit is dreadful and totally detracts from her shapely pins. She does OK and gets a decent mark but I think she is doomed to mid table mediocrity. An Aston villa compared to the Arsenal/Chelsea combo of Davetta/Baby Spice

Casualty Blonde
SARAH: This one was saved by the microscopic skirt made out of three sequins and a belt. Utterly charmless and weepy in rehearsal. And her partner's a bit of a dick too.

MARK: Looks like she auditioning for the part of Aquagirl in her outfit. Arlene's constructive criticism is that she needs to learn how to walk properly before she can dance. Seriouusly. Ouch.

Bad Girls lady
SARAH: After being told off last week for his illegal lifts (um,yeah...call the cops). Love Island Boy tries to throw Bad Girls lady about some more, but she won't let him. She spends most of her time wiggling her mile-high quiff and doing pointy stuff while Brendan gets "passionate". Judges love it. But they still hate him.

MARK: Bad Girl compensates for the fact that she is too old to do the jive by, um, foregrounding her bosoms in a sparkly bra. Half the judges' comments are about partner's alleged naughtiness/lack thereof. Way to totally overshadow your celebrity partner, you badly permed cockfarmer.

Jan Ravens
SARAH: Not very good. Anton looks like he dropped in to dash off a quick dance on the way to fix our boiler. It's still not working properly, Anton...

MARK: Jan gamely yet ineptly kicks and spasms her way through the routine while Anton swirls around her like a dervish in his horrendous all red outfit; a Flash to Georgina's Aquagirl.

Emma Bunton
SARAH: Look, she's great. So let's not bang on about how great she is and talk about her partner. Is that a hairpiece or what?

MARK: I was so obsessed by partner's (a) orangeness (b) supercamp dancing and (c) general gayness that I never even looked at his "hair". Will pay more attention next week.

Davetta off Eastenders
SARAH: Well, she appears to have recovered well after the shocking news of her dad's demise. Then slimy partner slips on his snail trail and pulls a hamstring during rehearsals, but he soldiers on to help her do a quite good jive (well, she is about 12, so jiggling about doesn't hold many terrors for her).

MARK: Survives Mr "Do you want chilli sauce with that"'s injury to dance a splendid jive. Also her green sequinny dress is an improvement on last week's acid yellow monstrosity. What did they do to her hair though. OMG!!!

THE BOYS

Ray off Corrie
SARAH: Did lots of haughty head waggling and his legs were a bit stiff.

MARK: Quite a forgettable performance - prob better at latin rather than ballroom. He is quite handsome though.

Matt Dawson
SARAH: Quite a bit better than last week, but it's more of a waltz than a steamy prelude to a night of hot Matt lovin'. Especially as he looked like he was waiting for a bus for most of the dance.


MARK: Much improved on last week but still unable to put on anything resembling a performance. Perhaps he should imagine that he's dancing with his TV Husband Ally McCoist or something.

DJ Spoony
SARAH: Oooh...what are they doing? They've chosen a proper tango tune, not a tango-ed up Will Young smoochfest, and...AND...it's in GERMAN. It's like they were sending a subliminal eviction note to the Great British Public. Guess what? It worked.

MARK: Gets a bit mixed up with tango head shaking moment but otherwise does quite well. He's still evicted to the shock of the judges. It's not looking great for the GB Public that two black contestants have been evicted in as many weeks, or perhaps the Casualty juggernaut is unstoppable?

Mark Ramprakash
SARAH: Oooh...

MARK: Another excellent performance from the cricketing Adonis and housewive's favouite. Arlene's favourite too - next time he does a sexy latin dance she will probably jump over the desk and start ripping at his sequins.

Peter Schmeichel
SARAH: Actually, he was rather good, like Boris Johnson crossed with an emperor penguin. His haughty look was more about striking the fear of God in an oncoming midfielder than enticing a young lady to examine his onion bag.

MARK: Apparently does an excellent technical job, despite vague Lurch type tendencies. Kudos to the make up department for taming his rudolph style red nose too (much evident in rehearsals)

MAKE ME A SUPERMODEL

Out of these washing up liquid bottles and bits of sticky backed plastic. Ha ha ha ha ahem…

I have never seen Ch 5 Make me a supermodel before, (or as I like to call it “Make me look at hot teens cavorting round in their undies”) and the reason I am watching it for the first time could possibly be due to the fact that they are having boys in it for the first time ever.

