TV Dinners

Popstar to Opera star

2010-01-15T21:21:00.006Z

Well, how could I not? I've sung chorus bits in three opera now (yes, three!), which makes me as qualified as...um...Alan Titchmarsh.

Yep, Alan Titchmarsh is co-hosting this ITV1 venture into high culture with Myleene Klass, popera poppet Katherine Jenkins, a tenor with curly hair called Rollando, Meatloaf and...um...Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen, who gets into the judging panel because he's a bit Welsh and...umm flamboyant.

First up is Jimmy "one take" Osmond. He gets "O Sole Mio" (Just One Cornetto, peasants), and does quite a nice job. I've nearly forgiven him for Long Haired Lover from Liverpool....

We missed no. 2 because the Ocado order came in, but Kym Marsh's Faure was pretty good (was it Faure? Not sure). The audience are very encouraging and lovely. This is difficult stuff, after all. Kym and Myleene manage to be fairly civil, though Kym never ever looks Myleene in the eye.

Alex James is our John Sargent: flat, weird and floppy haired. A cheesemaking ex-Blur bassplayer who says: "There are punchers and strokers. I'm a puncher". He punches his way flatly through a famous bit of Rossini with more chutzpah than Harry Redknapp's accountant and charms the socks off the judges. Meatloaf pronounces it best opera performance by a rock bass player this evening. Errm. OK

Now, three years ago, I was stuck in a tent in Hyde Park with Marcella Detroit warbling at me for . Then I had to walk around London in my bra in the middle of the night. For Charity. I raised £500 but still Marcella Detroit has a lot to answer for. She weeps and strops her way through rehearsals, while the rest of the world admires her severe bob. Her performance is...OK. Good pitching, but no control over her voice, and very little emotion, but pretty good for only a week's intensive training. The judges love her. I'm not so sure. But then I am biased.

The McFly is the rather useful guitar boy, Danny, singing La Donna e Mobile. Not very well. He's nervous, and his voice is a bit weak, but he does the long notes rather well so maybe it's a confidence issue. Meatloaf jumps out and waves his hands around theatrically.

Next up is a Saturday called Vanessa who has a rather sweet voice, but is breathy and a bit static in the dyamic dept.

Darius has to sing "Nessun Dorma", but he's got a nice baritone voice. Bit thin, but he's very sweet and he has good focus. Meatloaf waves his arms around and says "dude" a lot.

Last up is Bernie Nolan, who spent most of the 70s in Spandex being in the mood for dancing. She sings the famous one from Tales of Hoffman, and does OK. She hits the notes, and actually gets some emotion in, and stays in time (most of the time).

Wish they'd all stop doing operatic gestures, like waving arms around during the big note.

The Big Vote is tomorrow, but I'm not sure if this show will last that long. I mean, they've done lots of the Big Arias this week. How many weeks before we hit the Harrison Birtwhistle? Do you really want to hear Darius sing Peter Grimes?

BBCFour and why I love it

2009-12-16T09:30:00.001Z

Now I would continue reviewing Le restaurant but there doesn't seem to be much point now that my favourites have been dumped and those shark-eyed winking no-hopers James and JJ have survived thanks to their ruthlessly competent and increasingly contemptuous sous chef. This year's crop have been the most hopeless yet, and I can't see Raymond Blanc risking his sanity and reputation for another run next year.

So I'm going to warble the praises of BBC4 instead. It's great. In fact, I'd like the BBC board to divide my licence fee equally between BBC4 and Radios 4 and 5live. Someone else can pay for Eastenders.

This week's offerings have been a fascinating history of Russian art -in which I discovered that Peter the Great had stayed in Deptford, a French murder mystery and the utterly magnificent Wallander.

The French murder mystery is called 'The Poisoner' and tells the apparently true story of a middle aged woman torn apart by jealousy and village gossip. It's beautifully filmed in harsh grey and leached colour for the village scenes: and warm browns and reds for the Parisien scenes. Marie is a country widow who refuses the advances of her neighbour. Neighbour and best friend (who also slept with her late husband) conspire to spread the story that Marie poisoned her husband so that she could run off with her German lodger - this all takes place in 1947, so feelings about Germans run a little wild. Marie is arrested and the weasly investigating officer ain't no Morse. At the end of the first episode, she's about to go to trial, having been tricked into a confession by ber cellmate (working for M N'est-pas Morse). A campaigning young journalist has taken up her cause and she has a cute lawyer, so things may be looking up (for the journo and the lawyer anyway)

Watching Wallander in Swedish is hard work. You can't help but see names from the IKEA catalogue all over the place. So they'll talk about a murder in Malmo and you'll wonder what if it was a problem with the assembly instructions. And blood! Everywhere! Not to mention scenery, snow, wind and a lead character who always appears to be on the brink of a breakdown, aided by his equally glum daughter and her on-off boyfriend. Wallander takes us on a tour of Sweden's darker side, and we discover that it's just like home, only colder.

LE RESTAURANT: OPENING FRIGHT

2009-11-12T20:31:00.003Z

For another week, the good people of Bristol are accosted by strange men (and the occasional woman) bearing trays of food. Raymond summons the couples on board a big boat and places a bunch of keys on a barrel top. It's a bit like a swingers' party, only with restaurants. Raymond sends them un petit amuse bouche to inspaire them to create somezing that demonstrates the essence of their vision and then give it away to the people.

Team Winker nab a rather posh venue with a big terrace and high five each other annoyingly. JJ appears to have been traumatised by last week's debacle, and refuses to do any actual cooking, apart from squeezing vaguely at a scotch egg. The boys manage to chat up a lot of blondes and do lots of annoying high fives. Even the waiters are high fived as they lay the tables, poor chaps. JJ cowers at the pass while other chefs assemble sausage rolls with salad and stuff for the "indoor picnic" concept. Raymond turns up at a full restaurant, which is nice. Except that it's full of very hungry people who have been waiting for over an hour for their scotch eggs, and only two waiters. James claims that everything is absolutely fine, and that everybody's happy. No really they are....absolutely. While Raymond interviews dozens of hungry, pissed-off people James runs upstairs and sobs into his spangly ABC jacket.

Team NotGay get a nice little place in a pleasant district and do a fairly good job at selling their restaurant to the public. Nathan screws up the service on the first night, and there are the usual scenes with annoyed diners getting their coats after waiting for two hours, but they like the food, even if they replaced haddock with cod.

Team Blonde get what looks like an old chippy with an non-working oven, which puts the dampeners on their amuse bouche of goats cheese parcels in filo pastry. The goats cheese is from France, and god only knows where the bread came from, but they still market their local food for local people concept with goats cheese on toast. That's cold goats cheese on cold toast. With a nipple of squished chutney. Somehow they get a full restaurant on the first night, but then Blonde number 2 forgets to cook anything. This isn't a good move. After all, people don't usually go into a restaurant to sit on uncomfortable chairs and chat. You go to pubs for that.

Team Nigeria offer suya to the masses. Lucky masses - though kosai (sp? - spicy little deep-fried puffs made of bean paste) would have been even nicer. The ladies get a restaurant in downtown Bristol and hire some African dancers to entertain the masses. Sarah still worries about their cooking (she's not into chewy goat), but says they know how to make a girl feel welcome.

I think Mark may be right about Team Miliband, maybe we should change their name to Bez/Miliband. Badger decides to dress up in a badger costume because its...er...his name. However, badger costumes are hard to find, so he wears half a gorilla suit and paints his head in black and white. They serve half a strawberry smeared with cream and some parma ham and melon for their Modern British cooking concept, but at least it doesn't look like a giant blackhead on toast. Short on customers, Badger visits the local barracks and drums up a few of Our Boys to brave the cameras for an evening. Bez throws himself around the kitchen and worries Raymond with his instabilité and inability to make an edible sauce. The soldiers seem to like it though, and Team Bez/Miliband win restaurant of the week for actually managing to serve most of their customers and not having any walkouts.

Team Essex call their place The Front Room, because they serve food that you could cook at home, I suppose. Mrs Essex frets about people getting bored and walking out, so she hires a magician and a saxaphone player to entertain the punters. Mr Essex sighs and starts sharpening his knives meaningfully. They attract hearty blokes wanting slabs of pure MEAT without any fussy stuff, and even the sax player pockets a tidy sum - though he saw Mrs Essex coming when he told her his charges. Two hundred quid in London would get you a four piece band for two solid hours, and they'd help with the washing up if you offered them food.

Raymond doesn't want this lot of candidates cluttering up his manoir, so they all convene in the winning restaurant to learn their fate. Team Blonde are sacked for being blonde and a bit useless.

Next week: Sarah comes close to shouting at Raymond again, and James from Team Winker snivels behind a door.

RESTAURANT WEEK TWO

2009-11-06T15:31:00.002Z

RESTAURANT WEEK TWO

WORKIN’ ON A CHAIN GANG

Only seven couples remain to fart for zeir restaurants, while the director struggles to make Bristol look vaguely attractive in the connecting shots (half of which appear to be of Clifton instead). This week our budding restaurateurs have to run high street chain restaurants for a day, so they get to know the meaning of hard work and can have their naïve dreams re the catering industry brutally squashed. They have a day of training and learning the menu, and then are thrown into the deep end the next day.

There is a pan-Asian canteen called Tampopo that I haven’t heard of. The stern manageress says they have to give everyone their main dish within ten minutes. Team NotGay and Team Winker are sent to work there. During their training day, Chris nails the cookery but JJ and his hateful floppy hair struggles to control the wok. The following day, The Notgays seem to have no problems, food comes rattling out five minute after the order, Nathan is calm and efficient, and even Sarah can’t find anything to complain about. Team Winker start off all cocky and “Bring it on, chap!!” but are gratifyingly hopeless. “You’re supposed to take away my menu” Sarah hisses icily, as soon as James leaves with her order. JJ is instantly behind as James takes fifteen orders in the space of a nanosecond. Soon there is an hour wait for dishes (which James consistently lies about, even to Sarah, David and Raymond) and there are lots of shots of JJ panicking, messing up and getting dishes completely wrong while the guy who trained him basically stands around laughing. Stern manageress says it is UNACCEPTABLE. Raymond goes into the kitchen and brusquely orders JJ to clean up his station, not like that! Do it properly! LOLs. James says he did a great job and it is all JJ’s fault. Sarah, who understandably seems to have her hate on for these two, says it is partially James’ fault for not communicating properly. The NotGays were my faves from week one and seem to be the only ones who coped at all this week. Winkers to be fired soon pls thx.

Teams Essex, Blonde and Milliband (Barney looks more like Bez, methinks, esp when he starts panicking and running around in a flop sweat, which I predict will happen every week) are set to work in a Yo Sushi conveyor belt restaurant and have to learn all the names of the different sushi/nigiri/mako shapes etc. Team Essex are all “Eww!! raw fish!!” and Badger says “Ee by gum , we don’t have stuff like this oop north”, having presumably never heard of places like Manchester, Leeds or Newcastle. They just about cope at lunchtime, but baldy Yo Sushi bloke correctly predicts that they will be fucked in the evening when it is actually busy. That night the restaurant is completely rammed and the cooks neglect the conveyor belt, so more people order off the other menu, which means the conveyor belt is neglected even more. Cut to Raymond glaring at a sad solitary edemame bean trudging round the conveyor belt like a drunk asleep on the Circle Line. The regular chef seems to spend the whole evening shaking his head in disgust, and everyone struggles apart from Blonde waitress, who does very well. To be fair, the problem is compounded by the artificial set-up where each waiter can only work with their designated chef. It would have made more sense for two of them to do orders and one to stock the conveyor. There was a nice scene where David talked Mrs Essex into trying some raw fish and finding out it wasn’t too bad. I found David to be a bit of a blank last series, but he seems a lot more relaxed this time and is almost matching Sarah with his hilarious facial expressions. Team Blonde are dark horses at this stage. Team Essex have potential, but I fear that Team Miliband will fall to pieces at the first sign of stress.

Finally, Teams Nigeria and IKEA are despatched to Pizza Express, where a scarily fervent Pizza Express lady explains that the folded menu spines have to be perfectly aligned with the Earth’s magnetic fields or something. A hot chef explains the exact number of pepperoni slices and exact weight of cheese for each dish. At lunch time, the Nigerian ladies (who seem really likeable and are my second favourites after the NotGays) cope Ok while Mrs IKEA soon falls behind, getting her dishes wrong and turning out mutant, vaguely pizza shaped, dough-based hybrid things, while George Best keeps simpering to her about how wonderful she is. Boke. Sarah pretends to have a nut allergy to test their menu knowledge skillz, so George Best, trying to read the menu over her shoulder, promptly recommends her two nut-crammed death pizzas. One of the judges tells us that making pizzas from instructions in a glossy ring binder is not exactly hard. Cut to Mrs IKEA saying making pizzas from instructions in a glossy ring binder is harder than you think. The evening is a complete disaster. Team IKEA fall behind instantly and Team Nigeria fall behind at a more leisurely pace and end up offering free drinks. Scarily fervent Pizza Express lady is on the verge of tears and is all “what have they done to my beautiful restaurant!?!”. Sarah glares at George Best and says he has to sort this shit out right now. He gives a cringeworthy speech about how they are trying hard but he is just a humble flower seller from London Tahn, or something. The drunken starving customers applaud him, as opposed to pelting him with overcooked doughballs, which is what I would have done. Sarah asks Mrs IKEA how it went and she says it seemed fine and no one complained to her. Well they wouldn’t – they all complained to your husband who apparently spends his whole life trying to bolster your self-esteem. Sarah nods back with a hilarious “Alrighty then, you delusionoid” type expression.

After the restaurants have closed and everyone has stopped shaking, they are taken to a sinister barge to learn their fate. Raymond does his closing speech, saying that some couples coped well (cut to the NotGays) and some couples struggled (cut to everyone else). One couple will NOT get to open their Restaurant and that couple is… Team IKEA - surprise surprise - they really should have gone after the packet salmon debacle last week. George Best says their dream is over. “One of our dreams,” Mrs IKEA says darkly. Back to flower selling for you two, then.

Next week: the couples see their premises for the first time, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. They have to give away free snacks in the street (with Badger dressing up as an actual badger to do so), and one couple of annoying blond blokes WILL be closing their restaurant.

LE RESTAURANT

2009-10-29T20:10:00.004Z

Eet's baack! Raymond and his sniffy cohorts 'ave anuzzair bunch of 'ow you say...numpties with ambitions to open their own eatery. This week we get to meet the contestants and they get to cook for Raymond and his fearsome assistants. First, they take to the streets of Bristol.

Now, I'm sure that Bristol has a wide range of high end and speciality food shops, but for some reason our contestants are in Morrisons. Or is it Asda? I wouldn't know: I shop at Ocado, darling.

Ho hum...here we go, in the live as-it-happens blog, straight from our lovely new laptop...

Team Nigeria
A midwife and a lady who does the announcements on the Piccadilly line. They want to put Nigerian food on the culinary map because nobody eats Nigerian food (apart from Nigerians and a few Scots mechanics and nurses nostalgic for their VSO days when they drank Gulder beer under the desert sky.). They (or the producers) don't seem to realise that Bristol, being one of the main centres of slavery in the 17th century and all, also has a large African Caribbean community, and thus fail to find a butcher selling goat. They have to make do with mutton for a mutton stew and rice and it looks totally tasty. Raymond and co do much chewing and accuse the girls of "murdairing the lamb". They also don't think it looks very nice. I disagree.

Mother&Son
I haven't got a name for Mother & Son team yet. She's a food stylist: he wears pratty glasses and prattles on about wanting to cook the produce from his allotment. Having been shot down in flames by Raymond and his lieutenants, he retires, tongue-tied.

Team Essex
He's a hospital chef: she's an estate agent with a lovely whiney estate agent voice and they overcook a chocolate pudding. I remember the hospital food my late grandmother got served...

MadMother/Daughter
...want to open a multicultural restaurant that definitely isn't a curry house. The trouble is, they don't actually know how to cook. Raymond has to intervene when they try to open a tin of condensed milk with a very very big knife, and show them how to use a can-opener.

I wanted to keep them in simply for the comedy value. Spoilsport Raymond asks for them to leave immediately.

Team NotGay
The traditional "best friends" Nathan and Chris want to bring high-end food to the mid-priced market. Chris works for a diet boot camp in Wales, and wants to stop cooking beans and mushrooms. His pork Wellington goes completely wrong, and he's reduced to cooking a fillet while Nathan flaps about. It's actually quite nice.

Team Blonde
First seen devising their vision of locally sourced, seasonal food in the corridor, then in the next scene cooking up some frozen peas. Well, that's a good start. Scallops with pea and mint puree isn't the most original of dishes, and Raymond points out they cooked their peas for 25 minutes.

Team Winker
A couple of 80s haircuts called JJ and James. JJ makes cocktails and James runs the bar that JJ works in. Their idea is picnic food in a restaurant setting. Well that was the one that didn't go away when they sobered up. Raymond is perturbed by JJ's habit of winking at him. James looks a bit perturbed at the idea of actually doing anything that doesn't involve sitting at a bar with a glass in his hand. The pear and strawberry crumble is more like a sugary dough with a few bits of fruit underneath. Raymond: pas heureux.

Team Miliband
Barney is an army chef and Badger is ex-logistics. Barney looks a bit like David Miliband. Badger barks orders, and Barney looks harried. He has to consult Raymond about his over-salted stock.

Team IKEA
Apparently Mrs IKEA is married to George Best, and lived in Sweden for a bit in the 80s, so she's going to make gravadlax and beetroot salad. Raymond and co note that all she has done is open some packets of Asda smoked salmon and mix some veg with sour cream.

It turns out that I didn't need a team name for Mother&Son because Raymond decides that for zem, the journey is over.

Next week, they're let loose on an unsuspecting public. Team Winker runs out of scotch eggs or something. George Best says he can't cope, and Team Nigeria is seen offering free drinks to waiting customers.

STRICTLY COME DANCING: FOXTROT TANGO OVER AND OUT

2009-10-11T07:31:00.001+01:00

We’re coming to terms with the new format now, and I suppose it makes sense to do it all in one big fat show, just the way it is recorded, than in two shows. For one thing we get fewer silly interludes.

Well, that’s what we thought, then while we were minding our own business, pondering another glass of wine and shifting the cat between laps, we get some middle-aged blokes bouncing onto the stage doing not-very-good tapdancing that wasn’t even in time to the music. And THEN we get Amy Winehouse looking grumpy as she sings backing vocals on some fake-doowop nonsense that even Darts would have thought a bit naff. Amy looked quite healthy, despite the “community service” expression, sang flat, and forgot to wave her arms in time to the music. Her god-daughter had a lovely belter of a voice though – even though her name that nobody remembered anyway has now been changed to “Amy Winehouse’s god-daughter”.

At this point I could digress into musing about Amy Winehouse’s qualifications for godmotherhood (job description: stand witness at baptism ceremony and promise to keep kid on path of righteousness etc…), but to be honest I wish people would leave her alone and let her get on with writing some more lovely songs, so on with the dancing.

BOOBWATCH: we liked Tess’s asymmetric red satin sheath. Suited her.

Brucie did some lame stuff about Twitter (sooo 2008), and then it was straight onto:

TANYA TURNER AND WOLVERINE
OK Producers, enough of the “oooh no, will Tanya Turner be any good this week” nonsense. So what if she stamps on Wolverine’s paws in training? That’s what training is about. Tanya sparkles like an old-fashioned movie star, and delivers a graceful Foxtrot. Lots of walking about and a bit too sedate for my liking, but good.

CHRIS AND OLA
Once again, Ola has raided the handkerchief and haberdashery section in John Lewis for her costume. Chris has to Act Sexy, which is quite painful to behold. He poses self consciously and wriggles his hips a bit. But I’m reminded of John Mills going down with a submarine rather than the sultry streets of Havana.

LYNDA AND DARREN
Lynda’s battle with the costume department has come to an end. And the costume department won. Lynda’s costume theme this series seems to have been “Brothel Madams of Days Gone By”. This week: 1940s Western Brothel Madam. Her foxtrot was very sedate, but NOT ENOUGH. Craig and Alesha voted to save her, but Len saw the agony in her eyes at the thought of another week of looking like a giant salmon with a perm, and said she had to go. I’ve never seen a woman look so relieved.

ALI AND SNAKEHIPS
Bloody good. Not quite a ten, but nearly there.

JO WOOD AND BRENDAN
Brucie makes a lame joke about Jo losing a Stone (geddit). Jo smiles politely. Brendan still hauling the poor old thing around the dancefloor, but she’s getting better

MOOMIN AND CREEPIO
Moomin has worked her Moomin magic on Creepio: he’s now quite sweet and they spend a lot of time giggling and cuddling chastely. Moomin’s salsa is a proper PAR-TAY salsa with lots of jiggling of sequins and tassles flying everywhere. Loved it. Craig wasn’t so sure and earned a Look of Hate from Len.

JOE AND KRISTINA
Oh dear, he’s bringing his comedy dad into rehearsals now. This week there isn’t any belt nonsense, but he still has problems with his timing. The public like him though, and so he clings on for another week.

AMBER AND ANTON
Lots of hugging and kissing and shows of solidarity in the face of hostile media opinion. Yeah, OK we get the message. Laila likes Anton, and he has apologised. We will now move on.

