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!