Anyway, it is typical reality TV fodder – put a bunch of kids in a house together and eliminate them one at a time, all the while making them cry and do stupid things for our amusement. As they want to be models, all the stupid/cry making things revolve around wearing horrendous outfits, stripping to their undies repeatedly, being given brutal haircuts, told they have fat thighs etc etc.

The boys:

Let’s see – there are two spidey ones with shaved heads. One is wiry and one is muscly (I quite like the muscly one, but apparently he only has one facial expression so won’t get very far). There is a cocky, tanned one with a stupid haircut. He is handsome but v annoying and laddish. His name is Waz or something, which says it all really. There are two skinny twelve year old looking ones with horrendous hair helmuts who def need to eat several pies. One of the skinny ones says he is “very editorial” - I have decided that this is fashion speak for “freakish looking”-– and has giant tomb like teeth. He sits around and says things like “I am gay and they are all straight, so we’ve got nothing to talk about” in a wurzely accent. I hate him already.

My favourite one is super hunky and handsome with dark hair and very blue eyes, though he does have a rather unfortunate jesus style beard/long hair combo going on. In the first week he refused to take part in one of the photo shoots as he “did not feel like it”, making me think “well what are doing on the programme then, you stupid hippy” and later on (in a super gay locker room/underpant group photo session) was accused of not taking direction (ie not being able to change his blue steel facial expression). Still, he is fit and has not done anything dickish since then. Beardy to win!!

My vote for favourite perviest moment so far is when the boys are inspected for un-model-esque body hair and then have their shapely buttocks waxed. My god! this is practically a fetish video! Cue lots of scenes of boys groaning and biting the pillow as strangers fiddle around with their arses. Good to see Channel 5 returning to their P0rn roots at last!

The girls:

I am not as ahem motivated to write about the girls but lets see. There is a v tall black girl who is v beautiful but rather generic, if you know what I mean. There are two blonde girls – a skinny (it is a bit redundant to say skinny as they are all twiglets – just assume they all are…) Swedish one who actually looks a lot better since she had her brutal haircut and another one who is a bit common and cries a lot (I think she was the target of “fat thigh” comments though of course she has a great figure). There is a pale girl with very long dark hair in a centre parting and huge shelly duvall teeth. She does not look all that but is undeniably photogenic, “Editorial” even…. Cried when she had an inch cut off the bottom of her hair, the big baby, and also had a whngeing fit when forced to exercise and felt faint. Hmm, maybe you should actually eat something sometimes…. There is an English rosey one who is quite pretty but not all that. She has been accused of being too dithery and wet so is doomed I am sure. My favourite is an Eritrean girl who is v pretty and also v shy. I hope she becomes more confident and WINS!!

C5 are having 4 episodes a week - madness!! - so we’ll get to the conclusion in no time.


SARAH WRITES:

Mark got in there before me, damn his eyes! The episode I watched on Tuesday had the pre-supers learning how to walk like a supermodel. One of the boys said it was so hard, having to walk and breathe and remember one's Blue Steel look at all times. Then they had to dress each other up like members of 80s half-hit-wonders Cabaret Voltaire and strut their stuff while a bald queen shouted: "Remember! Be Butch! Be Macho! Be Cool!" Actually, why are all fashionista men bald or potato-faced?

Then they had to cook dinner for the girls while still wearing their kitten heels. More moaning about it being far too difficult to grate cheese while wearing heels or whatever from the gayer. I was once dumped by somebody who looked a bit like him (only with a tiny bit more meat on his bones), so I hate him too.

Meanwhile, the girls were carted off to their first shoot in Slough. The photographer and stylist explained their Hitchockian vision (yes, there were blank looks all round) of young girls being pursued by helicopters in...their underwear! Yay! We just had to get a perv factor in there, didn't we, producers? So, the pretty, slightly common blonde was told that her utterly gorgeous legs were too heavy in the thigh area. Shelley Duvall was the most editorial because she jumped up in the air or something and the fungus-faced photographer all but said that the nice black girl should give up all hope and try porn. The Swedish one has two expressions: Big Pout, and Little Pout. That's twice as many as Claudia Schiffer, but the photographer seems to think she may not be a contender.