This week’s foxtrot is all glidey loveliness and perfect timing, and earns them a lovely 34. And the great British public decides to keep them in to see if Anton manages to insult another minority grouping next week.

RICKY WHITTLE AND NATALIE
Ricky’s got a big Hollyoaks storyline right now (so that’ll be a big underwear fashion show, male rape, teacher assault or…?), so he’s working really hard, learning lines, doing dancing…doing acting… OK, I’m not a Hollyoaks fan, but he does a lovely little salsa with perfect hips and timing. The judges are slightly disappointed, and tell him he could do better. Ricky: notbothered.

CRAIG AND FLAVIA
Corrie boy is starting to grow on me. He’s got an interesting face, and he’s a bit intense. The foxtrot, however, is notverygood. Poor old Craig looks like he’s about to be shot, and the judges tell him to get a grip. Only Len saves him in the final dance-off, but you can tell he’s on borrowed time. Borrowed time!

TUFFERS AND KATYA
Or, the Battle of Phil’s knee. Lots of hip wiggling and a slightly embarrassing solo turn, and plenty of gurning. Phil is getting lean and mean again, which is nice to see (for me anyway).

JADE AND IAN
I wasn’t sure about the red satin ruffles, but Mr P liked them. They covered a lot of floor, both being tall and all, and there was lots of energy and pizzazz. The ending was some odd thing where Jade did a handstand and pretended to be the Isle of Man flag, and popped out of her dress. Not quite sure which bit was accidental. Judges were very nice about it all, but then gave them rather indifferent points. Ian: tight-lipped.

STRICTLY COME DANCING: ROUND UP

2009-10-05T20:13:00.005+01:00

Now, I do have two weeks' worth of notes, but there has been so much going on*, this is going to be a slightly hurried round up of how everybody's doing.

BACK TO THE CHANGING ROOM
Early exits for Richard Dunwoody and Rav Wilding. Dunwoody was very sweet, but looked like he'd rather be digging up Shergar and running him in the Grand National than doing a paso doble. Rav gave it a go, but he was too clunky and a bit bland for the judges and the Great British Public.

So, in alphabetical order

ALI BASTIEN AND SNAKEHIPS FORTUNA
After a lovely waltz in the first week, the Hollyoaks/Bill siren seems to be boringly good and sweet-natured, and she gets on well with Brian's weird eyebrows. Brian still looks like the result of a bizarre gene-splicing experiment between Donny Osmond and John Waters, and his hips are still snakey. Though if we're to believe the tabloids, they're doing more than just dancing...

LYNDA BELLLINGHAM AND DARREN
The first of the oldie-but-hottie ladies suffers from the costume department's concept of what a size 14 lady should wear: whole slabs of sequins and then more sequins, and hair marcel-waved to within a inch of its life. Lynda seems to be the most reluctant dancer of them all. She tries her best, but I'm not convinced that her heart is in it.

JOE CALZAGHE AND KRISTINA AGUILEROVSKA
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Despite this week's crystal-studded championship belt and a lot of faffing around with Kristina's skirt-that-turns-into-a-cape, this man is DOOMED. It's between Lynda and Joe for who goes next.

MOOMIN AND CREEPIO
Creepio is still putting a brave face on the fact that his latest celeb is neither jailbait nor what one might call a natural dancing shape. But then, that's probably because Moomin is a) Strictly's BIGGEST fan, and b) she ain't half bad. OK, the turquoise fringing during the cha cha was probably a bit much, and we didn't like the duenna look she sported this week, but Moomin has plenty of moxie and chutzpah which might see her through to...oh I dunno...the quarter finals?

ANNOYING GARRY AND ERIN BOAG
Now, you know how it is: the actors who play baddies are often utter sweeties in real life, so it should follow that somebody so annoying in Eastenders would be quite engaging when taken away from his screen wife Minty and the other screechers of Walford. I. Was. Wrong. If he keeps pulling those faces, I may have to invade the dancefloor and slap him myself.

CHRIS HOLLINS AND OLA JORDAN
One of the weirdest combinations of the year. We have Ola in her strange clothing choices, partnered with an early morning sports billy who manages to make a tango look like a jolly good prelude to a lovely evening of playing Risk. He's terribly enthusiastic, and tackles the ballroom dances with great vigour. But then he's oddly sedate in the Latin numbers.

JADE JOHNSON AND IAN WAITE
The judges are unanimous in telling Jade to sort out her shoulders, but she's a nice, tall athletic girl who needs to get a bit of confidence.

CRAIG KELLY AND FLAVIA COMINATCHA
Another weird genetic experiment, this time it's Julian Clary's straight lovechild. Craig's off Corrie, which means I have absolutely no idea who he is. But he seems like a nice boy who can dance a bit. Quarter finals, I think.

ZOE LUCKER AND WOLVERINE
After lots of cunning "oooh she's pretty awful"-type editing and comments from Wolverine in the first week, Tanya Turner (for it is she) turns out to be bloody good at this dancing lark. Even though she giggles uncontrollably when Wolverine tells her to be more sexy.

LAILA ROUASS AND TONY BEAK
Anton's "banter" has got him into a bit of trouble this week (and so it should), and mad Amber from Footba££er$ Wive$ doesn't appear to have gelled with our Tony on the dance floor either. Pity. She's lovely to watch.

PHIL TUFNELL AND KATYA VIRSHILIAS
Whoo! another cricketer! I love Tuffers, but his knees will be the death of him. As will his cheeky chappie charm. The new girl is rather good thoughbut

RICKY WHITTLE AND NATALIE LOWE
Mark's tip for the top is a possible next Lovely Ramps. He's lovely, he's good natured, and he moves like a crawling king snake. He will probably win, and Mark will be a happy man.

JO WOOD AND BRENDAN COLE
Jo is the other glamorous granny, but she readily admits that dancing isn't her thing. She's managed to lean on her rockstar mates to get a couple of half-decent tunes to dance to, but her most amazing achievement is to turn Brendan Cole into a bit of a hero. He's encouraging in rehearsals, and leaps hotly to her defence when Craig Upper-Norwood dares to criticise her fleckles, telling her not to listen " to that idiot from Australia". What is this? We can't have our favourite cockfarmer turning into an alright bloke...

Hopefully, now that the Friday show is no more, and we have the Saturday dance-a-thon instead, normal blogging service will be resumed next week

*(I might be an official Trisha-flicking dolescum these days, but I'm a bloody busy Trisha-flicking dolescum, what with the school run, PTA meetings and house renovations - there's not much room for jobhunting, oh no...).

STRICTLY COME DANCING: SO GOOD THEY HAD TO MUCK AROUND WITH EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE NAME

2009-09-22T13:36:00.002+01:00

Autumn's here, and the half-decent tv scheduling has finally kicked off with a new series of Merlin and the TVD team's favourite Saturday night indulgence, Strictly Come Dancing. Woohoo!

Except that if you tuned in on Saturday, you'd have missed half of it already. Because the BBC, in its infinite wisdom, can't help but fuck about with a perfectly respectable format. So now we have...

FRIDAY NIGHT IS BALLROOM NIGHT!!
Yes, that's right. It now starts at 8.30 on a Friday night, when the teenies are tired and fractious after school and couldn't stay awake if you hotwired them to the National Grid. Each celeb now has to learn two dances every week. Friday's dance is a Ballroom number, and the extended Saturday show will be for the Latin dance, several slightly tedious interludes with Brucie's bad jokes and a show dance from the usual suspects. We get to vote on both nights, and then there's a dance-off on Saturday.

NO CAMILLA!
Camilla appears to have decided that sharing a studio with Brendan is not a good thing - well, sharing a universe with Brendan is not exactly a great thing, but poor Camilla has suffered more than most. Maybe she knew that after winning last year's competition, she would have to spend at least five years with a sucession of balding two-left-footed pervs before she got a crack at a decent partner.

We've got two new lady dancers, but more of them later.

ARLENE ON THE ROAD: DARCEY BUSSELL AND ALESHA IN THE HOUSE
The only person who didn't know about Alesha's controversial appointment was my sister-in-law, who spends much of the year in a strict Muslim country with no telly and nothing but a pile of eighteenth century literature for company. Arlene seems to have been sent off around the country searching for dancing talent with Nigel Lythgoe (aka The Man Who Gave Us Myleene Klass). In her place is Former Winner and Goddess no. 3 in Mr P's Pantheon of Goddessness, Alesha Dixon.

Apparently Darcey Bussell (Goddess no. 1 in my dad's Pantheon fwiw) will be joining the judges once they've got rid of all the duffers, so that she doesn't have to ruin her classically trained eyes with clodhoppery.

Alesha did...OK. I mean, I don't think I was the only person in the world who got irritated by Arlene's shoutiness and inept punning. But it would be nice if Alesha didn't bang on about how she knows what the poor slebs are going through, because she felt the same WHEN SHE WON THE SERIES, and got on with some actual judging. Right now it looks like she's been brought in giggle with Bruno.

BOOBWATCH: Motherhood really suits our Tess. She's looking gorgeous in a 1970s Farah kind of way. This week, she's rocking the off-the-shoulder look in pink and purple.

So...the dancers

RAV WILDING AND NEW GIRL Aliona Vilani
Oooh...look at that torso! That's in the Mark Foster league, that is. He's the ex-copper chap off Crimewatch, I believe. Seems nice, if a bit bland. New Girl seems to have played safe and reduced his part to standing still while she drapes herself all over him in an interesting fashion. Len don't like that, and says so. We didn't like her nicking her nan's tablecloth for the rumba either.

ANNOYING GARRY + ERIN (FACE OF) BOAG
Well, his name is really Ricky Groves, but he will always be Annoying Garry to us. He was alright for the waltz and actually had a good pair of feet, but Craig called him a spare part. He tried harder for Saturday's chacha, but "trying harder" seemed to involved making lots of angry goldfish expressions. But it kept them in for another week.

CHRIS HOLLINS AND OLA JORDAN
It's another happy chappy from Breakfast TV. The BBC Breakfast males all seem to be middle-sized men blessed with average good looks and an abundance of perkiness. Chris gets bullied by sports stars for a living, and looks and sounds a lot like my mate Nige. This makes him equally endearing and annoying. He and Ola tango to Sharp Dressed Man by ZZ Top (we did the pointy finger wave on the sofa). It was good, but you really didn't feel that he was going to drag her off to a seedy hotel for a damn good seeing-to after the dance was over. Len criticises his hands: "Man Hands, not GURL Hands!"

JADE JOHNSON AND LOVELY IAN WAITE
After a bit of "who?" we remembered her from the Olympics. She's definitely an athlete with those shoulders, and seems like a nice girl (Chivalrous Len: "Look at them thighs! You could crack walnuts with them!") She says she's only here for the bling, but turns in a good performance for both dances.

MARTINA HINGIS AND MATTHEW CUTLER
Mr P doesn't think she has aged well, but I think he's just saying that to keep me sweet. She can't stop with the goofy grin. Enough of the smiling, Martina! She was quite graceful, but screwed up a few steps and even Mr P stopped drooling long enough to admit that it was a bit on the boring side. Craig gets his first mega-hacky look of the series from Len as he awards her a 4 for the first dance. She did well enough in the dance-off for Craig to vote for her, but it was all in vain. Mr P: gutted. Me: gloaty. Never mind dear, I wonder if Kim Deal could ever be persuaded to do Strictly?

LYNDA BELLINGHAM AND DARREN BENNETT
This year's oldie-but-goodie is the Oxo Mum. She dances the tango to Under Pressure, and judging by the ever-changing looks on her face, it's all a bit too much for her already. Her slightly off-time chacha is not helped by a dress that makes her look like a salmon. I don't think she'll make it to the Bussell rounds, somehow.

ALI BASTIAN AND BRIAN SNAKEHIPS FORTUNA
Never heard of this one, but she's from that bastion of Great TV acting, Hollyoaks. Though she's probably a bit good for Hollyoaks now, and has moved on to The Bill. Really rather good. She's got the right combination of sweet scattiness to win over the Great British Public, and she can dance a bit too.

JOE CALZAGHE AND KRISTINA AGUILEROVSKA
I noticed in my mum's builder's copy of The Sun that tabloid journos are all over these two. Judging by the state of his dancing, I'd be inclined to ask a few questions about what they've been doing for the past few weeks.

Even though there were loads of dancers this week, there are another eight to get through next week, including Tanya Turner of Footba££er$ Wive$, and the lovely Phil Tufnell. Mark hates Tuffers, but his Test Match Special turns make me laugh, and he was a genius spin bowler (shame about the rest of his game, but you can't win 'em all, especially if you play for England).

On Thin Ice

2009-07-21T15:55:00.000+01:00

On Thin Ice features Posh Totty Ben Fogle, Posh Sporty Totty James Cracknell, and another bloke called Dr Ed.

Dr Ed replaces Sick Boy Jonny Lee Miller, who wimped out after running the London Marathon with a feeble excuse about acting commitments or something. You haven't been in anything decent since before you were married to Angelina Jolie, Sick Boy. Don't pretend you still have a career.

What are they doing thoughbut? Well, it's officially one hundred years since Scott's catastrophic expedition to the Antarctic, and some weirdo has come up with the idea restaging said tragic catastrophe. As a race. Against the Norwegian equivalent of the SAS and other national teams - probably also full of their national SAS types. Honestly, you'd think there wasn't a war on.

Actually, maybe the fact that our SAS boys are a bit busy right now is why the BBC thought it would be a bloody good idea to send an ex Olympic rower, a TV presenter who likes dogs, and a bloke called Ed instead.

At the start of the "journey" (two weeks ago), Jonny Lee Miller issues the feeble excuse and hops off, making way for an X-factor style call for ~~nutters~~ volunteers to take his place. They whittle it down to two very fit and slightly odd blonde ladies and Dr Ed. Dr Ed wins, possibly because he is a) a doctor and good for emergency frostbite amputations; and b) because the chaps are already married to slightly scary-looking blonde ladies, who also happen to be pregnant. James and Ben probably didn't fancy explaining that one.

Dr Ed is put on a gruelling training regime to catch up with the other chaps, which seems to involve camping in a giant fridge and pulling tyres across the Highlands. Ben falls ill. James thinks he's a big girly wimp. Ben discovers that he has picked up a Flesh Eating Bacteria that is currently chomping through his arm! James says: "Huh!" and strides off into the Scottish twilight, tyre bumping behind him. Ben grows a beard and sits sadly at home while Dr Ed and James become best friends in the big fridge.

Ben gets better again, and rushes to catch up with Dr Ed and James. James growls and points his chin at the horizon. They have all grown beards. Perhaps beards are a good idea in the Antarctic because they trap the air around your face and make it less cold? I don't know, but there don't seem to be many razors down there.

At the start of the "race", we get to see what they're up against, but only the Norwegians are introduced. Yes, that's the Norwegian special forces, from Norway, where it is cold and it snows a lot. The Norwegians seem bloody nice chaps, and Ben gets on famously with them. James growls.

The chaps set a blistering pace for the first day: though I'm not sure how they can tell how far they've come without GPS. How did Scott et al do it? Didn't they just walk around in circles until somebody said: "I'm sure I've seen that iceberg shaped like Lily Langtry before..."

Antartica is cold, white, and appears to be flat, though GIANT CREVASSES can APPEAR SUDDENLY with VERY LITTLE WARNING, which could be DEADLY.(NB: this is the general tone of the narration throughout: it's like Masterchef with snow).

Blistering pace is the correct term, by the way, for it turns out that, while Dr Ed and Ben were very sensible about their feet, stopping and adjusting their footwear when their feet start feeling a bit tingly, James snorted derisively and strode through the pain. At the end of the day, his feet are frozen balls of pus, and poor old Dr Ed has to get busy with the penknife and Savlon. But it means that they have to slow down a bit.

The Norwegians catch up with them on Day 4 or thereabouts, and Ben's delighted to have a lovely chat with the lovely Norwegians. One of the Norwegians says he's going to propose to his girlfriend when he gets home. Ben says "Ahhh!" James scowls.

I fell asleep before the end but apparently James's exhausting pace leaves him...exhausted. By the time they get to the halfway point, it looks like James can't carry on. Oh noes!

Now, I thought this was a three-ep special, but it turns out we have another three episodes. Three episodes of snow, ice, gruesome closeups of blistered feet, red tents against the midnight sun, Ben being lovely and stoic and James howling at the moon. Can't wait...

CRAPPARITIONS

2008-11-14T12:06:00.002Z

Apparitions is a new high profile BBC drama about an exorcist priest played by Martin Shaw, and it is jaw-droppingly awful and hilarious; mixing the kind of dated Satanic/Catholic horror tosh that went out of fashion with the Omen, with laughably clunky dialogue and every TV cliché you can think of.

Father Martin is, of course, a maverick priest who bucks authority to Do The Right Thing, and plays his character in an identical fashion to every other maverick cop, lawyer, judge, surgeon or consultant on any other TV drama ever. He is supposed to be in charge of filling in application forms for new saints or something, but his old exorcist pal in the Vatican (who you just know is going to die horribly in a couple of episodes time) keeps phoning him up and going “Ooo! Demons, etc!”

Father Martin Shaw also has a nun sidekick whose thankless role is to be the sensible one and make dull, badly written speeches about how he has to stop messing around saving little girls from evil demons and get on with his saint forms. Ten minutes into the show I am thinking of her as Sister Wetblanket. At one point a senior bishop or cardinal or something turns up to tell Fr Martin to stop messing around with his maverick exorcisms, and I half expect him to tell Fr Martin to turn in his ~~badge and his gun~~ cross and his bible.

The plot of the first episode combines LOL’s and Cringes in equal measure. It starts off with Mother Theresa dying (yes, that Mother Theresa!), and there is some talk of her being possessed by demons – wow, way to be really offensive in the first five minutes. At the moment she dies, a little leper boy in her hospital starts spazzing out and having fits – fast forward to the present and he is miraculously cured of his leprosy and has grown up into a hunky doe-eyed trainee priest who hangs around with Fr Martin and Sister Wetblanket. Everyone thinks his cure is a miracle, but HDETP thinks that demons made him hot so he could have lots of sinful gay sex! Occasionally a homeless looking bloke magically appears in his bedroom and talks to him in a growly voice in a foreign language, because as we all know - foreign = SATANIC!!!! The demons tell him that unless he starts getting some hot man2man action, they will repossess his non-leprous complexion. HDETP is thrown out of Priest School for being a gay and sits in a gay bar being tempted to have gay sex, because as we all know TEH GAYS = SATANIC!!!!

Anyway, while all this is going on, an annoyingly precocious little girl appears at the Fr Martin Cave and whines that her dad is possessed by demons. What a bitch, you just know she would have grassed her parents up to the KGB in Soviet Russia for making an unwise quip about grain quotas. FrMartin goes round to the house and finds a copy of Jerry Springer the Opera and a Dawkins book, Gasp!! Because as we all know – atheists = SATANIC!!! There is a failed attempt at an exorcism (with the Vatican bloke on speakerphone LOL – couldn’t he have just txted the prayers to Fr Martin or something) but Evil Atheist Dad starts speaking Satanic Foreign, throws Fr Martin’s stunt double at a wall and then goes off and weeps blood on a bench for a bit.

After a lot of bollocking around, it turns out that Evil Atheist Dad conceived his annoying ingrate brat of a daughter whilst queueing up to pay his respects to dead Princess Diana, to celebrate the fact that he just heard that Mother Theresa had died. Yes, read that again. I’m not making it up. WTF??? What it all boils down to is that the Dad is all Evil and the girl is all Saintly. Whatever. He’s about to kill ingrate child at that very spot in Kensington Gardens, when Fr Martin appears out of nowhere and starts with the exorcising. Foreign Growly Voice Demon Man tells Fr Martin that if he exorcises Evil Atheist Dad, then the “Indian Sodomite” (nice) will cark it. But what is our favourite doe-eyed Indian Sodomite up to? He goes to a gay sauna to get it on – ruh roh. People are always punished for having sex in shitty horror films! He sees some naked bloke in a steam room and thinks he is up for it, but the nekkid man turns out to be Growly Foreign Speakin’ Demon Bloke, who promptly skins Doe Eyed Indian Sodomite alive with a cut throat razor. Ouch! That’s what you get for not wanting to have leprosy! and for not being repressed! and for being a gay character in a shit program!

It is all “to be continued” and next week there are swarms of evil flies (yes, I’ve seen Amityville too, you hacks). I will be watching again, of course, as it is completely hilarious. Meanwhile, the first episode has managed to offend Catholics, gays, atheists, people who liked Mother Theresa, and people who like watching TV shows that aren’t rubbish. Score!!!

SCD: LIVE!

2008-10-30T16:42:00.003Z

Well, we were faar too busy to blog the week-before-last's, but Don Warrington went, and I thought that was a bit of a travesty, and muttered about it on Facebook instead.

This week though, EEEEEEEEK! We got tickets for the show! It was all very last-minute, and Mr P had to stay at home with a bag of crisps and a cold-ridden small child. We went with Mark's lovely partner, E, and the lovely N, tanked up on surprisingly good BBC wine, and adrenalin.

There were still loads of couples to get through, so there wasn't much time to hang about. We were ushered up to a seat on the balcony, away from the celebs on the ground floor, and not on the front row either. We protested mildly, but was told cryptically that they were "the best seats in the house...trust us..." Mobiles and cameras were banned, but I did manage to sneak a moby pic of the stage while they were still setting up for Enrique Iglesias (cue disappointed groans from the cheap seats) A small army of women dressed in black, sporting radio headsets and clipboards, were clustered on the dance floor. We weren't quite sure what they did, but whatever it was involved bustling into the middle of the dance floor and chatting urgently with another clipboard carrier, and hugging Kenny Logan. Oh yes, and Dominic Littlewood was there. Ew.

Before we had time to get too sweaty, considering we were right behind a massive lamp that was pumping out greenhouse-style heat right onto our seats, on came a Dale Winton looky-likey who took us through the "Clap You BASTARDS!" routine, and told us how the evening would pan out. This is when we found out that there was no escape from Enrique Iglesias. The judges came on to muted applause, and Len wondered out loud if he looked "like a penis" in his strange 1970s Northern Club compere grey suit. A penis wearing one of those special issue NHS STD-proof condoms that were temporarily popular during the first big HIV/AIDS scare, perhaps.

CELEB WATCH

Kenny and Gaby were in the celeb front row. Kenny bounced around, hugging the floor crew, while Gaby chatted aloofly to various other celeb guests. We also saw Adrian Chiles with two children, who he seemed to ignore in favour of networking with other celebs. There was scurrilous speculation in the cheap seats that it was probably his access day. Meanwhile everybody was surprisingly deferential to Charles Kennedy (looking good), and Alan Hansen (who is quite tall, even when you're looking down on him) strode over to be Scottish with him and Kenny. We were so busy trying to work out who Adrian Chiles was going to network with next, that we didn't notice the front row on the other side of the floor, which was: Noddy Holder, Sue Johnston, Bradley and Dadley (who didn't speak or look at each other), and assorted relatives. We also saw Vernon Kaye and his very sweet little daughter, Roger Black, and Rain Man Charlie Slater. Anybody else we either didn't recognise, or they were under our balcony seat.

Enrique Iglesias was actually OK. He sang that sodding Hero song in tune, and was very professional, so we only had to endure one take. The dancers rumbaed around, with the women wearing bizarre batwing dress-o-tard type outfits. They were a bit ropey and out of time, but it looked like the swoopy camera covered for the ropiness. Then we got the Jersey Boys, who sang a Four Seasons song, naturally, since Jersey Boys is a musical about the Four Seasons - except I had to explain to the Young 'Uns who the Four Seasons were, which made me feel very old indeed. They were a bit thin and nervous, but the group dance samba was less ropey, so they had to go again. But who should walk in and take the seats in front of us, but....

ANT AND DEC!!!

Yep, in they walked with their lady companions, and we tried to look cool while taking secret pictures with our mobiles. Ant looks like he's been eating a few pies, and Dec looks even more like my mate Nige. Dec's lady companion was Sham off Easties-when-we-used-to-blog-it, and he kept casually putting his arm across her back, and then pulling it away when he realised that the civilians behind him were going: "ooooo!" and nudging each other.

Anyway, they were very quiet, and laughed politely at Bruce's lamer jokes, but didn't clap when they were told. God only knows what they were doing in the cheap seats, but maybe their status as Kings of ITV Saturday Night means that they can't be seen to be supporting BBC programmes or something.

ENOUGH SLEBBERY, GET ON WITH THE DANCING!

Oh yes, the dancing...

Boobwatch: Tess's dress was OK. She seems to have made up with the costume dept for this series

LISA & BRENDAN - PASO DOBLE

A rather sedate Paso, and Lisa's dress was pretty. We did like the Eye of the Tiger theme too, though Brendan should have taken it to the extreme and worn a little tigger mask. Lisa prowled around the stage waving her arms in a vaguely flamenco style. I didn’t think it was much good, but little did we know that it would be all downhill from there, paso wise. Bruno thought it was more like Vogueing than a proper Paso Doble, and Lisa got told to watch her shoulders.

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 27

ACTUAL JUDGES: 29

ANDREW & OLA - VIENNESE WALTZ

A Viennese waltz to Annie's Song, which is a proper waltz tempo, I suppose. Andrew got the feet right, and we saw footage of him being tied to Ola using a Pilates band to stop his bum sticking out. Andrew was all right whenever he was in hold, but reverted to total Dad Dancer whenever he was left to his own devices.

Len declared that "Bumgate is no longer an issue", and Craig was almost nice. We in the cheap seats were not.

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 21

ACTUAL JUDGES: 24

CHRISTINE & MATTHEW - PASO DOBLE

Christine Presenternator Paso-ed to Xtina Aguilera's Stronger, and made lots of duck faces to prove that she had PASSION. The judges weren't impressed. Arlene said it wasn't dramatic enough, and we were a bit meh too. But that might be because N said Ant had just farted.

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 22

ACTUAL JUDGES: 22

AUSTIN & ERIN - VIENNESE WALTZ

OK, he still looks like Brains off Thunderbirds, but he's actually rather cute from the neck down. And I was so NOT checking him out in the bar afterwards, so don't listen to Mark. The waltz was quite light and twinkly. Bruno said it was like watching The Return of the King. If he means the final film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I think I fell asleep during one of the interminable battle scenes (perhaps he means it had fifteen fake endings, dragged out for eons…). Anyway, Craig was a bit meh, and we saw Len do a great "hate Craig" face. The fleckles were good, apparently.

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 32

ACTUAL JUDGES: 34

CHERIE &WOLVERINE - PASO DOBLE

Ooh, this was a bit clunky, and there seems to be something in Cherie's contract that she can only wear monochrome. She stumbled right at the beginning of the dance, patently setting off in the wrong direction, and took her time to get back into the mood. The judges were quite kind, though

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 26

ACTUAL JUDGES: 31

HEATHER & BRIAN - VIENNESE WALTZ

Heather wore a pretty fuschia dress that did wonders for her rack. Up in the cheap seats, there was a heated debate between me and E about whether Brian was good or not. Actually in the flesh, he's more like the results of a twisted experiment to clone John Waters with Donny Osmond, and the gaydar was going crazy. Still, he's a damn fine dancer, and the waltz was really nice. Craig hated it.

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 32

ACTUAL JUDGES: 27 - boo!

MARK & HAYLEY - PASO DOBLE

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. Mark's boobs are bigger than mine, and the dance was stompy and out of time and featured many sections with Mark just running around at random. Vernon got a bit over-excited at Craig calling it a "painful shambles", but it was. Sorry Vernon. Mind you, Mark does have an absolutely incredible body...

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 8 (E gave it -4)

ACTUAL JUDGES: 16

TOM & CAMILLA - VIENNESE WALTZ

He had to interrupt his honeymoon to train with Camilla, who dragged him from the marital bed. Poor old Mrs Tom, is what I say. Tom had his slicked down 15-year-old-boy-from-WW2 hair back in effect. He comes across as a bit of a smug tosser, but the dance was very good indeed. The judges loved, except Len, who didn't like the missed fleckles.

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 35

ACTUAL JUDGES: 32

JOHN & KRISTINA - PASO DOBLE

Hilarious. Xtina was in a glittery dress in Palace colours, so they were doomed from the off. Most of the time, Kristina danced like a maniac while John stomped around to a vaguely military tempo, though there was a funny bit where he dragged her along the floor “like he was taking out the recycling”, and there was also a lift! Woo!

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 22

ACTUAL JUDGES: 21

RACHEL & VINCENT - VIENNESE WALTZ

N and I agreed that her 1950s prom dress was all wrong and kept rucking up in the wrong places, but the dance (to Everybody Hurts by REM), was pretty good. Len, who was surprisingly arsey and under generous with the points all night, wasn't excited. Len, the suit isn’t that bad!

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 33

ACTUAL JUDGES: 32

JODIE & IAN - PASO DOBLE

We nearly packed up at this point, but then there was ONE MORE COUPLE TO GO. Well, they weren't very good, to be honest, with more of the Lisa style voguing and arm wavery. I initially gave them a 7 because I quite like Jodie, but E persuaded me to mark her down a bit.

CHEAP SEATS VERDICT: 22

ACTUAL JUDGES: 26

After the show ended, we got packed off to the bar to drink another bottle of suprisingly good BBC wine, and compare notes. An hour later, we were all whipped in again for the results show. There was a mock dance competition involving members of the audience. A couple of drunk BBC designers on a night out had us all in stitches with their ladette moves, and even the celebs came out to have a look.

Mark was danced out, even though his dance off dance was better than the first time, and ripped off his shirt during the farewell section. Slut. Then it was off to the BBC bar to drink more wine and ~~ogle Austin Healy~~ watch who talked to whom.

We sat meekly going “oo look there’s so-and-so” for most of the evening, but were then fuelled by enough drink to start talking to people. We told John and Kristina they were fab (and Kristina thanked John for making her famous!), told Austin he was going to WIN!!! Commiserated with Karen for getting two duffers in a row, and MOTD2 fan N persuaded Adrian Chiles to pose for a photo!

SCD: BLOKES 2: ELECTRIC BLOKEALOO

2008-10-07T12:19:00.000+01:00

mostly by Mark with interjections from Sarah

There are so many couples this time round that they are doing another round of all men/all women before going co-ed in two weeks time.

SARAH: we were in the ballot for tickets to this show, but LOST. We spent much of the show pointing at various no-mark "celebrity" guests and accusing them of nicking our tickets. Hamster-faced bloke off The Dragon's Den - you know it was you...

Tess is wearing a white pleated strapless number this week, which is not too bad. Is it just us or has she dropped a couple of cup sizes since last time?

The men are doing either the jive or the tango, which are two of the best ones to watch. For some reason, most (all?) of the men who did a salsa last time are now doing a jive – I thought they alternated between ballroom and latin? It seems a bit unfair that they didn’t.

Austin goes first, doing a jive in a sleeveless top that shows off his freakishly muscular and veiny arms. Everyone goes on about how awesome they are, but they look a bit grotesque to me, as though the arms of a 1970’s conan the barbarian Frazetta type painting have been grafted onto the head and body of a Thunderbirds puppet. Anyway, he is very good at the jiving and there is a funny bit where he strolls over to the judges and starts shimmying and making “rowwrrr!” faces at them. Austin is certainly v game. Len complains that he doesn’t like men winking at him, because THERE IS NOTHING CAMP ABOUT BALLROOM DANCING ALRIGHT???? Austin gets excellent marks and stays top of the leader board all night.

Andrew is doing a tango to 20th Century boy, which is a terrible idea. It starts off with Ola pretending to dance-kick him in the face, then there is a weird bit later on where he grabs her and head bangs in her general direction, like he's trying to peck her face off. Ola’s white and blue flowy dress is much better than that stupid catsuit she wore last time. He gets average marks.

Tom is jiving to that Black and Gold song that has been in the charts for, like, ever. Tom is dressed all in black and Camilla is wearing a gold dress that makes it look like she has been painted with glue and thrown into a sack of tinsel. The song is a bit slow really, but Tom is quite good (though not as sharp as Austin). There is one bit at the end where he throws himself onto his tummy and slides through Camilla’s legs. In the results show, we meet Tom’s fiancée and I can confirm that she is, in fact, a woman. He gets one point lower than Austin. The judges start trying to whip up a "Tom vs Austin" battle of the series situation or something like that. I think you need at least one protagonist to have a bit of charisma before that's going to happen.

John is tango-ing with Kristina, who has become one of my favourite pro-dancers ever. The tango is not bad, but everyone says John was too nice and not fierce and latin enough. I think he also loses marks for trying not to giggle when Kristina wraps her legs over his arm. He gets average to low marks again, but I think the public really like him. In the interview room, John says that passion and raw sexuality are his trademarks. Heh.

Gary is jiving too. Oh dear God. He patently fails to start at the right time and then drifts in and out of dance mode throughout the routine, counting grimly for dear life as he goes. There is one funny bit where Karen really obviously grabs him and shoves him into the right position. Craig says he was praying throughout the routine, Bruce says he didn’t see him on his knees and Bruno comments that plenty of other people have. Ha ha ha! You can’t say that at teatime! Gary is unsurprisingly in the dance off and the judges unsurprisingly don’t save him. I think Karen is more relieved than disappointed – after two clodhoppers in a row, she deserves someone good next series, pls!

Mark is tangoing, now with an ill advised attempt at a beard. He says he is shy, so Hayley makes him practise in his suit to get him in character. It is not bad, but kind of dull to watch, and Mark's scowly duck faces are a bit off-putting. They don’t really have much chemistry together and Hayley’s routines aren’t the most exciting. He gets the “tall people are spazzes” speech from the judges. He is also in the dance off and is much improved – he even makes a vague attempt at a Grr! Face – so the judges unanimously save him. Arlene tells Hayley to get Mark’s ass to an acting coach.

Don is also tangoing and is much better than he was last time. He keeps a lemon-sucking face intact throughout and the dancing is pretty good too. He says Lilia is awesome and she says, ‘no, you’re awesome!’ Having a partner who can come up with great routines makes such a difference in this show. He gets pretty good marks, but I find him a bit of a cold fish and I can’t really see him having much of a fanbase. In the Sladey house, we oldies remember his cat-like grace in Rising Damp, and think he's alright.

Next week the ladies will be doing either a quickstep (yay!) or a rumba (boo!). In the results show we have a pro-dance group rumba, which is exponentially more vom-tastic to watch than just two people doing it. There is one cool bit though where Kristina does forwards splits, then someone grabs her front foot and basically lifts it up into the air, while she keeps position. Wowsa.

The women do a group swing dance, which is very good and fun to watch (losing marks for an ill advised bit of invisible tromboning at the start). Jodie is shoved to the back a lot. Jessie seems to be quite good and obv performs it very well. I think Christine Presenternator is going to be a dark horse in this competition, as she dances pretty well, has come out of her shell in interviews and has an endearing goofy grin on her face the whole way through the dance.

The women seem to be very friendly and more of a "gang" in this series than the men who, apart from the oldies, seem to take it far too seriously. Well, that's our opinion anyway.

THE RESTAURANT: FLAGS OF OUR FAILURES

2008-10-07T12:05:00.001+01:00

In a highly amusing episode, Raymond sends each restaurant a flag of a country and tells them to incorporate the food of that nation into their menu in whatever way they think best (cue lots of shots of people reading “Foreign food” type entries on Wikipedia!). To see how the evening goes, Raymond will not only send his inspectors, but also a party of diners from the country in question.

Team Sino-Cymru get Spain. They are not sure how to shoehorn Spain into their stupid Chinese-Welsh menu, so Mrs Welsh decides to ditch all that bollocks and have an entirely Spanish evening. Mr Chinese looks a bit grumpy but, in what will be a theme of the episode, folds like a cheap suit. Luckily, one of their chefs is married to a Portuguese woman, so they pick his brains for the menu (even though Spain and Portugal are DIFFERENT COUNTRIES DUH!!). The rest of the evening is spent with the aggressive sous chef bossing everyone around while chinese bloke stands around and meekly chops the odd onion. He is told off by Raymond for not running his own kitchen and they get put into the challenge.

Team Brood get Thailand. Mrs Brood sniffily says that she hates Thai food (though later it is implied that she’s never had it before!!) and can’t be bothered to mess around with her menu just because the person judging the competition told her to. They make a few vague concessions to Thailand, but the Thai diners think that spaghetti with sweet chilli sauce (mmm!!) is not very authentic, and the inspector also says the food is rubbish. Amazingly they escape the challenge, but Raymond tells them off for not being flexible.

Team Sourcing Shambles have a bit of a rubbish week. Mrs SS misses her children and cries a lot (which I’m sure is v upsetting, but seriously, why come on the show then???) and Mr SS has gut rot, which means he is too diseased to handle food. They say they’re going to quit, but then they don’t, so WHATEVER. They are allocated Japan, and add some basic Japanese dishes to their existing menu. The Japanese diners are all togged up with kimonos and say that it is not super authentic, but still tasty and with v fresh ingredients. Afterwards they set up karaoke and Mr and Mrs SS have a sing-song, so at least they cheered up a bit. Raymond puts them in the challenge for not being 100% committed, which is a travesty really as their evening went well and at least they made the effort with their menu.

Team Twee get Sweden and cleverly decide to give their existing menu a Swedish twist (ie turning a warm chicken salad to a warm reindeer salad. Ohs Noes, they ate Rudolph!!) The inspector says it is lush, but otherwise they don’t feature heavily – which is always a good sign on this show. They get restaurant of the week, and I am starting to think that they might win the whole thing.

Team LOL are given France (which is a bit harsh, as it is Raymond’s home cuisine) and live up to their name yet again. Intense one decides to make coq au vin and reads a bit from his recipe book about how it is the most common but most shittily done classic French dish. This will be important for later. They decide to write their menus in French, even though clearly none of them speak it even slightly (‘What is French for vegetables?’ ‘Vegetables!’ (pronounced with a slightly French accent)). The French diners absolutely piss themselves reading the menu and then complain that the coq au vin is made with white wine and tomatoes, instead of red wine. Doh. Raymond really rips the piss re the franglais menu (which, it turns out, is illiterate in English as well as French - ‘poached pairs’ are on offer!) and says that it is bollocks – he actually says bollocks pre watershed too. Uh oh. They still escape the challenge though, so I assume the food was all right.

Team Engerland get Mexico and are all like ‘Ee by gum, I don’t like the sound of this foreign muck’. It turns out that their oven has conked out (not the hobs, mind you, just the oven), so they decide to do a cold buffet and basically do a bit of salad and open a few bags of Doritos. Micky-from-League-of-Gentelmen also wears a ‘hilarious’ sombrero and poncho. He flogs margaritas to waiting customers (though he doesn’t really know how to make them), and while getting everyone totally lashed might be a good way to take their minds off the food, all the tequila in the world couldn’t make you think that a carrot and green bean wrap is a delicious Mexican snack. The Mexican diners think it is rubbish and refuse to pay, while Mickey grumbles in the kitchen that they are all ingrates. What a surprise, they are in the challenge.

For the challenge they have to prepare a three course meal and pitch it to first class air passengers. The chefs have to cook it in the scary enormo factory place then the front of house staff have to dish it up in the tiny airline kitchen and serve it in the proper 1st class type manner. Team Sino-Cymru make a Chinese menu but use frozen prawns, serve soggy noodles and horrid rice and also the service is not very good as Mrs Welsh wanders round with a face like a slapped arse throughout. Team Engerland make a Lancashire hot pot, but with a disgusting fake rosti of grilled raw potato instead of the trad slices of potato. Team LOL are helping them and there is a hilarious scene of the mild mannered one flapping around in the airplane galley for about five minutes looking for towel or something. Team Sourcing Shambles cook a yum looking lamb dish but spend so long buying the lamb that they barely have enough time to prepare it. Everyone forgets to serve Inspector Sarah. The airline like the lamb dish so much that they decide to add it to their menu, so Sourcing Shambles win.

Team Sino-Cymru and Team Engerland both get stick re the horribleness of their food, but clearly Team Engerland must get the chop after their dreadful Mexican debacle. Mickey jokes that he can’t believe he went out over a Chinese man who couldn’t cook rice – yes mate, that’s how shit you really were.

STRICTLY COME DANCING: SURVIVAL OF THE SLUTTEST

2008-09-30T12:02:00.002+01:00

mainly by Sarah, plus Mr P and Mark

Now that Strictly... has a cast of dozens it takes two weeks to just get through the initial stages. Last week's boysfest showed that even John Sergeant could cut a rug - albeit very slowly and with a slightly embarrassed smirk. Phil Daniels made a swift exit as we soon realised why there were three Easties hasbeens in this year's comp.

Brucie and Tess had a few issues with Tess's dress - it was long and cripplingly tight with a train that would never pass muster at a health and safety assessment. Bruce made an awkward attempt at topical comedy - it wasn't as funny as watching Ian Hislop playing "Play Your Cards Right" but he tries...bless him.

First up was Jessie "Slutty Slater" Metcalfe dancing the salsa with Darren. Clips of their training mainly consist of them ROFLing a lot. She's a fine actress with a lovely smile and a filthy laugh. And about as graceful as an ice dancing chicken. Well she had plenty of oomph and chutzpah and wiggled her tassles with a big sexy grin enough to get Len slightly hot and bothered. Craig (is that a mullet?) mumbled something about a fine effort and Arlene told her to watch her hips and feet. Jessie and Darren scored the lowest marks with the judges but could the legions of Easties fans save her bacon?

Christine Presenternator was next with a fluffy rather cute foxtrot. I reckon she's from Derry but no-one was saying. Despite her constant “I’m rubbish, me” style interviews, she is very graceful and elegant. The judges praised her transformation from coltish young presenternator to fully-fledge dancebot in a matter of weeks.

On to Lisa Snowdon and Brendan dancing Brendan's saucy interpretation of a salsa - which seemed to involve Lisa doing an impersonator of a model in a blender. Lisa is wearing a grey and black dress – exactly the colours that first come to mind when one says CARNIVAL!!! You can hear the judges sharpening their knives when Brendan walks on and Lisa doesn't seem to think much of him either. The results show shows Brendan storming out of a backstage interview (I imagine him going to the gents to shout at his reflection and tell himself that he is a WINNAH!! What is he? A WINNAH!!), leaving Lisa sobbing into her sequins. Poor love. They get pretty low marks but are saved by the audience vote.