The following day, the girls got to play dress up on Tower Bridge, and the Eritrean girl proved that she was a total sweetheart once again. The boys played football with another bald fashionista guy - well, except James Who Is Gay, who huffed about in goal doing strange puppet movements with his arms and pointing out that he can't play football because he's gay (Mark: that never stopped Freddie Ljungberg!!). Then it was straight into the locker room for... an underwear shoot! Oh boy. One of them had to get bigger pants hur hur...and Rachel Hunter dropped by to see how they were getting along. Yeah...right. Apparently Mark's new husband is called Albert (how sweet, that was my grandad's name), and he wasn't smouldering enough for the camera. Meanwhile James Who Is Gay and the Indie Singer Boy puffed out their teeny little chests, hid their scrawny arms behind their hair helmets, and pouted with all their might.

That evening the bald photographer revealed a new wing of the Palais de Supermodel: a gallery corridor that featured his "best shots" of competitors so far. Albert's little beardy face looked slightly disappointed.

STRICTLY COME DANCING
Another year of sequins and hideous spangly blouses that I will find insanely addictive. The shame! The shame!

Bruce “I am a national treasure and that is why my links are so appalling and laugh-free” Forsyth and Tess “I am a beautiful young woman so why do the costume dept keep putting me in dresses with weird saggy bodices???” Daly are back as presenters and the four judges ( Bitter Queen, Exuberant Italian Queen who manages to think of something vaguely derogatory to say about all the women, even though he means well, Harsh but Fair Arlene and Sensible Bloke) are also unchanged.

SARAH: I have an unhealthy fascination with Tess Daly's breasts. They're either strapped up like Hannibal Lecter after a nice Chianti supper, or roaming free like wildebeest on the Serengeti. This week they were marshalled into a pink satin number that made her look a bit like a Cyberman on a night out.

There are some familiar dance professionals and some new ones too. All the women are v tiny and orange and most people have ridiculously camp stage names like “Anton Du Beke” and “Flavia Del Licioso” etc etc. If I am ever a dance professional I think I will call myself “Markus von Markingstein”. A new innovation this year is that each dancer has a little promo reel type intro thing where they do two spins, make tiger claws, go grrrr and then pull a “blue steel” face, all in soft focus with an orange filter on the camera. They are, without exception, totally hilarious.

And now our thoughts on the celebrities…

THE BLOKES

Nicolas Owen: is very smug and smirky so I’m glad he was the first out.

SARAH: He was very annoying.

Jimmy Tarbuck: yes, we know that you and Brucey are best friends – you can stop fellating each other now. Is surely doomed to go quickly but I hope we see him do some ridiculous latin dance that involves shiny ruffled shirts and camp hip wriggling first.

SARAH: He didn't make it into week 2 because he was ill or something. Also would like to see him shake his maracas.

Peter Schmeichel: I used to have a crush of shame on the Manc/Scando red nosed goalie/shouter. I know. Shut up. He was surprisingly good at waltzing (has a good touch for a big fella, in football cliche) but was hopelessly robotic and stiff in the west side story type jivey thing they had to do the other week. Can’t wait to see him try to do latin dancing too.

SARAH: (points at Mark) Ha ha ha ha!

Matt Dawson: Smirky Question of Sport bloke (whom I find quite likeable, generally) may be the Celebrity Masterchef but I don’t think he is going to go far with ballroom dancing – seems totally half arsed and indifferent.

SARAH: Quite fancy him, but he really should be busting some moves on the rugger pitch instead of doing this nonsense. His Celebrity Masterchef dishes were surprisingly intricate and a bit...girly.

DJ Spoonie: As I am not a young person I have no idea who this is. The judges say he is good but he looks a bit average to me.

SARAH: He reminds me of my cousin-in-law, who went to one ballroom dancing class, and got completely hooked, so I'm quite fond of him.

Ray Something off Corrie: Neverheard of him either but he is much better than Spoonie - RAY 2 COME SECOND!!

SARAH: Mmm...cute.