Sometimes I wonder about the great British public's attitude to the class struggle. Jodie ~~Marsh~~ Kidd dances a perfectly respectable foxtrot with some nifty high leg kicks. Let's face it she's the nearest thing in this competition to one of those sharp witted Amazons who are always trying to trick Bertie Wooster into marriage and a perfect candidate to whisk around a ballroom in a frothy frock. But the audience put her up for the chop - mainly I think because she's posh. Jodie is 6’5” in her heels – yowsa – so we get the predictable comments about how hard it is for tall people to control their gangling nerveless limbs. Craig says she has a lot of body to control and she did it well. That is a mullet.

Foghorn voiced Heather Small is next. Apparently her entire family threatened to disown her if she didn't go in for Strictly. Her partner is Brian Fortuna - King of the Salsa. He seems like a nice enough chap but there's something odd going on with his eyebrows. They seem rather ghostly apparitions of eyebrows that were. And they seem to have bred a brother on his top lip. Anyway eyebrows aside Brian is living proof of my theory that Americans whip the world's collective arse in two things: jazz and dancing. He's bloody fantastic and Heather didn't do too badly in her weird fringey green dress either - there was one really cool bit where she fell over backwards and he caught her by the neck. Bruno calls her the Queen of Salsa but says her musicality could improve. I often thought the same while listening to M-People songs.

Gillian Kaffee Taylforth is next with Anton. I really like her dress. It reminds me of those Edwardian country diary biscuit tins from the 1980s - but in a good way. Kaffee says she is having nightmares about SCD, but surely it can’t be any worse than having to pretend to desire Fill Mitchell? Anton does a very good job of propping Kaffee up around the dance floor and Kaffee smiles winningly but IT'S NOT ENOUGH! Not for the judges or the Great British Public anyway.

Rachel S Club 7 looks v pretty with backcombed hair and an aquamarine ruffly dress with a surprisingly long skirt (surprising when you remember the increasingly trampy outfits that Vincent had Louisa Lytton wear – perhaps he is saving that until the competition is more intense). Vincent has started doing a weird thing where he spits on his fingers and smoothes his eyebrows. He is trying to develop a “schtick” perhaps, but it just makes him look creepy. The routine is v complicated, with some crazy arm tangly moves (why yes, that is the official name for them) and Rachel carries it off with aplomb, albeit with her squeaky clean kids TV persona intact. Bruno predictably goes crazy over a female pop star and they get 8’s across the board.

Cheri Lunghi acted in Oliver Twist once, so Bruce makes a not unfunny joke about how they already have lots of Nancys on the show. James keeps going on that Cheri is well fit for an older bird. Tactful. He then says that Cheri keeps stabbing his feet with her high heels – perhaps these two facts are related. Cheri is foxtrotting in a dress with a bright green skirt that looks a bit like a lettuce. She is very good and there are some sway-y side-to-side bits out of hold that she nails perfectly. All the judges rave about her and she gets 3 8’s and a 9. Yeah well, just wait until jive week.

Mr P writes: There was a collective boy dance (boylective?) called a merengi I think which seemed to involve getting in a sporty huddle at various points and then shooting out a couple from the mob like a Brendan from a disappointment. There is one bit where Tom from Holby waves his arms around like he is trying to karate chop Camilla. Gary Rhodes seems to have improved. John Sergeant was rubbish, but funny. Austin Metro is possibly not as good at Latin as Ballroom. Mark Foster looked a bit dorky (Blogger Mark, who is also v tall and dances like a dork, sympathises). The pro dance was a showcase for new dancers Brian, Hayley and Kristina Aguilerovska, and involved shaking heads violently to and fro (but not in a headbang way) to Michael Jackson's Beat It. I was interested to see if the session guitarist was going to replicate the famous Eddie Van Halen solo or go for something different and push the boundaries. Van Halen it was. I can't help feeling it was an opportunity missed.

THE RESTAURANT: PORK LIFE

2008-09-30T12:01:00.000+01:00

This week the restaurants are each given half a whole pig, together with a butcher to help them convert it into din dins. They are told to use all of it.

Team Syno-Cymru have a themed pork night (snigger) and get round the problem by giving each punter a huge helping of meat.

Team Engerland go further into League of Gentlemen territory by describing deep fried lungs and heart as “crispy pork salad”. Vom.

Lots of teams make a gross terrine out of BRANES and CHEEKS! Mmm, seconds please. These do not prove to be very popular.
Team Father/Daughter struggle with service yet again. Father makes some shitty flyers by typing “We haz a pork!!” out with a dot matrix printer, hacking them up with a rusty bread knife and then giving two away before getting bored and going home. He is so annoying – presumably he thought “front of house” meant swanning round with a glass of wine saying “Did you enjoy your meal?” a few times. There is a clip of him wheedling for a tip and the customers saying “um no, the service was shit.”

Team LOL aren’t getting much custom out on a country road and need to rethink their marketing. Also their waiting staff seem to be v rubbish. Mild Mannered one has a nervous breakdown, while the Intense one ponces round in the kitchen doing intense cheffy things.

Team Twee win and Teams Father/Daughter (because he’s rubbish), Engerland (for their deceiving menu) and LOL (for not acting like a team) are put into the challenge – they have to serve a meal for an Oxford College one evening. I miss that one, but Father /Daughter go out, with him squarely getting the blame. I bet that’ll make for a tense Xmas dinner this year…

THE RESTAURANT: ROAD TO NOWHERE

2008-09-24T20:14:00.000+01:00

Last week wasn’t as much fun as the first, hence my tardy recapping. To begin with, Raymond gives tips on how to charge more for a meal – like if you have a bowl of super-noodles you could garnish it with some grated cheddar and call it super-noodle deluxe or something (he used different ingredients tho…) Awesome!

Then the couples have to do a “customer only pays what they think the meal is worth” night and it generally goes better than the first night. Team Father/Daughter try to avoid their opening night service meltdown by only taking about two bookings for the whole day. Team Twee take too many bookings and have to get people to wait hours for their tables, also the food quality suffers a bit. Team Sino-Cymru can’t cook rice, which I would think is a bit of a drawback for Chinese food. Team Gay can’t be bothered to make any of the changes suggested by Raymond, sigh. Team Sourcing Shambles don’t order enough food and reduce portion size, so by the end of the evening the punters are just getting 1/256th of a scallop each.

Team LOL have their belated opening night and it all seems to go well, with our heroes bickering adorably about the presentation of sliced bread. Sarah turns up and likes the look of the food, but isn’t actually given any cutlery to eat it with. When she finally does, she says it’s very good but that the menu isn’t descriptive enough.

Everyone gets about ½ - 2/3 of what they would have charged. Mean mean customers!

(BTW, there are two teams who haven’t featured much, so I haven’t given them stupid nicknames yet – they will be Team Engerland, who are obsessed with English food, and Team Brood, who have a zillion kids and want to open a restaurant where other people can go with a zillion kids and not be judged)

Team Brood are deemed to be the best restaurant of the week, mainly because of Mr Brood’s sparkling front of house personality.

Raymond gives every couple some feedback, then announces the other couples who must “fart to keep their restaurant” along with Team Father/Daughter. It’s Team Gay, who are generally rubbish, and Team Twee - gasp! - who should have done better and let themselves down. You can’t boot them out! Husband Twee is the only vaguely good looking man on the show!

For their task, each couple must team up with some non-losers to create dishes and serve for the lunch shift at a busy motorway service station. The last time I ate at a service station I ended up vomiting profusely by the side of the M6. Anyway, I missed most of this as I was late home and forgot to tape it, but basically…

Team Father/Daughter do the best, financially, but get told off for not doing a meat dish and then taking a photo of some shop chocolate brownies and passing it off as their own food. Apparently this is a CRIME!!!! Sarah says their fish pie is v nice, but their fishcakes are like rocks – there is a funny shot of her eating a bit, then making a pained expression and wondering how she’s going to swallow it. Team LOL are helping them, and the mild mannered one has to wear a comedy ostrich outfit to lure in the kiddies.

Team Twee make the best food but they take ages to get it together and don’t have time to take proper photos. Instead they have shitty hand felt-tipped posters. Mrs Twee’s idea of promotion is to make some “Cheerful Soul” stickers (that’s the name of their restaurant. Vom) and chase irate motorists round the service station. They do second best and are praised for the food, but totally lambasted for the dreadful promotion. Mrs Twee runs off to cry somewhere and I shout “Where’s your cheerful soul now, eh?” at the telly.

Team Gay make decent food but have a disaster with the humungous carrot cake they try to make. It takes EONS to bake, so eventually everyone forgets about it and it burns. Heh. Cue shots of various cooks trying to scrape the black bits off, but in the end it is deemed unsellable. They do the rubbisherest and are fired basically, which is not surprising as they didn’t bother to follow any advice, had no clue, no drive and no sorbets. There is a ‘poignant’ shot of them wandering the empty halls of “Sorbets and Seasons” (tee hee) saying that they were surprised how hard it was to run a restaurant, what with all the late nights and early starts, etc. What did you expect, fool? I pity the fool, etc etc.

Next week! More cooking and more crying, I expect.

STRICTLY: THE BLOKES!

2008-09-24T13:18:00.001+01:00

It’s showtime! The usual non-witty non-banter from Bruce and Tess (who is wearing a nice dress for once). They introduce the three squillion contestants and inform us that the men are competing in either the waltz or the cha cha cha and that the women will do the group dance and compete solo next week. Because I am evil, I instantly check to see that John Sergeant is wearing a tux, and thus won’t be shaking his booty to torrid latin beats this week. Damn it.

Tom off Holby is first, after some hilarious soap-tastic clips of women in Holby slapping him, kissing him, slapping then kissing him etc. I still don’t think he’s that cute, but never mind. He dances the cha x 3 in a chest-rug revealing electric green shirt and he’s pretty good – he looks like a proper dancer and gyrates his hips around in the approved fashion. He even pulls retarded dance faces. He gets pretty good scores for the judges, who say it is the best first male dance ever and he has loads of potential. Bruno makes a laboured Tom-cat joke, so at least that’s out of the way.

Phil Parklife Daniels is doing with a waltz with Flavia Cachache Coming Atcha. She is wearing a weird yellow dress with loads of pompoms and trailly bits. Phil looks so incredibly stiff and uncomfortable that it is like a comedy routine without a punchline. I know they have to lean away from each other in the waltz, but Phil looks so uncomfortable, and doesn’t seem to take a breath the whole routine, which gives the impression that Flavia stinks of rotten meat or something, which I’m sure isn’t the case. Bruno says he scrubs up well for a bit of rough but Craig says he’s common. Shut up Craig. He gets bad marks.

Gary Rhodes annoys Karen by wanting to learn every little thing perfectly, thus taking forever. He says he is a perfectionist. He is also rubbish at the cha cha cha. Karen is wearing a weird silver dress inspired by assymetrical 1980s bat wing jumpers, though I am pleased to say she still pulls lots of mad expressions while dancing. Gary jerks around stiffly and does vague things with his arms. The routine is quite odd, including a part where Karen leans over like an ironing board and Gary gestures above her like an evangelical preacher on mute. He gets dreadful marks, including a one from Craig ‘for turning up’.

Austin Healy does a waltz. He looks very strange with his weirdly unbelievable hair and botox-y face. Matt Dawson pops up to whinge about Austin putting him off when he was competing years ago. Get a job, Matt. Austin is worried that he might forget everything and have to do the robot for five minutes. I’d love to see that. He is a bit smug and irritating, but at least he doesn’t act like dancing is a great insult to his masculinity and he doesn’t know how he’s going to cope. He is very good too and Arlene suspects him of going to a posh school that made him do dance lessons or something. Austin denies it. He gets a 9 from Len Von Overmarker, which doesn’t really leave him much room for improvement over the rest of the competition, and 8s from the rest.

Mark Foster is super tall and his hands are even bigger than Zoe-Slater-off- Eastenders’. Her is v handsome though, and looks great in evening dress. He dances a waltz and is not bad, but rather stiff and nervous looking and is so desperately trying to remember his moves that you can almost see the cogs turning in his brane. Everyone says he has potential and needs to loosen up and perform more. Arlene is all “hellooo handsome!!!” – so he is the designated contestant that she will drool over all series (though my internets research hint that Mark might be gay). He gets respectable marks from everyone except Craig, who deems it D.U.L.L. and gives him a 3. Ouch. Mark looks mortified. And sweaty.

Andrew Castle and his strangely huge ‘bloke off dynasty’ hair is dancing a cha cha cha with Ola, who is wearing a bizarre skin tight catwoman style outfit with cutout sections. Even she doesn’t have the body to carry that off. Andrew gives it a shot, but is a total dad dancer and vaguely embarrassing to watch, especially when he has to shake his hands in the air like he just don’t care, when clearly he does care. Deeply. Luckily for him, he is being judged on a special scoring system which only applies to GMTV presenters, and as he wasn’t as dreadful as Fiona or Kate, he gets surprisingly good marks.

John Sergeant is doing a waltz with Siberian Kristina, who as well as looking like a sexy 1960s spy, looks like a less evil version of Christina Aguilera. They seem to get on well and have a quite a sweet relationship, with Kristina making sympathetic ‘aww’ faces when Bruce mocks John’s age and terrible bookies’ odds. The waltz is not too ambitious and pretty good, and everyone praises their rapport and evident enjoyment. He gets respectable marks. Yay, go John and Kristina!

Finally Don Warrington (off Rising Damp and lots of other things) is doing the cha cha cha. He is kind of stompy, stiff and expressionless, and at one point clearly goes left when he was supposed to go right. There are vague hints of non rubbishness though. Craig says he has natural rhythm. Oh Craig. Everyone says he is all right but not great and he needs to perform more. He gets fairly shit marks. Don is pleasantly dry and dead pan in interviews, but I can’t see him having much a fan base and think he’ll be in the bottom two for sure.

The ladies do a latin themed group dance to the rubbish Lil Kim etc version of Lady Marmalade. It is hard to see what is going on, with everyone thrashing around and the camera rotating in opposite directions, but from first glance – Gillian and Jodie appear to be rubbish; Rachel Stevens and Lisa Snowden seem to be quite good. Christine has potential, and Jessie just stands there and shimmies on the spot while Darren gyrates around at her feet.

The results show is now an hour long. Sigh. Tess is wearing a weird dress with a sort of pelmet for the neckline. The pro’s do a group foxtrot. Bette Midler pimps her new greatest hits album, Alesha and Matt do their Crazy in Love dance again (cut to Flavia looking under-joyed). Everyone discusses last night’s shenanigans and there is a recap of the marks. There is a group dance with everyone involved, but again, it is impossible to see what’s going on with so many people. I like the clip of the training though, with Vincent fondling Austin’s manly pectorals. Forget Tom-off-Holby, Vincent always sends my gaydar into complete meltdown.

Results time – Austin and Tom get through! Andrew and Mark (hurray!) get through! I am also pleased that John gets through. OMG, Gary gets through and Karen looks like she’s going to have a coronary. It is Parklife and Don in the bottom two. The judges advise them to be less shit this time. Thanks for your piercing insight, judges!

They both dance again and are both rubbish again and both make lots of obvious mistakes. Don at least tries to smile this time. Craig saves Phil! Gasp! Arlene saves Phil! Double gasp! Bruno saves Don! Hurray! Casting vote-meister Len also saves Don. Phew. There is something a bit irritating about Phil Daniels and he was rubbish in Eastenders, so I am glad he got the boot. Perhaps he can go and feed the pigeons to cheer him up, I understand that that gives him an enormous sense of well being.

Nest week: The women dance solo!

The week after that: I look forward to Mark Foster and John Sergeant wearing tight and revealing latin costumes, but for completely different reasons!

STRICTLY COME DANCING PREVIEW SHOW!!!

2008-09-15T12:58:00.001+01:00

OMG it starts again the next week!! This is a preview to introduce us to the insane number of contestants (16 this time) and generally get us in the mood.

First of all I love the promo clip, which has a huge glitter ball landing and opening up like a space ship, then all the contestants run out in glittery outfits looking ultra serious, like superheroes charging to battle (Dance Force Assemble!!)

Bruce and Tess present of course, and are shot in close up so we can't see what horrors the costume designers have wrought on Tess' bosoms.

There is a recap of last series, which makes me think 'yawn filler' but soon gets me all nostalgic - lots of shots of Alesha looking awesome, Matt forgetting his steps, Gethin being suave and Kate stumbling round like a big clown. The judges pop up repeatedly and Craig says "Kenny was the stiffest thing I've ever seen." O really, Craig??

On to the contestants...

Chef Gary Rhodes and his weird eyebrows are partnered with mad face Karen. Yay for mad face Karen!! Gary Rhodes is surprisingly hunky. Karen tells him stop talking and get on with it a lot while they are training.

Manageress actress Cheri Lunghi is partnered with annoying James, whose hair looks completely ridiculous at the moment.

Journalist and comedian John Sergeant is partnered with a new platinum blonde Russian dancer called Kristina, who sort of looks like a sexy spy from a 1960s film. I don't think John will be long in the competition, which is a shame as there was a hilarious shot of him holding Kristina's leg in the air with a highly bemused expression on his face. I think he will be comedy gold.

Brass-lunged M-People singer Heather Small (sadly now without her trade mark pineapple-esque do) is partnered with gimpy looking new American dancer Brian Fortuna.

Phil 'Parklife' Daniels is the first of three ex eastenders looking for a career boost - three is a bit much, to be honest. He is put with Flavia and her terrifying teeth. Of course, Flavia danced with Parklife's screen son Deano in the last series.

Posh horse riding model Jodie Kidd (who does not look all that without her make-up) is put with Iain, who is probably the only male dancer who is actually taller than her.

Don Warrington, the actor who played the black guy in Rising Damp, is partnered with Lilia. She is pleased that he can vaguely move his hips.

Jesse "Slutty Slater" Wallace is the second Eastender. She is as orange as ever but now has a severe Louise Brookes style bob (pleeease cast me in Chicago!!!). They show that famous clip with Teen going 'You're not my mother!!' which is as hilarious as ever. She is partnered with Darren, after he did so well with another slightly camp EE actress last series.

Rachel Stevens of S Club 7 and forgettable solo career fame is obv definitely in need of a career boost. She's partnered with creepy Vincent who is as sleazy and lispy as ever. She tries to sing Reach and can't remember the words, but Vincent can, the big gaylord.

Model, presenter and George Clooney ex Lisa Snowden is partnered with that shiny faced bastard Brendan. I have always found Lisa inexplicably irritating so I'm not going to be cheering these two on. Brendan is as annoying as ever and immediately starts leching over her. You could partner him with a lamp post and he'd try to dry hump that too.

Super tall silver fox olympic swimmer Mark Foster falls into the 'retiring sportsman looking to move into presenting' category. He is partnered with a new dancer Hayley from NZ, who seems like a nice down to earth type girl. She is pleased to have a big strong sportsman as her partner. Mark complains that they put him into a waistcoat with nothing underneath and has to show off his super toned chest, but I bet he loves it really.

Rugby player Austin Healy is the second retired sportsman blah blah blah. He chats about how he doesn't care what ludicrous tight shiny outfits he wears (they actually show the wardrobe lady squealing and clapping her hands in glee at this news). He is partnered with Erin, who looks completely different with straightened, lighter hair. Maybe she has had a little work done too, but it’s hard to tell.

The final Eastender is Gillian 'Kaffee' Taylforth, who is going for the game old bird ticket, a la Claire Bad Girl from the other year. She is delighted to be partnered with Anton Du Madeupname, who is a natural with women-of-a-certain-age like our Gillian. She seems like good fun anyway, so I hope she does OK.

Andrew Castle is the blond bloke off GMTV. Apparently he used to be good at tennis too. He has a lot to live up to, what with all the other GMTV presenters being hopeless clodhoppers. He is partnered with uber minx Ola, who says he is good looking, but old enough to be her dad. Meooowwww!!

Tom something is a ‘Holby hunk’, it says here. He is all right but nothing to write home about. My boyfriend likes him though. He is partnered with Camilla who looks 300x nicer when she is not bright orange. Apparently Tom is getting married half way through the series, so Camilla asks how he’s going to fit that in round his training. Heh. Later on there is a clip of him standing in a waltz position, moaning that he has cramp in his wrist, so I think she’s going to have her work cut out.

Finally there is that Northern Irish Christine woman off ~~Nationwide~~ The One Show. She sounds like a total presenternator when she coos on about looking forward to going on a journey, but is more likeable when she’s being fitted for her costume and is all like “yikes, my dad is going to watch this and I’m practically naked!!” She is partnered with Matt.

I was trying to work out which pro from last series was dropped (two extra contestants but three new pros) and it turns out it’s Nicole. Even though I made fun of her a lot last time, I wonder what she did to deserve that?

Anyway, my appetite is well and truly whetted. Bring on next week!!

RESTAURANT EPISODE 2: OPENING NIGHT-MARES

2008-09-15T12:15:00.001+01:00

The couples are all taken to see their restaurants. They are in a variety of locations and settings, from a super modern glass fronted one (yay!) in Brentford (boo!), to village pubs, high street shop fronts etc and so on. They have all the basic equipment and furniture, and have a week and £5,000 to get everything else they need and sort out staff etc. To rub their noses in it even more, they get treated to a night out in one of Raymond’s places, so they can look back and reflect upon what a superbly run restaurant is supposed to be like when (SPOILER) it all goes tits up in their own places. It seems that each restaurant has a full board of punters arranged for them, so all they have to do is phone them all up and confirm their bookings. That probably isn’t very realistic, but I suppose it’s better than having them completely empty on their opening nights.

Lots of montages of cleaning/painting etc. Team Sino-Cymru can’t decide on a name for their place that reflects its Chinese/Welsh cuisine (how about ‘inedible farrago’?), Team Father/Daughter have a nice city centre place in Oxford and ask their customers to order in advance so they can get a head start with the food. Something about the dad is beginning to remind me of Alan Partridge. Team Gay are sticking with their uber naff “Sorbets und Seasons” concept.

Team LOL (the crypto gay comedy ones who had a mashed potato disaster in episode one) are opening a fine dining restaurant called Gallery which will have art on the walls. There is a funny scene of the intense one telling the mild mannered one off for distracting him while he is trying to chat to another chef, then the mild mannered one does v-signs behind his back. All is going well until they discover a gas leak in the dining room. It can’t be fixed in time so they basically just can’t open – how annoying for them after all that preparation (and yes there is another scene of the mild mannered one hugging and comforting the intense one).

Opening night comes around – Team Twee (the ones with the flowers) aren’t quite ready and there are heaps of crap piled around everywhere, but they don’t feature much apart from that so they must do OK. Team English barely feature, so they must do OK too (but we later learn that their food was under seasoned, bland and average – a good representation of English cookery then). Another team get a bit of stick, because they make a big deal of where all their food is sourced, but then they can’t say what breed of pig their pork belly comes from. Doh.

Team Sino-Cymru call their place the Welsh Wok. Hmmm. They seem to have given up on the fusion concept, and instead have a mix of Welsh and Chinese dishes, or else a welsh meat dish with some stir fried veg. Lots of comedy shots of bemused locals being bemused. Sarah the sidekick visits. She is not as withering as Margaret Apprentice and seems smiley and pleasant most of the time, but when she is inspecting she is ruthlessly business like. There is a hilarious conversation where she discusses the menu with Mrs Welsh and it goes something like ‘I thought you were doing fusion food’, ‘We are!’, ‘But there are no fusion dishes on the menu’, ‘No, it’s a mix of Welsh and Chinese dishes’, ‘So, not fusion then’, ‘The fusion is in the menu’, ‘but I thought you were doing fusion food?’, ‘Yes but no but yes but no’.

In Team Gay, the front of house one seems to be doing OK, but the kitchen one is a bit wimpy and asks the sous chef to let him know if he’s doing anything wrong. Has he never seen Masterchef? Even I know that the head chef rules with a rod of iron. It is really clear who are the amateurs who can put on a nice dinner party, and who are the professionals in this show. David Inspector comes round and tuts at the kitchen hierarchy. He orders the signature sorbet, which is mint and pea (these two are obsessed with mint and peas) and says that it’s (a) nasty and (b) not even a real sorbet. No one else orders it all night.

In Team Father/Daughter's gaff (a classic brasserie called the Blue Goose), they are all smug because they have got their customers to pre-order. Father tells the waitresses the system for dealing with orders, and the waitress immediately tells the film crew that it won’t work. Sure enough it doesn’t – there is no way to track orders or to tell who has had their food and there isn’t even a proper table numbering system. It soon descends into complete chaos, with tables getting random dishes if they are lucky, and people leaving in droves after waiting for two hours without getting any food. Father gets really arsey with all the customers and insists that they pay for soft drinks they ordered while they were waiting. Unsurprisingly, lots of people don’t want to pay for anything. Sarah arrives at the height of the meltdown and chats with some irate people who are leaving after not getting any dinner. The whole evening is an Epic Fail.

Raymond debriefs the couples and offers some pithy advice to each one. Cymru-Welsh, Sourcing Shambles and the Gays come in for special criticism. Father/Daughter are left to last and think they are going to be deservedly eliminated, but Raymond says it would be unfair to shut them after one night (and also a huge waste of money), but they have to improve things and next week will have to do a Raymond Challenge and fight to keep their restaurant (although, because of his accent it sounds like he is telling them to fart to keep their restaurant, tee hee)

Next time: Raymond gives them some hints for making more money, and they have to do a night where people only pay what they thought their meal was worth (cue clip of a punter saying his steak and frites was worth about £4 – the same as a kebab. Heh)

THE RESTAURANT

2008-09-14T19:19:00.003+01:00

Another elimination type show with each team of two trying to run a restaurant. We have top chef Raymond Blanc and his comedy french accent in the Siralan role and a restaunteur pal and an icy young businesswoman as his Nick and Margaret.

There are lots of shots of Raymond's lovely looking restaurant near Oxford and then the nine are told that they each have to cook a course each of a three course meal and the worst one will be eliminated before they even get to their restaurant. It's too early to remember much about the contestants but the most memorable moments of epsiode one were...

1) There is a welsh lady with a husband of chinese origin (who said about three words all episode). Their concept was welsh/chinese fusion. LOL. This basically consists of him cooking yummy looking chinese food and then chucking a few leeks into it.

2) There was a very twee young lady with a gaydar triggering husband, who puts flowers in all his dishes. He seems like a pretty decent chef but she is v annoying, and you just know that they must have twee nicknames for each others genitals.

3) There was a father/daughter team - you get the idea that the daughter basically threatened to hold her breath until daddy procurred a restaurant for her. Again, she is a pretty good cook, but they made the mistake of telling Ray that they were serving spring lamb and he was all 'Please, that bitch was at least 11 weeks old when it was slaughtered.' Do not try to con Raymond re the age of your carcass as he will totaly pwn you over it.

4) Someone else was chastised re the quality of their watercress

T5) here is a young married couple who are obsessed with Englishness and want to do proper English food. They want to call their restaurant Ray White’s – geddit??? The bloke reminds me a bit of Mickey from League of Gentlemen. For their dessert, they make that classic English dish: rhubarb and ginger cheesecake with goats’ cheese. Vom. Apparently the goats’ cheese is so mild that it doesn’t spoil the dessert, but it looks like something that has been decanted hastily from a tin and they get told off re the presentation.

6) A couple of gay air stewards with a concept for a restaurant that sounded like something from a Victoria Wood sketch - Seasons and Sorbets - where they serve seasonal food, with a lot of sorbets I assume. For their starter they coked a pea and mint soup and served it in a hollowed out bap. Why? Why??? Also they used frozen peas because peas aren't actually in season. Doh. They just scraped through

7) Another couple of blokes, who we are told are just friends but again set the old gaydar blaring. The guy doing the cooking was an intense muscley bloke with lots of tattoos, who is a professional chef, and his ahem friend is a mild mannered cuddly type with glasses who gets bossed around a lot. Muscle boy cooked an insanely ambitious dish that included a saffron potato puree. As he was cooking it, the voice over explained that sometimes the dish can separate out and the butter and starch can react in a weird way. Hmm, I wonder why they would tell us that? Oh right. Muscle boy is soon sweating profusely as he tries to rescue his pretentious mash and ends up dishing up what looks like mustard coloured play-doh. Raymond takes him to pieces over it and says it's no good trying to do 'fine dining' if you can't handle the cooking (At this point I would have said 'Can we change our concept to mediocre dining instead?'.) Again, they just scrape through and muscle boy ends up weeping in his pal's arms. Awww. They were so hilarious that I would carry on watching just for them and think they ought to get their own sitcom

8) A mother and daughter want to open a carribean restaurant. For her dish, the mum chucks some tinned mango puree into a bowl, stirs some cream and lime juice into it and pops it into the freezer. Yes, this is the best dish she knows that she thinks will impress Raymond Blanc the mostest!! Why didn't she just give him a plate of tescos rich tea or something? Unsurprisingly she doesn't get through to the next level.

Eurovision Dance Contest

2008-09-06T20:15:00.012+01:00

Just when you thought that Eurovision couldn't get any camper. It's Strictly Come Eurovision with Wogan replacement in training Graham Norton and Claudia Winkelman. Marvel at Graham's woeful French accent! Wonder if Claudia will fall off her heels.

SWEDEN
Spotty blonde chap who is Sweden's biggest pop star (apart from Bjorn Benni et al I suppose) and the pro is a blonde too. But then they are Scandis. Mark probably fancies him anyway. Oh no! He break dances!

They start with some really bad sub-Shalimar body popping moves and it goes downhill from here.

Craig and Len like 'em.

AUSTRIA
He's very tall but the grouping of three different styles (including hip hop - well MC Hammer) is a bit odd.

DENMARK
Another spotty pop star/singer with a dance based on an old Danish ghost story . They start well enough with the theme from Twin Peaks but then it gets all interpretive. Pop Star is very bendy but he's dressed like Peter Pan and there isn't much ballroom in it.

Len hates it. Craig says: "Oh LEN get off the grass! I love it". The judges love it

AZERBAIJAN
Len can't pronounce it and advises all children to leave the room. Blimey it's Christopher Lee's secret love child. Oh brilliant! Heavy metal hammond organ interpretation of Phantom of the Opera with Azerbaijani accents and rhinestones! Love his boots. Lots of hurling about of pretty blonde lady.

Len hopes he didn't come her on the bus in that costume but loves the foxtrot. Craig hates it.

OMG this is reality TV gone mad! Vlad the Impala has just proposed to his victim! Len's too busy throwing up to comment but the Singaporean (??) judge gives them a 12.

IRELAND
Derbhla and Gavin the slightly gay-looking barman from some Norn Irish soap by the look of it. He's an Ulsterman! OK we're both dreading this. It'll have Riverdance bits in it. It starts off with jungle drums and lots of tippety tappety leg swinging to something Spanish. There's something very amusing watching a pretty lady dance in a pair of hobnail boots but...oh no they've gone all flamenco. Now they're lying down...having a rest love? Mr P notes that it's more Roscommon than Rhumba.

Craig haytes it and Len loves it. The judges loathe it.

Graham N says some complicated points stuff about the top four couples earning four times as many points again if the judges like them or something

FINLAND
We can expect something called the Finnish tango. It starts off slow but there's an accordion. Then there's a fast bit. Then there's another slow bit where the lady looks at her feet. Chap looks like Kenneth Branagh on stilts which is slightly offputting. They're going fast...slow...then fast and they're finishing with a slow bit. We noticed that Ken is supposed to be the pro but he's not as good as the lady.

Craig says that the Finnish tango is meant to be slower and in a minor key. Ummm...tango music is always in a minor key (little muso note there...)

Mediocre marks from the judges. Singapore judge is a bit of a soft touch. Len's got his eye on her though.

NETHERLANDS
Oh dearohdearohdear. Tall blond chap called Thomas who works in a Queen covers band is going to sing AND dance. Oh he's doing Angels with the Mike Samms singers doing the chorus while he does a lot of posing and pointing at the balcony. The pro seems to have lost half her dress poor girl. Oh dear...

Craig mutters about his highlights. Len tells him to stop bitching about the hair. Judges hate them

Halfway through Denmark's Peter Pan meets Twin Peaks routine is in the lead.

LITHUANIA
The "sexiest lady in Lithuania"...apparently she sings in a Girls Aloud a like group with a pro partner who makes Brendan look quite sensitive. Craig notes that his eyebrows have been plucked to within an inch of their lives.

Oh she's still got her dressing gown on. He's in white pyjamas. Perhaps they're going to take a nap...oh no the gown is off revealing a white dress covered in milk bottle tops. We think it's a samba...

Len love loves loves that. You can keep yer Danish fairies...he says...Craig hates the dressing gown.

Gladys the Singaporean judge gives it a 12.

Claudia is backstage interviewing the Danes. Danish boy is a cute pixie but Mr P says he's a spotty oik under all that foundation. Austrian chap keeps mugging to the camera. Now she's interviewing the vampires who aren't ready to go back into their coffins just yet.

UK
It's Jailbait Davetta and slightly creepy Vincent dancing to a Rolling Stones track. Good thing my mum's in Croatia or she might break the telly. Ooooh...it's Paint It Black done pasa doble stylee. Davetta has grown up a bit and...ooops there goes her skirt. Vincent tries to throw her over his shoulder and drops her instead. But it was an artistic drop...and they're doing jive which was always Davetta's star dance.

Len thought it was "nearly great". Craig loves the lift where Davetta leaps onto Craig's back and wraps herself around his waist.

Gladys only gives them an 8. The German gives them a 10 but the rest of the judges hate it. Davetta is very gracious and sweet. But we can't vote for you Davetta!

RUSSIA
She's an Olympic champion ice skater. That's cheating isn't it? He looks like he was born in a solarium.

Think this is a pasa doble/samba/chachacha melange. The dress is two sheets held together with some sparkly bits. Lots of posing and throwing of blonde ladies about.

Both Len and Craig thought it was nasty and greasy and foreign. They also hated the man's black satin shirt flapping about like an injured stingray.

GREECE
She's from Perth. He's from Sydney. They're planning on doing some chachacha/pasa doble/samba and some other stuff that I didn't catch because I was trying to work out if the location shot was somewhere we'd spent her holiday.

Oh no not the skirt coming off again. This isn't Bucks Fizz circa 1982. They've switched the music to the Dick Dale theme tune from Pulp fiction but with some bad hippety hoppety rap nonsense...

Craig: The only Greek thing about that dance was the houmus coloured dress. The judges will probably love it and the man's demi wave is quite ludicrous.

PORTUGAL
She's a Fado singer partnered with Cristiano Ronaldo...they're really sweet and giggly actually.

Oh she's wearing something with sleeves...there's a first. Oh Ronaldo has just ripped them off. I sense more will come off soon. That skirt looks a bit iffy for starters. He's throwing her around a lot but their footwork is pretty nifty considering they have to skip over piles discarded clothing as they dance. It's like my daughter's bedroom.

Craig and Len think it went as well as could be expected.

The judges hayte it. Len disagrees. I mean I know why the UK is perennially unpopular in Eurovision...but what did Portugal do wrong?

POLAND
Craig thinks they look sweet. They look terribly wholesome and technically good.

At first glance the dress looks like a one-piece so I don't think anything can come off. Polish chap (actor) moves like a cat and....oh I wrote too soon. In the time it takes to cue up Michael Jackson her white dress has been replaced by a Wonderwoman outfit. They are very very good.

Len: "The best thing was when the white top came off and you could see what a lovely pair they were..."

Craig wants to know if the chap has a twin brother...

Judges go: hmmmmm...and give them 40

UKRAINE
Another Olympic gymnast. She looks like a skinny Janine Butcher. Len and Crag have high hopes.

There isn't enough of the young lady's costume to rip off (I could be wrong...) but at least they haven't gone for some jazzed up Ukrainian folk song. About 30 seconds in they start doing cockney braces snapping.

OMG there's a jazzed up Ukrainian folk middle eight...then they go back to the slightly Cuban main song. The Ukrainians in the audience seem to have raided the parks of Glasgow to make flowery head dresses.

Len likes her feet and ankles but hates the routine. Craig just mumbles into his beer.

The judges like it more than they liked Davetta and Vincent...

After some backstage stuff where the dancers arrive at Glasgow airport/lose their luggage/tour the sights of Glasgow. They get a chance to scowl at each other in rehearsal for...

THE BIG GROUP DANCE
Everybody gets a go at a solo bit. Vlad engulfs his new fiancee in his cape and the Irish go for the full "My Lovely Horse" vote with more tippety tappety dancing. I think they're dancing to an Amy Winehouse but all chantoosies seem to sound like Amy these days. The musicians then decide to channel the Andrews sisters via the Puppinis. And the Poles cheerfully dance the arses off the competition again.

Graham has changed his jacket to something more sporty. Claudia probably has a new set of heels but I can't see. There's a blast of bagpipes which according to Graham means "les lignes sont maintenant closed". And we can look forward do a medley from the new production of Carousel starring Lesley Garrett. The sofa opinion of our Lesley is that she seems like a lovely person but our ex neighbour Marilyn would have done better. In fact she do better about twelve years ago. Though we are of the opinion that opera singers should stay away from jazz so what do we know?

Lesley et all belt through June is bustin' out all over and You'll never walk alone with straight faces. There's a short interval with the backstage interviews and Graham steps in with the scores.

Complicated maths stuff that even Mr P can't explain mean that the UK end up with 8 points and Ireland gets NUL POINTS. Can they make it up with the phone votes? I think not

Sweden gives 8 pts to Denmark. Len says: "Well they are neighbours"; unaware perhaps of Sweden and Denmark's centuries-old animosity.

Austria are a bit more generous to the UK but give the biggest score to Poland. Graham relishes saying: "Goodnight Vienna" because he's like that.

Denmark features Jens who somehow hits Graham's flirt button. The Danes give Ireland 4 pts and the UK 5 pts. Top scores go to Sweden and Poland. Len notes that the Polish lady is getting a bit excited.

Azerbaijani lady milks her moment. Graham looks uncomfortable as the Irish get 6 pts and top marks go to the neighbours in the Ukraine.

Ireland are next and they generously give us 8 points. So that's four points off for 500 years of colonial oppression then? Poland get the top marks. More shots of lovely Polish lady waving her legs around.

Don't bother flirting with Graham Finnish lady; it'll only end in tears. Russia gets the top marks and Len vows to never set foot in Finland again - well he's never been there but now he won't ever go...

Netherlands. Len thinks the Dutch like us. Hmm...I'm thinking: Thirty Years' War...but no I'm wrong. The UK gets 10 points...and Poland gets the top score. So the UK only has another 5o points to catch up with Poland...

Lithuania gets a wave from Graham and they give Ireland 5 points. Azerbaijan gets the top marks and Craig complains that Azerbaijan wasn't even a country when he was at school...

Smiley Carol Smillie briskly gives 8 points to Ireland and Poland get the full marks. Len demands to know why the Irish couldn't reciprocate as generously.

The Russian lady doesn't know Graham either. Obviously the Oleg Gordievsky scandal has had an effect because the UK only get 1 point while the Irish get 8 points. Craig and Len are livid that "plastic tapping stuff" gets more marks than throwing Davetta up and under...

Greece gives Poland enough points to scoot into the lead and offers 12 points to Russia. Eh?

Portugal are next. Graham is getting bored with the flirty ladies and briskly asks for the scores. Russia get the top points and UK gets nothing. Len says his Christmas trip to the Algarve is CANCELLED. Actually his holiday options are narrowing to Rotterdam and Torquay.

There appears to be a power cut in the Ukraine. Russia gets douze points and Graham dismisses the sultry young lady with a wave.

Poland give the UK 1 point. Len: "Every waiter we've got is a Pole and all we get is 1 point." Craig: "Well it's clear that Poland has no taste..." Azerbaijan gets 12 points.

Yep it's Poland. Wonderwoman leaps onto the man next to her. Graham is philosophical. Wonderwoman calms down long enough to put her white dress back on for the victory dance. And we can all get ready for the real event on the 27th...

Guide to Apprentice finalists

2008-06-09T16:52:00.000+01:00

Now that the only person who would even get an internship in my team has been FIRED(Lucinda, if you really need it spelled out for you), here's the TV Dinners guide to the runners-up

ALEX
Well, he's 24 years of age, he's agile, and loves to sell. He also did modelling at university - whether he managed the dizzy heights of the Grattan catalogue, or just pouted moodily for a photography student, we will probably never know.

Has the most mobile lips in Christendom, and that's before he starts talking. Conversations with Alex are mostly concerned with whining about how crap everybody else is, plotting against Lucinda, telling tales on Lucinda in the board room, and mentioning that he's 24.

IF HE WINS: We'll know exactly why SirAlan backed the Emailer phone

HELENE
Is she a Helen trying to be classy? We'll never know. After ten weeks of being Queen of the Backstabbing PassiveAggressive Bullying Beeeyotches, we learn that Helene had to leave school early because her parents were alcoholics. Even SirAlan went: "...your point is?" when he heard that one.

IF SHE WINS: Nahhh...that ain't going to happen

LEE MCQUEEN
One week he's a giant labrador puppy who only wants to be loved by his team; the next he's a snarling rottweiler sales demon from Hades. Lied about his university career - and not even that well. I mean, if you're going to lie about going to university, at least make it a good one, Even the University of Greenwich would have been a better bet than Thames Valley College of More Education or whatever it's called.

IF HE WINS:Strong possiblity. Will join SirAlan's team of Alpha Males and probably end up interviewing little Apprenticelets in 10 years' time.

CLURR
Badger 2.0. Ballsy, bright, common as common can be, and right up SirAlan's street.

IF SHE WINS:Will jack in the job after three months for the lucrative Executive Coaching circuit, like Badger and the blonde who won two years ago.

2008-05-21T17:28:00.000+01:00

EUROVISION COUNTDOWN

This year they had two semi finals with voting restricted on the night – this was apparently designed to stop the tactical voting by neighbouring countries (ie Greece and Cyprus are now on separate evenings, as are Finland and Sweden, Slovenia and Croatia etc) and get a better mix of countries on the final night.

A brief description of the first batch of finalists who got through on Tuesday...

Norway

Mid tempo power ballad sung by attractive blonde lady with blue dress – heinous lyric alert = rhyming “sometimes” with “bad crimes” in the very first verse.