Mark Ramprakash: MARK 2 WIN!! MARK 2 WIN!! I don’t follow cricket and so don’t know much about him. Lookswise seems quite average when just standing around, but has a dazzling smile and seems a completely different person when dancing and is v charismatic and groovy. He is surely the best of the blokes and also is the best looking!! MARK 2 WIN!!!

SARAH: He's a bit of a batting wizard too, and he plays for Surrey. RAMPS 2 WIN!!

THE WOMEN

Carol Smillie: I quite liked her on Changing Rooms, and she is OK at this – a bit of a swot. Does not look great with her hair up though. The judges all raved about her and then gave her shit marks. Weird. Had to do a 1920s type flappery dance and for some reason they chose to do it to Dolly’s “9 to 5”. Not a good idea.

SARAH: Was that dress silver or grey? I thought she was OK.

Jan Raven: A comedy lady off things that I do not watch or listen to. Seems to be a good laugh though. Her performance is quite weird as she does very well for ages and then manages to do two huge cock ups – going left when she should go right and then basically falling over. Doh. The judges tell her to do better by impersonating say Ginger Rogers. Dude, she is an impressionist not Rogue off the X Men!

SARAH: I liked her because she seemed to be having the most fun with Brucie's Secret Love Child Anton du Beke...

Georgina Something off Casualty: Pretty blonde girl who is totally rubbish and surely only survived the first week due to (a) blondeness and (b) large numbers of Casualty viewers. Her routine involved her standing there, pointing to alternate corners of the room while her partner sleazed around her and licked her neck occasionally. Her dance partner seems like a real prick, btw. I hate it when they decide that they have to be all stern and bossy.

SARAH: She was a bit charmless with her "shut up and teach me dancing". Whose idea was it to make her up like Tanya Turner?

Mica Paris: Is a bit of a clodhopper but does better than Georgina and has quite good “pointy arm action” (ps. this is a proper technical term). Is the first woman to go :(

SARAH: Mr P was very sad.

Claire King: an older actress off Bad Girls, who keeps going on about how raunchy and sexually confident she is. Alright love, we get it. Is teamed with that shiny faced bastard off Love Island whom I loathe and detest. He gets her points docked by doing illegal lifts. What a dick.

SARAH: She had a face like a disappointed lizard in rehearsals. Loathsome partner is detested by the judges, who want him to die or break a leg or something. Just take a look at Arlene's face next week...

Davetta off Eastenders: Davetta brings her severe sideparting and general jailbaitiness to the world of dance and seems to be pretty good, though looks green with nerves before she actually starts. Her partner (tiny, sleazy Italian who reminds me of bloke working in kebab shop on Holloway road) devises a complicated 20s flapper style routine for her and she does pretty well. Probably one of the top two women. DAVETTA 2 COME 2ND!!11!!

SARAH: She was OK. Not sure about that lemon yellow dress though

Baby Spice: SPICE 2 WIN!! SPICE 2 WIN!! Emma has obviously had dance training before and knows how to put in a performance too. Definitely the best woman and a bookies favourite too.

SARAH: SPICE 2 WIN!! She's great.


THE DANCES
So far we have seen the following
1) Bog standard waltz where they spin around a lot, with much grin and lean action. Boring.

2) One of the latin ones that are all quite similar – cha cha cha or samba? I like this one due to the hideous plastic blouses that the men have to wear. Also the steps make any man look ridiculously camp. Hurrah!

3) The women did a group version of another one of the latin things that are quite similar. I don’t have much to say about that one though.

4) Quickstep: this is a 1920s style ballroom dance where they basically belt it to one corner of the room and then stand there doing flappery synchronised kicking,then belt across to the other corner. Quite fun to watch and reminds me of Noel Coward and smashing gels called Lettuce.

5) Rumba: the boringest latin dance ever. Is supposed to be sexy and romantic – ie sleazy and unconvincing given the tenuous heterosexuality of all male dance professionals. Involves much standing around and pointing, combined with unconvincing lechery. Dud.

6) The men had to do a group swing thing – aka recreate West Side Story! Hurrah! I love 50s style go go dancing like this. The blokes pick up girls and swing them around and then kind of waggle their legs and click their fingers like angry Jets on the way to a “rumble”. Awesome. Peter Schmeichel trying to rumble is a sight that will stay with me to my grave.