Poland

As above, but slightly more Celine Dion-esque. The ladies even look/dress similarly, but the Polish one has worse fake tan/capped teeth.

Azerbaijan

Obscure central Asian countries bringing the camp! Hurray! Completely bonkers falsetto power ballad sung by bloke with blue white hair dressed as an angel, duetting with bloke in black leather dressed as the devil. Meanwhile, sundry nymphets enact a Meat Loaf video with goblets and expressive dancing.

Bosnia/Herzegovina

More crazitude, this time from Sarajevo’s answer to Bjork, and her slappable Pinnochio-esque brother. Also there are grannies knitting on stage singing backing vocals. Once you get over the whimsy, the song is actually very good and almost indie-ish, with a driving bass and some cool tempo changes. My fave so far, I think.

Finland

More hard rock from the Finns, this time in an Iron Maiden stylee from some shirtless metal dudes, who are sadly not dressed as goblins this time.

Romania

Ballady duet that sounds like something out of a Disney cartoon. The bloke is quite handsome and the lady is wearing a weird dress with glowsticks stuck to it, which would definitely get you booted off Project Runway.

Israel

Sensitive ethnic-y sounding power ballad, in typical EV style, sung by young bloke who won Israeli Pop Idol. He is kind of funny looking but has got nice arms.

Russia

Gushy ballad by that young dark haired bloke who was on last year and scared the living shit out of me when someone climbed out of a piano mid performance like some freakish Ring/Andrew Lloyd Webber horror hybrid. This year the gimmick is an ice dancer bloke who twizzles round on a teeny tiny ice rink and flirts outrageously with the singer.

Greece

Poppy but average sub Beyonce type song sung by very pretty girl who gyrates enthusiastically with male dancers and threatens to escape her bustier

Armenia

As above, but in Armenian, and less Beyonce, more ethnic-y.

There are also 5 guaranteed entrants but I have only heard bits of these…

Spain

Comedy entry by old bloke with elvis wig. The chorus entreats one to “do the robot”, it seems.

Bland soul pop from Andy the Bin Man off X Factor. Song is kind of forgettable and won’t do well for us, I fear.

France

Sounds a bit like the french song off Flight of the Conchords – ie, awesome.

Germany

A girl group. I have no memory of the song at all!

Serbia

They won last year so get an automatic entry – this is a ethnic-y ballad with violins etc, sung by a very serious lady in a long dress.

We’ll know the rest of the finalists on Thursday evening!

THE APPRENTICE: WAITER! THERE'S A LOSER IN MY SOUP!

2008-04-11T14:21:00.000+01:00

The producers have surpassed themselves. Every target of watercooler hatred is here. The dickhead sales managers; the "project managers" who spend their time in meetings or writing motivational speeches, and Vicky Pollard's cousin!

This week, evil ginger stringbean Ms Celeriac is first to the emailer phone (yes, I did used to work with someone like her, and yes, the feeling was mutual), and gleefully passes on SirAlan's summons to the 4th floor of the Tate - some crazy metaphor about regeneration. SirAlan wants the candidates to "regenerate" the urban pub trade, with a day of gastropubbery in Islington. I note that La Celeriac appears to wear one of her nasty air-hostess type scarves even to bed. Does she have really awful prison style neck tattoos or something?

Strangely shiny mandroid Ian the Notloser is appointed project manager for the boys team - sorry, Renaissance. Kevin, who gets more like a walking Little Britain sketch every week, announces that he has eaten in a few Italian restaurants, so why don't they have an Italian evening. Refa says: "Yah! And let's all talk with Italian accents!" Quick! somebody call Boris Johnson and get this man onto his PR team! Notloser makes Kevin the head chef, because apparently he opened a jar of Dolmio once.

The Posh boys leap into action and go off to design their menus. Oh yes, the menus. Kevin discusses the menus with the kitchen adviser (appointed so that they don't poison the punters and sue SirAlan). Kitchen Adviser tries not to smirk as Kevin says: "Ummm...spaghetti bolognese...and carbonara....and mushrooms, baked in the oven...with salt and pepper...and perhaps we could puree that...yeah, I've had that dish in a restaurant." Sgt Simon's face falls. And LEE McQUEEN ISN'T HAPPY, (that's the rough one that Mark fancies, though Mark fancies him a little less now that LEE McQUEEN has started referring to LEE McQUEEN in the third person and threatening to Hulk-Smash every five minutes) and he tells NotLoser so in no uncertain terms. Well, he has a point: they've got posh menus, but ummm...no food. NotLoser tells Kevin to wave a spatula around or something while they sort out the menus.

The girls are going Bollywood because International Car Dealer Sara is Asian. (Venomous Claire sulks that curry is too "niche" - WTF, is she a time traveller from the 1960s or something??? and Sara later correctly points out that she often wants to tell Claire just to shut the fuck up) Trouble is, she doesn't know how to cook, and buys the wrong spices. The kitchen adviser points this out to her, and she tries to bamboozle him with some flannel about cooking proper curries. The resulting proper curry looks a little like regurgitated tripe, and tastes worse. The girls split into two teams. Celeriac and the sales ladies flog tickets for a fiver each around Islington. Mercifully, they don't have to resort to flashing their knickers and snogging tramps like in previous years. Sara and Plump Girl spend the afternoon learning to cook. By evening time, they're producing something edible, and the punters appear to have a good time, despite Celeriac and Lindi assuming that the customers want to be their bestest friends, and this will lead to more tips. Boy, these girls love their tips. The evening ends with some "Bollywood dancing" from a bloke they appear to have dragged out of the kitchen of a local tandoori house. The researcher who dug this one up deserves a medal.

I'm not quite sure what's happening with Lucinda here. Every shot of her makes look like she's about to break down in tears, and her outfits get slightly more bizarre with each episode...

There's trouble in the boys' kitchen. Yep. All that time spent on poshifying the menus, and they...ummm...forgot to go the cash and carry. So it's a supermarket sweep for jars of Dolmio, really expensive pizza bases, cheese and stuff. Sgt Simon tries his best not to cry, and shouts at NotLoser about logistics instead. Unlike the girls, the boys do open for lunch, but lots of people complain that their bolognese is nasty and bland. LEE MCQUEEN has to let them have it for free, and he's still not happy!

Head Chef Kevin seems to have got on the wrong reality show, and thinks he's on Masterchef. He demands ciabatta for the bruschetta, and Simon nearly does break down. Just before service begins, the boys get an inspirational chat from Kevin, and then out they go to sell spaghetti. About half way through the evening there's a problem: they run out of food. Simple, says Head Chef Kevin; he cuts a pizza in half and puts it on two plates, until the look of utter disgust from the customer sends fey Michael Sophocles scampering back into the kitchen.

No, this isn't Masterchef, this is Little Britain, isn't it? (More Komedy Kevin moments:

(1) Trying to pass off coffee as a desert. Yes, and why don't you offer a glass of orange juice as a starter too!

(2) Saying he would be happy to pay £4.95 for a bowl of soup in Guildford. Because that's the way Kevin rolls... in Guildford)

Well, back in the boardroom, Nick and Margaret report that the girls made less money, but managed not to blow most of their budget in Morrisons, and are therefore the winners.

Ian takes poor Sgt Simon (for insubordination and scowling) and Kevin into the boardroom. Siralan seems to have a little man crush on Sgt Simon, and wants to see what else he can do. I'm sure he can do lots of things, Siralan. Lots of sexy sexy things! Kevin actually manages to make himself look a lesser prick than Ian, but makes up for it back at the house after Ian is let go. Oh well, Ian, at least you learnt a new word, eh?

Next week: Lucinda cries! Alex looks sulky! The boys shout! and LEE MCQUEEN IS as yet undecided about his mood.

TV stuff

2008-04-07T15:46:00.000+01:00

This blog is like the no. 68 bus. You wait ages for an update, then two come along in quick succession.

Ever since the last episode of Heroes, I've been unable to commit to any other series. I know it's silly, but I'm in mourning for SpongePete and his permanently furrowed brow. Actually Flying Man was more my type...

We decided that Ceej was old enough to start hiding behind the sofa, so family sat down for Dr Who on Saturday. This marks Ceej's first steps into the world of geekdom, and I'm proud to say that she enjoyed every minute. Actually, so did I. I worried about Catherine Tate, but I enjoyed her performance, and she made David Tennant work harder, which is always a good thing. Though I do wish they'd stop him changing suddenly from cute jokey Doctor to Serious Godlike Being about 40 minutes in. You can almost put a timer on it. I also liked this week's cute alien babies made out of HUMAN LARD.

BBC4 also showed the first ever Daleks episode, which had First Doctor William Hartnell playing a grumpy old man in a cardboard set. It also featured his granddaughter Susan, who I still want Russell Davies to resurrect as a bitter abandoned woman in her late forties.

I've been dipping into Mad Men, and it's a bit too glossy for me. Producers seem to be indulging in a bit of nostalgia for a time when men were men and women wore teeny skirts and giggled when they got their bottoms pinched. Nowadays when we get our bottoms pinched, we're empowered by our sexuality or something. But apparently it's different from then.

So Mad Men pre-dates The Feminine Mystique. Men wear suits and smoke and indulge in casual anti-semitism. And they sleep with their secretaries/bohemian divorced artist types. Women sit at home and bake cakes, looking desperate. Everything is very shiny and new, and even the nervous breakdowns are beautifully rendered. I know it was written by an ex Sopranos bod, but what I loved about The Sopranos was its tawdriness. Carmela's awful living room, the stupidly upholstered cars, or Paulie Walnuts' sweaters... Mad Men is a bit too artfully rendered for my liking.

One last thing. BBC4 is re-running original Batman shows on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Last week Vincent Price cracked some awful gags as Egghead; the week before Shelley Winters was Ma Baker...and was Adam West really taking it that seriously? Tune in tomorrow...

2008-04-01T13:01:00.002+01:00

NEW TV SHOW ROUND UP

Lots of new US shows have been popping up on UK TV lately, and I’ve been trying to watch them all!

DEXTER
This is one about serial killers chasing each other round Miami. One of the serial killers is actually our protagonist and works as a forensics officer with the cops, but he was trained by his dad to only torture and dismember people, who “deserve it”, like other murderers, so that’s alright then. Also he is played by Michael C Hall (aka gay David from Six Feet Under) who is a great actor and can make himself look as creepy as hell just be lowering his eyebrows slightly, which is more than alright.

After a few weeks of perseverance, my doubts about this program (slow start, over explanatory voice over, boring subplots re other cops, over-used post Silence of the Lambs nonsense about serial killers who do incredibly complicated and contrived murders without leaving any forensic evidence to “send a message” to cops on their trail, etc etc) have been dispelled – the cat and mouse plot about Dexter and a rival serial killer is really beginning to grip, and we are frequently reminded how evil and brutal Dexter is, so we don’t get too cosy about him. As well as Hall, there are good performances from Darla-from-Angel, as his wimpy girlfriend; the nice doctor lady from Oz as a bitchy police Lieutenant; and whoever it is plays Dexter’s coltish sister.

They definitely need to cut back on the voiceover though (yes, I can tell what’s happening, thanks, I am actually watching the TV program), and also reduce the number of scenes where Dexter looks at a corpse and says “He’s sending us a message”. Gah!

DIRTY SEXY MONEY
This features the other Six Feet Under brother, sexy Peter Kraus, as a lawyer who starts work for NYC’s richestest ever family. Donald Sutherland camps it up as the patriach, and Jill Clayburgh battles botox to move her face as the matriarch. They have lots of kids too:

1)A Baldwin plays one son who wants to be a senator, but is having a secret affair with a transsexual. Props to the producers for getting what looks like an actual tranny to play the girlfriend!
2)Some other dude plays another son who is a priest with an illegitimate child. The priest is hilariously callous and evil, more of him please!
3)There is a daughter who keeps getting divorced. She used to fancy/poss slept with Peter Kraus, and who can blame her? She is quite boring though
4)There is another daughter played by Anna off the OC, who is basically a watered down version of Paris Hilton
5)There is a young son who is a party animal and wants to be a pop star. He looks a bit like a TV actor version of Jack White Stripes White. Also quite boring.

All the family have hilarious wealth related shenanigans every week, which Peter must solve, whilst also trying to work out which one of them murdered his father! Gasp! It is OK so far. Not really camp and Dynasty-esque enough yet for my liking. They need a scheming bitch character, but Jill Clayburgh is playing more of a Krystal Karrington type and the callous priest does not quite cut it. Also they need to cut cut cut the scenes with Peter’s perky 50’s housewife type wife, who has nothing to do but wrinkle her nose at Peter’s amusing ways and ask him to explain the plot to her.

MAD MEN
This one has an excuse to have vacuous 50’s housewives, as it’s set in the 50’s (Ok, 1960, which is basically the 50s anyway) and they all have inner lives and secret angst etc. It’s set in an advertising office where heavy drinking and smoking, and hair-raising racism, sexism and anti-Semitism are the order of the day. Our anti hero Don Draper is one of the ad execs, (played by Jon Hamm) but he is very repressed and secretive, never talks to his wife, and apparently faked his own death and took on a new identity at some point in his life. He doesn’t even get a voice over or scenes with a shrink a la the Sopranos, to explain himself, and it rather odd watching a series with a black hole of an unknowable character at the centre of it. (Hamm does the best he can with his acting skillz though, to let us know what he’s thinking)

Other main characters include his frustrated wife, his secretary Peggy, and Pete Campbell, the smarmy young rival for his job. All the period detail is fantastic and the characters spend a lot of time drinking mixed drinks in glamorous bars that I wish existed in real life so I could go to them. It is very much character driven rather than plot driven, and some episodes work better than others, I liked the ones about Peggy, Don, the arrival of the divorcee, and Pete Campbell, not so much the one with Don’s wife – I can’t wait til they get round to the bitchy red headed office manager and the art director who just HAS to be gay.

GOSSIP GIRL
I watched the first episode and am not yet sure whether to continue. It’s also about uber rich New Yorkers, but this time they all go to high school and like totally hate each other. There is a blonde one who used to be a drunken party girl and is now reformed, there is an evil brunette who has an excellent bitch face and used to be the blonde one’s best friend, there is her pretty boy boyfriend, who is the reason the two main ones hate each other, his rapey sarcastic friend, then there are two boring ones who go to the same school that we are probably supposed to identify with. Again, it is not as much fun as something like this ought to be, but I was amused that one girl could compose two detailed txt messages whilst simultaneously fighting off the rapey one. A la Dexter, this also has an overly intrusive voice over (supposedly from the Gossip Girl website which sends out live txt alerts about the two main girl’s sex lives and what they wear etc – oh, as if), by a girl so smug and treacly that she makes Mary Alice off Desperate Housewives sound like Moira Stewart in comparison.

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES
More tosh! Hurrah! This one features Claire-bear’s non-gay friend from Heroes as John Connor, the slightly sulky pretty boy last hope for mankind; Lena Heady as a kinder, gentler, less stringy version of Linda Hamilton; and a cute girl with a nice line in expresionless fighting and ambivalent side long glances as their pet terminator. They have cunningly forgotten about the rubbish 3rd film and carried on straight from the second one, only now someone else is going to invent Skynet so they have to search for all these computer boffins (who all live conveniently in southern California) and kill them. Meanwhile, both the goodies and baddies have been going crazy sending troops back in time to lay plans for the war, so there are terminators and freedom fighters running round all over the place. One of them turns out to be Kyle Reese’s brother, and therefore John’s uncle – he is played by the annoying one with the earring off 90210, so I hope it is only a matter of time before Shannen Doherty and Tori Spelling appear as evil killer fembots.

THE APPRENTICE

2008-03-29T07:05:00.002Z

(by Mark, with interjections by Sarah)

Hurray, another 12 weeks of toe curlingly hilarious TV to make you feel annoyed and resentful about the brightest young business branes of the day! There are the usual shots of people riding up escalators, doing their best Blue Steel looks, and clips of them saying toolish things about how ace they are at selling and stuff while the nation wonders what an International Car Trader does. Does that mean she has ads in Loot in 15 countries? One of them even uses the word “tool” in his clip, which is just asking for it, in my opinion. Another says that he can't say the word loser in case he...umm...melts or something.

We learn that Siralan has sold Amstrad (wot, no emailerphones???) but is still super rich – he is mates with Gordon Brown, woo hoo. In the intro he says that he isn’t Mary Poppins. Damn, my hopes of seeing him dance around with chimney sweeps are dashed FOREVER!!! Margaret and Nick are introduced. Margaret's hair has got whiter and her left eyebrow seems to have been paralysed in the "Oh Reaally?" position. Nick's puzzled fish pout is primed and ready to go.

It is Girls Vs Boys again. The boys are called Renaissance, after the popular historical period, and the girls are called Alpha, after the popular evangelical Christian thingy. The girls’ project leader is a plump lady with pencilled on eyebrows and a Croydon facelift called Claire, and the boys’ is a catalogue-modelesque pretty-boy called Alex, with rather 4-year-ago touselly hair and disturbingly pink lips.

For the first task, they are given £600 of wet fish and told to identify, price, and sell it at a market. They all flap about uselessly and don’t really know what they are doing, but the girls start doing it quicker than the boys and get the best pitch at Chapel Market in Islington (which, verily, is my manor). All the locals spot a bunch of numpties when they see one, and clamour round to buy underpriced fish, without giving anyone any time to price anything.

Vague impressions of the candidates:

Girls: there is a very tall ginger one! There is one who wears a weird fuschia twin set and beret ensemble all day (quirk alert!), there is another sensible Irish one (Kristina mk 2)! There is a bubbly black one! There is a pushy asian one with mad staring eyes! Um, that’s all I can remember.

Boys: there is a tall sexy rough one who looks like someone off a shaving advert, there is a really posh effete one who looks like an evil ventriloquist’s doll (Nick), there is another posh one who looks v smarmy and has weird wiggy hair (Rafe (!)), there is one with very blue eyes, there is a salt of the earth type one, there is a Greek looking one who keeps nearly crying, there is one who looks like Matt Lucas in a wig!

Highlights of the tasks:

Nick pricing lobsters at £5 each, instead of per kilo. One nice lady even apologised for ripping them off as she ran away with her ¼ price lobsters.
Rafe's little face when the boys went for a Ruff boy's suggested name of Renaissance instead of Rafe's, which was...ummm...I can't remember. That's how good it was
Rafe identifying all the fish wrong
Nick crying over his B in GCSE French.
The boys splitting into Posh Numpties vs Barrow Boyz.
The girls shouting at everyone who they want to help them, like a bunch of maniacs. The fishmonger ended up pointing randomly at Chapel Market just to get these screaming harpies out of his shop.
The girls starting to sell without knowing what anything is and how much it costs.
The girls realising they have sold ¾ of their stock, without making a profit yet.
Greek boy selling £130 of fish in a solicitor’s office for £50

The boys make a profit of £20 on their £600 (LOL) and the girls are slightly less crap and make £120. They get to go back to their fancy factory conversion and have a nice tea cooked by a famous chef. Siralan says that in his day factories made stuff, but now they're being converted into homes for poncey Apprentice types. Go Siralan!

Nick and Rafe whinge to Siralan about how the ruff boys formed a clique and excluded the posh ones by talking about football and treating working class people as equals. They admit they cocked up but say it is Alex’s fault for not realising they were rubbish (It’s not as though I labelled a shark a hamster, says Rafe, surreally). Greek boy nearly cries as he whimpers that no one gave him nuff respect for his “selling stuff at half its value” skillz.

Alex picks Nick and Rafe for the boardroom. Nick puts on some hilarious fascist-Cartman-from-South-Park sunglasses. In the boardroom, the evil poshos do all the work for Alex as they smarm on about how they were too well educated and didn’t like football, so no one liked them. (Do they nothing about siralan at all? Have they never watched the show before??? Are they 12 years old?) Alex sensibly points out that he only just met them and it doesn’t matter who likes whom. Also that, although he is from oop north, he can actually read and write etc, and he has a 2:1 in Business Studies. Actually, I'm not surprised he kept quiet about that.

Nick is fired for his lobster pricing disaster, and also for being an insufferable little prig. Hurrah for Alex! Hurrah that we get to see Rafe be incredibly unctuous and hateful for another week.

I am already imaging the fun that Charlie Brooker and Harry Hill are going to have with this lot.

TV ROUNDUP

2008-02-08T12:13:00.000Z

I too have been watching Project Catfight, though I spend most of the time feeling sad that Kelly and Ben etc, are not as entertaining and watchable as Heidi, Tim and Nina Garcia from the American version. This series, they even lost Evil Orange Welsh Goblin Julian MacDonald, whose hilariously evil put downs were always the highlight of the judging round.

The contestants are quite entertaining this time round: there are a couple of vaguely indistinguishable hoxtony looking boys, a burly straight boy (whose days are numbered after putting one model in egg shaped trousers) and an ubergay Chinese guy whose wardrobe includes both clip-on mickey mouse ears and hotpants. He was so taken by the male model in the mackintosh coat round, he sent him down the catwalk in a cut away coat and y-fronts, so his packet was proudly displayed to all and sundry.

I also like the no nonsense housewife (who is doing very well so far) and the scouser girl. To my delight, Stitch Bitch (we called her “Hate Face” chez mark) has been given the boot, after making cheap and dowdy looking clothes for the second week running. Somehow, her clothes always reminded me of things you find in BHS, where you know what they’re trying to do, but it never quite comes off and looks good. She made me feel bad after her eviction when she started crying and going on about her children. Stop humanising her, you dastardly producers!

Masterchef is now as formulaic as Scooby Doo. The judges and voiceover lady say the exact same things every night (“Geordy single mum Angie struggled in the pro kitchen round. Can she impress the judges with her plates of food?”), and contestants are now repeating the judges’ clichés back to them, going on about their “passion for food” etc. Still, it is always fun to see some arrogant city boy type get a slagging off for making beans on toast in the invention test, or to see some of the nasty looking bullshit the “experimental” contestants put together.

I enjoyed Season 1 of Weeds, but Season 2 was a great disappointment. Apparently it improved towards the end, but Sky 3 decided to show the entire 2nd half in one evening without bothering to tell anyone, so I’ll never know. All the regular adult male characters (apart from Conrad), are still intensely irritating. Please, for the love of god, write out Nancy’s brother-in-law! The plot with Nancy marrying Martin Donovan’s DEA agent is completely implausible and has written the show into a corner. Cynthia’s evil bitchiness has turned her into a dislikeable caricature, though they did seem to realise this and back pedalled furiously in later episodes. The two lead actresses still give it their all, and are very good, but the uneven scripts, plethora of annoying characters, and general air of trying too hard are killing the show.

Damages is a fun new series set in the world of high powered litigation! Exciting! Glenn Close is a ruthless uber-lawyer, determined to bring down a sharky multi-squillionaire (Ted Danson, cast very much against type) who was involved in an Enron type scandal that pillaged his employee’s pension funds and left them all destitute. Glenn takes on a shiny new baby lawyer (Rose Byrne, from 28 Weeks Later and Sunshine), though we soon discover that this is only because she knows someone who might be a potential witness. Shenanigans ensue, and we know it all ends in tears, as there are frequent flash forwards to Rose in prison, accused of murdering her painfully bland boyfriend). It is all very convoluted, with everyone backstabbing and betraying each other, to the extent that whenever a new character appears, you think “OMG, do they secretly work for Ted or Glenn?”

Glenn is fantastic in the role, which is the kind of thing she can do with her eyes closed. Even then, the writing and her timing and line deliveries are excellent, with Glenn being the mistress of the innocuously barbed passing remark. Ted is pretty good too. Rose is adequate. Her boyfriend is terrible, but I like that bald shifty guy who plays Ted’s lawyer, who used to be the sketchy prison governor in Oz. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

TV Dinners is still alive!!

2008-01-31T10:16:00.000Z

Hello,

Yes I know we've been a bit rubbish recently, but December and November are busy months for the TV Dinners writers, what with Christmas and income tax filing deadlines and Ceej's birthday preparations...

So, here's a quick summary of what I've been watching and liking

PROJECT CATWALK
It's back! And Ben de Lisi is ANGRIER than ever! He strides around the studio, tossing pattern pieces aside and growling: "No no no no no!" at hapless blondes. We're only a couple of weeks in and we've already got a hate figure.

ANGIE: Or "Stitching Bitch" in the Sladey household owing to her resemblence to a type that patronises Sarah's favourite knitting shop and scowls disapprovingly at anybody who giggles at the idea of a knitted breast. Angie is sour, dour and only happy when she's moaning about how everybody else knows NOTHING and doesn't deserve to be on the show.

I liked Debbie Debonair, and thought she had some great ideas. Pity she didn't know one end of a sewing machine from another, and probably deserved to go in the third round. The blonde scouse girl is nice as well, and we like the sewing housewife and the Hoxton shop assistant chappy.

REAPER
What's not to like? It has Kevin Smith as a consulting producer, and Leland Palmer plays the Devil! The only problem is that it's on E4, home of the eternal Friends re-run, and our E4 reception is rubbish. Sort it out, Freeview folk!

Reaper's 'hero' is one of Kevin Smith's typical slacker shopworkers, who discovers that his parents sold his soul to the Devil. The Devil is a congenial chap, who just wants our man to pick up a few escaped souls who are wreaking havoc in this particularly unlucky small town in the US, and send them back to Eternal Damnation. You have the standard Kevin Smith characters: smart-mouthed, fatbestfriend; unfeasibly hot-and-smart girl co-worker who can also hold her beer; and Leland Palmer is the Devil. I'm telling you, it rocks like Buffy in the early Spike years.

And no, I haven't seen Spike on Torchwood. I can only go about 10 minutes with Torchwood before switching channels. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because the whole Dr Who franchise is starting to get a bit pleased with itself. I particularly don't like the slightly messianic turn that episodes seem to be taking these days. What's wrong with just blatting daleks, and leaving the whining about how lonely it is being a god in the Tardis, eh?

Last night's episode of Masterchef was a classic of lachrymosity. Maybe the producers decided to round up all the weedy blubby ones and get them out of the way. We had tears from the woman who wanted to give it all up and open a cafe in France, serving tarts made from uncooked pastry, from the looks of it. Well, given what the French think of English food, all she'd have to do is add a few chips and a Mad Cow burger and she has a whole theme on her hands. Then Charlotte, the plucky young mum of three, served a slab of black pudding apples and leeks that looked like a bad municipal art project. The Torode said: "Yuk!" and on went the waterworks. For gods sake woman! You charmed the socks off Anton Mossiman and rustled up a lovely beef dish for him! What more do you want?

Anyway, the chiselled, unemotional Scot won, with a Cullen Skink (still have no idea what this is, other than it has leeks and cream in it, and no deep-fried Mars Bars), and something that he did with a duck and some barley. And guess what? He's in publishing...

STRICTLY COME DANCING: IT'S THE SEMIS

2007-12-19T13:32:00.000Z

It’s semi final time! After last week’s shock horror of Matt getting a free pass despite being RUBBISH and Alesha having to dance-off despite being as wonderful as ever, anything could happen this week! (they’ve been saying that every week though…). I thought they were going to do three dances each, but instead they just do an Argentine tango and one other.

BOOBWATCH:
Tess must have given a really crap xmas card to the costume department as they let her have it with both barrels this week. The first dress is either black or v dark brown at the back, but with a weird bronze metallic apron/bodice/breastplate combo at the front. It makes no sense at all but for the results show it is even worse! A purple shiny dairy milk wrapper type affair, with weird sticky out boob brackets and a tulip skirt with a huge bow that looks like MC Hammers' unfinished pants. This is accessorised with a huge flat gold pendant thing that looks like one of those stands for hot pans. Very very poor.

There is lots of filler about everyone’s journeys and everyone fawning over their dance partners. Zzzz.

ALESHA:
Alesha seems a bit down after last week’s shock horror etc but is obviously determined to soldier on. Her other dance is a quickstep! Yay! They dance to the Amy Winehouse up tempo version of Valerie by the Zutons - both of which are a bit meh, but here it works quite well. She wears a white dress with glittery purple trim and it is a delight to watch as she prances around with Matt and grins adorably. She gets 2 9s and 2 10s, hurrah!

For her Argentine Tango, she wears a shorter ruffly red dress. The choreography is quite low key, with Alesha sidling up to Matthew in a vaguely seductive stylee. There is a good bit at the end where she hops into the air, wraps her legs sideways round Matthew and they twizzle around a bit. The same marks again put her on top of the leader board! Double hurrah!

MATT:
Matt is determined not to choke again this week. I spend the whole show willing him to choke, because I am evil and I want Gethin to be in the final. He does his Argentango first and it is OK but not as good as I would have expected. Matt shuffles around hesitantly and tries to look louche while Flavia wiggles her legs and slinks around. At the end she sort of does a super leg wiggle and turns upside down! Yikes! The judges all patronise Matt about being so bwave and special and not running away crying after last week (I think that dance-numpties like Kate and Kenny were braver, as they know they have no hope of being any good and at least Matt is theoretically good.) Anyway, he gets 8s and 9s and is relieved to have not messed up.

For his second dance he does a waltz. I think it is good but not special. Matt looks rather shuffly again and there is a part where Flavia kneels down and flourishes her dance hankies in a way that reminds me totally of a move that Phoebe-from-Friends would do. There is a good spinny round bit, I suppose. At the end Cabbie Len makes me throw up in my mouth a bit when he stands up and gives Matt a standing ovation for the first time in SCD history. Oh come off it, it wasn’t even the best dance of the series, let alone the best EVAH!!! He gets 4 10s for it? What? Why? Craig has really let me down – I expect that sort of nonsense from Bruno and Len... Grrrr. He is still only second in the leader board though. Phew.

Brucie seems to be indulging in a bit of saucy banter with Craig. Asking him to "finish them off" and all that. The audience behind Craig is snickering.

GETHIN:
Gethin’s non-tango is the Paso doble. Ohs noes – trust him to have two difficult and weird dances when he really needs to get good points. He wears a partially open, glittery black shirt and Camilla wears something weird and whorish. They dance to The Gossip and start off with Camilla draped in a sort of table cloth thing, which Gethin then flaps around in a bullfighterly stylee. Hmmm, it is not great but not bad either. There is lots of weird camera work and at one point Gethin hurls Camilla roughly to the floor and she lands practically ON a camera (we later learn that Camilla f***ed her shoulder doing this move. Ouch). By the end of the dance, Gethin’s shirt is almost totally open. Rrowwr! The judges are non plussed and he gets mainly 8s.

For the tango, they dance to one of the newer Bond themes and Camilla wears a different whorish dress, this time with some sort of pink floral lurgy spreading over one shoulder and her décolletage. It is quite moody and atmospheric and a lot better than the last one but still a bit meh. He gets good marks for this one but is still bottom of the leader board at the end of the show.

I've noticed that the male slebs like to do "Grr" faces when they want to show that they're really getting into the dance, no honest. Occasionally Matt does a "rrroaow", but mostly its a "rarrrh" face. Gethin, now that he' has discovered his inner BEAST, likes to go "RAAARH" at odd moments.

RESULTS SHOW!!
We voted for Alesha for the first time, as we promised we would when we met the other week (name dropping? Moi?). Lots of recap and filler, blah blah and then a group jive, which I miss as I am pottering round in the kitchen. This is probably just as well, as many small children come out and start dancing.

More filler and then an exhibition dance by a tiny blonde woman in a leotard and a burly, shirtless, heavily waxed and bronzed he-lunk. They start off like a rumba and then the man picks up the woman and starts flipping her round and spinning her round over his head. It is impressive, but all a bit Cirque du Soleil as my boyfriend points out. I think it's all a bit Bromley. Tess asks the final three if they are looking forward to doing that next week and Alesha says yes, if it means she can dance with the shirtless lunk. Heh.

Finally James sodding Blunt comes out and mewls tunelessly while Ola and Lilia(?) prance around with their menfolk whilst wearing hideous black net body stockings. Great.

Results time!!! Oh, I’m nervous! Alesha gets the automatic place – yay! She seems overcome by emotion and turns to be hugged by Matthew as her spotlight goes out. I think her fanbase were shocked into reaching for the phone after last week. Matt and Gethin dance off and then it's down to the judges. Craig picks Matt, Arlene picks Gethin, Bruno picks Matt so it is all down to Len – hmm, I wonder who he is going to pick, given that he has been patronising Matt and making excuses for him for the last two weeks. Oh what a surprise, it’s Matt. Gethin takes it like a good sport and says he is pleased he has some good moves for the dance floor now. He does his American smooth lift on Camilla as their last dance starts.

Can I just say that I think that was a terrible decision by the judges. Matt has been more consistent over the whole series, but even on his good dances (jive, quickstep etc) he was prone to making mistakes and lhe still looks terrified or wan half the time while he’s dancing. Also, there is a good chance he’ll flake out again and the final will be less fun as a result. Since Gethin clicked, he has been a much more confident and consistent and has been much more fun to watch.

SARAH: I disagree. I think Matt has had a dip in form recently, but his mistakes are down to nerves, not bad technique and he has consistently shown himself to be a sensitive, natural dancer who really feels the music. And his arms are better. And I don't fancy either of them.

Oh well, ALESHA TO WIN!!!!

STRICTLY COME DANCING: THE QUARTER FINALS!

2007-12-10T14:51:00.000Z

This week it's 100% wholesome Mark goodness...

It’s down to the last four couples and “no one wants to go home at this stage!” I like the way that Alesha always dances along to the title music at the start of the show.

BOOBWATCH
For the main show, Tess wears a black dress with a strangely quilted front like a sleeping bag. I am so entranced by this that I fail to notice her boobs

For the results show she has a shorter black skirt, red sash and an asymmetrical white top with a strange square front section like a pillowcase.

GETHIN:
Gethin is all excited after getting good marks last week. He is dancing the American Smooth and the Jive (both crowd pleasers) this week and Camilla now trusts him enough to incorporate lifts into the routine.

His American Smooth is pretty good, and indeed he does flip Camilla onto his shoulder and spin her around for a bit. It is hard to think of different ways to describe these ballroom dances when they are done well as they are all so samey. He gets 2 9s and 2 10s.

They both look raring to go for their jive, which they dance to “Knock on Wood”. It is also very good, with Gethin being all fun and bouncy like he was with his latin last week. He jumps off the steps, slides along on his knees (melting his nylon trousers in the process!) etc and so on. Bruce makes a vaguely amusing remark about a judge throwing knickers onto the stage, which is not about Arlene but Craig. The judges all love it but say his kicks should have been kickier, or something. 3 9s and a 10, to give him the top score of the evening!

ALESHA:
Apparently Alesha has the best marks ever from all the series to date. Matthew makes some comments about how it is not fair that Gethin is suddenly really good and that he should “go back to where he came from”. Wales? The Blue Peter Garden?

They will be dancing the Viennese Waltz and the Paso Doble, both of which are hard to make look good and get good marks for (compared to Gethin’s dances tonight, for example).

For her waltz, Alesha wears a germolene pink sparkly dress and has those stupid dance hankies stuck to her arms. They dance to Memoriessssss!! from Cats (and we later learn that Elaine Paige is in the audience. Woo). The choreography is quite good and there is a fab bit in the middle where the rousing instrumental bit swells up and they start spinning round like maniacs. Len says that if she doesn’t get 4 10’s that he will go and pickle his walnuts. Get pickling, Len! She only gets 2 9s and 2 10s again.

For her Paso Doble she wears a shorter green dress with lots of ruffly bits around the hem and they dance to that famous Fugue thing that was a pop hit in the 70s (maybe?). It is quite good I suppose. The judges say she wasn’t quite stampy enough and that they also appeared to make a mistake. Alesha says that the last 20 seconds was completely made up as they went along – but I wouldn’t have noticed as she carried on dancing rather than standing there looking hapless, MATT. Later on, her and Matthew do a funny, made-up-on-the-spot Paso whilst beign interviewed in the corridor. She gets 3 9s and a 10 from Bruno, to put her one point lower than Gethin. Gasp!

LETITIA:
After being all poorly last time, Letitia is completely better this week and seems to be really enjoying herself for the first time ever. She will be dancing the standard Waltz and the Jive (ruh roh, not easy for people over 30 to do well).

She wears a light blue ballgown for the waltz, which would be very pretty if it had less nude effect flesh coloured bits on it. She is very elegant and the waltz is very good. Afterwards the judges compliment her but say she should lift her shoulders more, leading to much hilarity when Letitia points out that its hard to lift your shoulders when you’ve got giant boobs. 8s and 9s for a decent overall mark.

They dance the Jive to “Dead Ringer”, which is a good choice. It’s um, energetic and Shazza looks like she’s enjoying herself but her footwork isn’t great. Still, she doesn’t just jiggle around looking vaguely hapless, MATT. The judges kindly say that it wasn’t her dance but she gave it her best shot. Letitia jokes that there’s no chance of getting a ten then, and Bruce adds that she might get two 5s. Heh. She gets 7s and 8s, which is not bad and her best latin score EVAH, apparently. She is 3rd out of 4 at the end of the show.

MATT:
Oh Matt. I have had it with you after this poor showing. His two dances are the foxtrot and the samba. He talks about how he is determined to get to the final for Flavia’s sake.

The foxtrot starts with Flavia and Matt sitting on the steps and flirting like love sick children. Blech. They stand up eventually and start dancing around and at some point in the middle it all goes pear shaped and become really stiff and clunky. By the end, when they return to the naughty step, Matt is blatantly not dancing any more! There is some talk that he pulled a muscle or something but it seems to be mainly nerves. All the judges say that everyone can get nervous and forget the steps, but then it’s a matter of how they cover it up. He gets 4 (ouch) from Craig, 6 from Arlene (fair enough, I think) and 8s from the overmark twins Len and Bruno – that was only one point worse than Alesha, was it? O RLY???

For the samba, Matt wears a black outfit with an orange sparkly sash and Flavia wears some sort of lacy trouser suit ensemble. They dance to the Jackson song “Blame it on the boogie” and I think it is tempting fate a bit to dance to a song that includes the line “I just can’t control my feet”. The exact same thing happens again! It starts out OK and then goes all pear shaped half way through again and he clearly forgets what to do.

In the judging section, Craig is quite harsh and Len has an annoying hissy fit, going on about how Matt is only 20 yrs old. What’s that go to do with it? Davetta last year was even younger and she remembered her steps – if he can’t perform then he should leave the competition. He gets 6s to 8s anyway and is bottom of the leader board.

I really think Matt should go home after this week – even when he has been good he has tripped or messed up, and still looks terrified half the time. I wonder what would happen if he had to dance off vs Letitia.

I also try and work out which dances the celebs have yet to do. Has Alesha done a quickstep yet? That should be fun.

RESULTS SHOW
Lots of filler as always. Flavia and Vincent do an Argentine tango (next week the celebs have to do that as well as their latin and ballroom) which seems a bit over complicated and contrived to me.

For more dance fun, a load of shiny german dancers come on and do a synchronised latin routine. It rather descends into lite entertainment hell at this point, esp with the hideous musak style pop medley they dance to.

Finally, Cliff sodding Richard sings a cover version while Anton and Erin and Brendon and Nicole waltz around aimlessly. At one point, Nicole and Erin join Cliff on stage for a bit of dance themed, three way action. I think he would have preferred it if the boys had gone up there, to be honest.

Results time finally and the first through is… Matt! Oh FFS. How you disappoint me, Great British Public. Next is … Gethin. WTF? Alesha is in the dance off? Travesty. Also, buh bye Letitia. Alesha seems more upset than Letitia as they prepare to Dance Off. They both do their highest scored dances – the waltzes – and are both very good again (the lady singing Memories – not so much). Of course Letitia goes and she seems very gracious and resigned to leaving. I am amazed she did this well and really warmed to her (once she stopped snivelling all the time…). Well done, Letitia!

STRICTLY COME PHOTOS

2007-12-07T23:50:00.000Z

STRICTLY COME DANCING: SHOW 9 OR IS IT 10?

2007-12-03T17:27:00.000Z

After last week’s excitement, I am back watching it on telly like a ~~prole~~ normal person. Thankfully, we did not appear on “It Takes Two” during the week (Booo! - Sarah), but our comedy shenanigans did end up on the BBC website.

Sadly, Kelly has had to drop out of the competition, as her father died during the week. Poor Kelly, she obviously loved dancing on the show and I will miss her. Brendan; not so much. Bruce and Tess say nice things about her at various points on the show.

BOOBWATCH: Tess is wearing an asymmetric number in a rather hard blue. I do not love the colour on her. The cut is OK, but I’m not sure about the gold belt. It looks as if you could take it off and use it as a Xena-esque Frisbee of Death type thing.

SARAH: I'm not sure about the asymmetric dress. It looks like it was made in a hurry and the seamstress forgot one of the sleeves, a bit like they do on Project Runway, and then try to explain it as a forward looking design decision.

This week everyone is doing two dances each. Gasp!!

MATT:
Matt is first in each round and is doing a tango for his ballroom. He has his hair slicked back and is wearing a comedy cravat. They do it to that Gwen Stefani “tick tock tick tock” song (which I do like), but the screechy singers change the words when it comes to the “Take a chance, you stupid ho” bit. Wimps. The dance is a bit meh. I’m not sure why. I think I expected more of Flavia’s choreography, as she is supposed to be a tango expert. Craig complains that they stop doing weird tick tock arm movements and then go into a bland tango. Matt gets OK-but-not-great-for-week-9 scores of 7s and 8s.

BTW, I am sick of everyone hinting that Matt and Flavia have a secret luuurve connection. It’s not Big Brother and I don’t care! Tess Daly is particularly embarrassing, like your auntie who asks if you're courtin' at family Christmas parties, and then proceeds to try and cop you off with anybody male, single and in possession of their own teeth.

For his latin he does a rumba in an open white shirt. I (still) hate the rumba but he is OK I suppose. I notice that his pointy arm movements are good and the judges agree with me. Flavia is very bendy. He gets better marks than for the tango and is left firmly in the middle of the table.

LETITIA:
More scenes of Letitia crying and gurning all through the weekly rehearsals. Get a grip, woman! She whinges that she is the oldest in the competition and has to learn two energetic dances in the same week. Oh boo hoo. On the actual night of the show however, she is struggling with gastric flu and has to keep running off camera to throw up. OK, I feel a bit sorry for her now. Darren makes it even worse by yelling: "She's spent the last fifteen minutes vomiting, for God's sake! Have you no heart?" at anybody who dares to criticise her. Tess is v. concerned and clucky, bit like that auntie...etc.

Her ballroom dance is the quickstep. She wears a flowing dress of royal purple silk that makes her look like a giant bar of Cadburys dairy milk. The dance is OK – it is not really light and sprightly enough and the choreography is not the most demanding – resembling an overdressed game of hopscotch in parts. She gets Ok-ish marks.

For latin, she does the cha cha cha in an unflattering black corset with pearly highlights and a feather skirt. The dance is not great and the gap in talent between Letitia and the top 3 is pretty evident now. Her scores put her second to bottom

KENNY:
He Lunk Kenny starts out doing a foxtrot. Ola appears to have a number of stoats attached to her arm??? It is, well, it’s not great but it’s not terrible either. I think this is the first week that he actually looks vaguely like a dancer. There's still too much pratting about and walking Ola around the floor though.

For his latin he does a rumba (sigh). He doesn’t do any hip-gyrating, but again, looks vaguely dancerly and manages a suitable mills and boonish performance of lurve. The judges don’t really like it though and Arlene makes a terrible pun re “pole dancing” (Ola being Polish) that she should be ashamed of. Ola barely restrains herself from leaping over the desk and lamping Arlene, but you can see that Arlene will pay...oh yes...

His overall marks put him bottom.

GETHIN:
This week, Camilla ropes in an acting coach to try and overcome Gethin’s stage fright and unleash the real Gethin. Acting Coach arrives and Gethin asks: "Are you an acting coach". The Acting Coach declaims: "YES! I am...an ACTING coach."

There is cute footage of “the real Gethin” bouncing round the rehearsal studio like Tigger. For his ballroom, he is doing a waltz. He has been pretty good at this kind of thing in the past and does an excellent job, getting a 9 and 3 10s.

For his latin, he is doing a salsa in an unfortunate see through blouse (which he later jokes about) OMG, what a transformation! He is super confident and puts in a great performance, charging round the floor whilst gyrating like a maniac. It is great fun to watch and he seems to be really enjoying it. For the first time ever, he leaves Matt in the dust. He gets an 8 from Craig and 9’s from the others. Come on, that definitely deserved a ten! His overall marks leave him joint top with Alesha.

ALESHA:
My pal Alesha gets all tired and emotional this week. Don’t cry, Alesha! She is doing the tango (yay!) and the samba (boo!). For her tango she wears a rather nasty yellow and red dress and has a huge red fake flower glued to her head. I am not loving the costumes this week, I must say. Her tango is very good and there is an awesome bit where Matt grabs her and drags her backwards for five yards or so. The judges like it and make a few teeny tiny technical points, as she is not as perfect as they want her to be. 9’s and 10s! Hurrah!

For her samba she wears another white dress and they dance to the 4 tops, “I’ll be there”. The band must be trying out a new arranger, because the music is dreadfully clunky, and the brass section appears be be playing another tune entirely.

The “dun duh dun duh dun duh dun” bits are quite good for booty shaking, but this dance leaves me a bit cold – I think it is her worst to date. The judges say that if she had started dancing as a child, she could be pro level by now, and criticise her knees a bit. She gets 8s and 9s to put her equal to Gethin.

SARAH: The problem with the Results Show is that it frequently brings back memories of cheesy 70s Light Ent programmes, and not in a good way, so I find my attention wandering to the washing machine...

This results show has Kylie (gasp!) performing her new single dressed as one of those frilly toilet roll covers that my nan used to make. I'm sure somebody liked the performance, but I thought she was miming, and the single channelled last year's cheesy electro. The best thing about it was when the male pro dancers came on and started doing Young Generation-style arm waving and gyrating. Brendan does lots of strutting to get Kylie's attention, but she ignores him.

There were the usual dances from the professionals, and Flavia's tango was pretty exciting. The judges line the dancers up and take pot-shots at them. Then we discover that Kenny and Letitia are in the dance-off. Poor old Letitia practically needs a bucket onstage, but she soldiers on through the purple armwavy dance, and everybody knows that Kenny's for the chop anyway. The judges don't even bother making any excuses about "judging the dancer on the night's performance", and choose Letitia.

Surely it will be Letitia to go next week and Matt and Gethin battling to lose to Alesha in the final. I am hoping it’s Alesha vs Gethin, after this week’s performance.

SARAH: I still have hopes for Matt, whose puppyish intensity is beginning to make me feel all motherly. But definitely Aleesha 2 win!!

OMG OMG !!11!!eleven!!!

2007-11-27T07:08:00.000Z

This week, I am actually in the studio audience for the live show, thanks to my boyfriend E, who works at the BBC (he used to work in the stewards/ticketing department and still has friends in the office he can contact for help). As well as me and E, we are accompanied by our friend D and her mum T, who is visiting for her 60th birthday.

We have to get there hella early – 3.30 – to get our tickets validated and hand in our bags/coats etc. Audience members are then held in a foyer area that is a bit like an airport (bar, shop, caff, not enough seats). We started to be seated at about 5 and had to queue for ages while everyone was slowly shuffled into the studio - while we were waiting, we saw Gloria Hunniford (who is TINY!!!) arrive in a black Rolls, and also queued next to the celeb audience/friends and relatives – including such stars as Quentin Whatsisname off Top Gear! Gok Wan! Parkwife off EE (who appeared to have come dressed as her character!) and the Fonz!! Brendan walks past and everyone goes “Wooo!” (apart from me and E, who go “wanka!!!”)

We are at the back of the queue, but one of E’s friends is working on the floor and saves us four seats at the front! We are right next to the celeb seating area, but in a dark corner and have cameramen running in front of us the whole evening, but we have a little monitor screen so we don’t miss too much.

Gabby Logan turns up! She is much prettier IRL. Also Kate Garraway, wearing a weird grey dress, and a cute athletics bloke, whose name I have forgotten (Darren Chambers poss?)

A warm up guy talks drivel and then we all stand up and clap for Brucie! Even though it is only 5.45! I always make fun of his ropey presenting, but he did a really good job warming up the crowd – he gets a lady up out of the audience and dances with her, sings a song, thanks everyone for coming and tells everyone his secret signal if he desperately needs a laugh. Whenever he got the chance he would run out and chat to everyone – he really made an extra effort to keep the audience happy.

The judges arrive and they record the Sugababes section for the Sunday show. Darren and Lilia do a rumba type thing that is very good. They are both teeny tiny IRL! It is interesting to see them dance live as you can watch whatever you want, not just what the camera is pointing at. Lilia’s dress gets tangled up in her heels at one point and she also misses her footing after a lift, but of course can cover for it with ease. The retarded dancing facial expressions work a lot better IRL too, as at one point Lilia appears to smiling adoringly at us!! Wooo! They have to record the whole thing again before they are happy with it, then Tess comes on and tells the Babes their new record has gone platinum and gives them the disc.

The floor manager bloke coaches us on how to be an audience – we are ORDERED to boo and cheer at the judges scores!

ZOMG it is time for the live show! We all start clapping along to the music and Brucie and Tess reappear. The live show is quite easy to sit through (as opposed to some recordings, which are really boring and repetitive), as whenever the dancers go to Tess’ room, or when they show them training, we can basically chat amongst our selves and relax. We are highly tempted to run on stage during one of the dances and start getting on down – it’s a live show and they couldn’t do anything about it. Bwa ha ha!

We don’t, of course.

THE DANCES!! I will let Sarah describe the dances, as I was totally distracted by all the cameramen running around and getting in the way. I enjoyed all of them though (even the rub ones), but especially Matt & Flavia, who were super fast and skill - Matt was even making little GRRR! faces like a proper dancer! Bless! – and Alesha & Matthew. Alesha looked fantastic and just seems infectiously happy when she is dancing – I wanted them both to do their dances again when they had finished.

SARAH: Well, Gethin and Camilla were good. John kept looking at his feet. Letitia was wearing a brown thing, and did rather well. I nearly welled up myself when Arlene gave her a mumsy lecture about being a beautiful woman and a good dancer with lots of potential. Brendan and Kelly did lots of posing and very little actual proper dancing. Why does Brendan think he's some kind of avant garde choreographer when the evidence is so...pedestrian? It's like watching a hen night in Ballymena. One of my favourite bits is him trying to take on Arlene - the woman who picked up Light Ent dancing by the scruff of the neck, stuck it in a leather gimp suit and made it writhe all over a panting Kenny Everett - and suggest she didn't know what good dancing was.

Where was I? Oh yes, Alesha was grate. So was Beano. And Kenny did lots of strongman lifting and walking about with great good humour. All he needed was a cow pie.

Back to Mark...

We then have a 90 minute break until the recording of the results show, and rush off to grab a seat and some wine in the foyer. While we are sitting chatting, a BBC bod comes over and asks me and E to record some vox pop sections for It takes Two, as they need “two lads” – (which I believe is code for GAYS!!!) We agree, possibly because we have already drunk a fair amount of wine, and go and stand in a corridor. We say who we liked (Matt and Alesha!!!) and who we think might go (Kelly or John???) and promise to hang around at the end to be interviewed again. We sit down again and then someone else comes over and asks us to do another vox pop, for the website this time. It is pretty much the same kind of thing but then they ask who we would be if we could be anyone on SCD – I say I would be Camilla so I could dance with Gethin (ahem) and E v lamely says he wants to be Bruno so he can give everyone 10 points for their dances. They ask him to do a Bruno impression and he tells them to fuck off. I don’t think that bit will make the website, somehow. Then they make us do the Tess/Bruce “keeeep dancing!!!” thing and we have to do it 3 times before the camera man is happy. By the time we are finished, everyone in that corner of the foyer is laughing at us. Oh well.

Back for the results show. This is even shorter as all the recap stuff is on VT and doesn’t require the audience. Bruce asks the judges for their thoughts and then has to do it all over again as Len makes an incomprehensible joke about Sainsburys, which can’t be broadcast as it is a brand name. Some Charleston bods come on and dance a bit and then Anton and Erin join them and do a high speed quickstep that is breathtaking to watch, with the pair of them coming this close to crashing into all the lights by the side of the dance floor as they shoot past us.

Next it is the much hyped group Dirty Dancing tribute group dance. I like the bit on the VT where they show Gethin and Matt feeling each other up. It is fun to watch but I was all like, “Aaargh! Too many people! Who do I look at!” There was a brief possibility that they would have to do the dance all over again, but sadly it was not to be.

Finally it is results time. As the pairs come and stand on their marks, there is much good luck wishing, kissing and hugging etc. All the people with good marks get through! Kenny gets through. Sigh. It is down to Letitia, Barnesy and Kelly. I think John will leave vs either of the two women, and yes – it is him vs Kelly!! Kelly totally messes up the choreography in the dance off (just standing and jiggling for one bit when she is supposed to be travolta-ing) but still beats John – oh well, I think he had gone as far as he was going to in terms of skillz.

That’s the end finally and we go back to the foyer to talk more bollocks to camera folk about how we are not at all shocked John has gone. E accuses me of being a camera hog this time! Then E takes us up to the TV Centre Bar as he has heard that all the celebs and dancers go up there after the shoot every week. The bar is pretty rammed and we see Parkwife and Matt di Angelo straight away! Pretty soon there are loads of famous people there – deep breath: Flavia, Vincent, Erin, Lilia, Anton, Darren, Ola, James, Matthew, Nicole, Brendan, Craig, Tess, Vernon Kaye, Gabby, Kenny, Kate, Kelly, Alesha, Barnesy, The Fonz, Quentin off Top Gear! (We are v sad that there is no sign of Gethin, Letitia or Bruno)

Anton is chatting to someone nearby so we ask him to say hello to T, as it is her birthday soon and she lurves him! Anton (who is what I would call a “smoothie”) gives her a birthday kiss and poses with her for a nice picture. Wooo! Me and E go over and gush to Alesha about how much we love her. She is really nice, asks us our names, thanks us for our support and talks about how Matt being so good really fired her up. We also get pictures with her and she gives T a birthday kiss too. E and T chat to Kate and say they miss her dancing (which is true, tee hee) and get another picture. Everyone was really friendly and approachable, but we didn’t bother anyone else and just kept to ourselves until chucking out time.

Random observations:

Kelly and Brendan barely spoke in the bar, but the rest of the celebs seemed v friendly with their dancers.
Brendan had two girls sleazing over him and licking his face all evening. Vom.
Vernon Kaye looks about 15 yrs old in real life.
James seems nice and smiled at me for no reason (??).
Craig was sitting with a handsome young gentleman all night.
We tried to remember the Fonz’s catchphrase – the nearest we got was “fandabbydozie”! – and were too chicken to go and talk to him.
Alesha’s relaxing evening dress looked like a dance costume – v short and sparkly!

So yes, it was a great day out. Special thanks go out to Anton, Alesha and Kate for not ordering us to be tasered by burly security guards.

STRICTLY: WHAT KATIE DID

2007-11-19T16:50:00.000Z

It’s past the half way mark and now all the celebs are going to do different dances. Exciting!

Tess is wearing a long pink dress with a lumpy bodice that makes her look she’s storing her groceries down her front. When she comes down the steps, she pulls the sides of the skirt out like Batman about to swoop down on a miscreant!

KELLY

Kelly is doing the jive in a short, sparkly pink number, which is accessorised by Brendan’s uber-gay pink sparkly shoes. She seems to be really enjoying training and has a comedy jive face (ie slack jawed/smiling), which she tries to control. The dance is very good, very fast and snappy and Kelly seems to be hugely enjoying it. 9’s across the board!

LETITIA

Letitia cried last week when the judges said mean things about her latin dance. Boo! Bad judges! This week she is doing the foxtrot in a flattering red dress with a v neck. She looks a bit stiff and frozen to me but the judges like it and say she was as good as Kelly in her way – also her shoulders are finally doing what they are supposed to do. She gets 2 8s and 2 9s. Really? It didn’t look 9-worthy to me.

KENNY

Blockhead Kenny is doing the cha cha cha this week and is also baring his arms again. Him and Ola go up to Scotland during the week to shore up the vote and Ola wears two bits of tinsel for the dance, also to shore up the vote. Oh dear. They dance to a Jacko song and, as usual, Kenny just sort of walks around and grins while Ola dances for two. He tries to moon walk and waves his arms around a bit but it is v poor. The judges are not complimentary (Bruno says that at least the humping was in time, heh) but Len gives him a 7 anyway??? What? Are you on crack, Len?

JOHN

John is doing the tango and is so nervous about his posture and determined to keep a straight face that he fails to do any performing at all. It is not so good and he gets fairly poor marks. I am quite bored by the whole thing and spend the whole time trying to work out what it is about Nicole that annoys me so much.

SARAH: For me it's Nicole's wig-like hair and wizened, half-starved face.

GETHIN

Poor Gethin is doing a rumba. Yuk. In order to try and feel romantic, he goes on a crypto-date with Camilla and ends up dancing on a floating restaurant. The rumba is OK, with Gethin standing and gyrating slowly while Camilla flaps around having a fit of the vapours. It’s as good as any other one I’ve seen, I suppose. All the judges say that he wasn’t romantic enough and that Camilla was doing all the emoting. He gets a 7 and three 8s though, and is pretty pleased with it.

KATE

Kate is doing the paso doble in a hideous outfit made of orange net ruffles. Lots of hilarious footage of Anton trying to swing her round like a cape and Kate rolling round like a sack of potatoes. At some point in rehearsals she pulls a muscle in her upper back though – ouch, I did that recently and it was a bastard – and they have to change the whole routine. I start wondering what other injuries Kate will have to get before she gives up. Hmmm, the dance is not too terrible and Kate has a fair crack at looking like a fierce senorita, but all the bits where she spins round, Anton catches her and props her up again are terrible and jerky. The judges are sympathetic about her sore back and again, she gets an inexplicable 7 from Len.

MATT

Matt was all OMG WTF??? last week after having to do the dance off. This week he is doing a quickstep and is determined to do better. Flavia looks disturbingly like a teenage boy in some of the training footage. Their dance is very fast and complicated with lots of skipping around in different holds and separately. Matt does very well to keep up with it all, though he does stumble at one point. Arlene says she loves him again now and everyone says he did well but shame about the trip. He gets pretty good marks, including an 8 from Len – that’s right, he gets one point higher than Kenny, who can barely walk in time to music. Sigh.

ALESHA

Alesha’s comedy nans appear in the VT, running round trying to get everyone to vote for her. She does a waltz in a glittery white and silver dress with lots of floaty bits stuck to her arms. Buh-buh- the music is that Simon Bates "Our Tune" theme. Mr P and I started intoning: "There was a lovely young lady...Let's call her Ally...she's a singer in a band...and there was a guy - as there always is - called Harry...Harry also sang in a band...and did musicals..."

It is v v good and the judges all go into raptures. Craig says he even felt a stirring of emotion in his cold dead heart for once! She gets 9s from Craig and Len and 10s from Arlene and Bruno – the best mark in the series to date. Of course she goes mental in the Tess-eract when the marks come in. Alesha to win!!!

THE RESULTS SHOW

Lots of recap and filler and then the professional dancers do a group foxtrot. Tess is now wearing a black and silver dress with a big bow on it, that is much better fitted round her boobs, but it could have lost the bow and looked much better. In other news, that gimp from the Joseph show does a Stones song while Camilla and Nicole have a sort of stylised catfight through the medium of Spanish dance. Okkkayyyy.

After that, the latin number one couple in the whole wild world ever come on and do a dance that starts off as a rumba then turns into a salsa (or something). Also, during the course of the whole thing, the lady’s outfit starts off as a dress, then turns into a leotard and then into a dress again! Freaky! When professional dancers are this good, it is so stylised and uber performed that it stops being like dancing and turns into weird alien spazzing out, IMO (see also, the frenetic insectile jerking of the pro jive last week).

The results! Dun dun dunhhh! All the good people get through, pretty much in order of fabness, leaving John, Kenny and Kate at the end – looks like one of the dance dunces will finally be going this week. Kenny gets through – thanks a lot, Scotland! - so, buh bye Kate. They dance off and Kate is a lot better this time round – she still goes, of course, and gives a nice speech about how she appreciated everyone voting for her and hopes she has shown that anyone can enjoy dancing, even if they are totally rubbish. She came across really well on the show, I thought. Cheers Kate!!

Next week: Mark will be in the studio audience, gasp!!!!!

STRICTLY COME DANCING: TECHNICAL FAULT

2007-11-12T17:13:00.001Z

I was on a family break (Center Parcs) this weekend, and my mum wouldn't let me watch it. And Mark's video packed in (get with the 20th century technology...)

I saw a bit of the Sunday show, so saw poor Penny go. Well, she was a bit of a clogger, but a lovely woman nonetheless, and still not as bad as Kenny. I expect Len will be raging at the Great British Public's iniquitous voting patterns from his LA cab...

The Sunday show featured the pros jive dancing in green shirts - Wolverine went totally Aussie and tore the sleeves off his. Ack. The women wore green and white pompoms and the Strictly version of the jive is just...weird. I can't stand it. Then we saw the celebs all dressed up in 1940s uniforms and dresses for a Remembrance Day Jitterbug special that they all seemed to get into, except for Kenny, who tried to climb out of the rehearsal room window. They all did really well - even Kate, and the band enjoyed playing proper dance music for a bit.

Going out with proper Strictly fans next weekend, so normal service will be resumed on 18 November

Can I squeeze your melons?

2007-11-08T20:35:00.000Z

Last night Susannah out of Trinnyandsusannah got her dream come true with a whole show where she got to feel baps in the guise of fitting out the nation's tits in better fitting bras. She even got to feel Trinny's fake ones.

I don't really like T&S make-overs. Yes, they look better than at the start but they also seem to have had their personalities stripped out of their style and converted into identikit figures wearing exactly the same sort of style, even if in different shapes. It's like Lego minifigs with extra make-up.

But, this is one of the things about long-running lifestyle/reality/etc type programmes. The formula makes for a great little game.

So, the Trinny and Susannah bingo card.

2007-11-05T15:13:00.000Z

STRICTLY COME DANCING: DOM DE DOM GONE

I have given up being aghast at Brucie’s horrendous jokes and autocue disasters. He talks about all the shock scandal controversy re last week and then it’s on with the show.

This week the poor celebrities are doing the Pasa Doble (aka flamenco dancing with an angry bull) and the foxtrot (a sort of slow, elegant ballroom dance where they stop and lean over every now and again).

BOOBWATCH

Oh dear oh dear. Poor Tess has been bundled into a grey sheet-like Grecian style number that makes her chest look like badly stuffed upholstery. She is also wearing a strange grey bangle thing that looks like some sort of medical appliance. What’s that all about? I thought she'd sellotaped her script to her wrist. The red results show dress does her a few more favours, but I really think she should sack her stylist.

KELLY: Keith Harris look-a-like Brendan says that he won’t do any more naughty illegal lift shenanigans. Kelly says she will strike a blow for feminism by doing some cape twirling, plus OMG her cape is really pink and sparkly!!! Kelly’s hair and make up are lovely but she is wearing some sort of red and black basque type thing that makes her look like a Castillian hooker. Brendan is wearing a tight black shirt with see-through mesh panels. Vom. They dance to “You give love a bad name” (Why???) and it starts off with Kelly flapping her cape. Then Brendan slides over to her on his knees and starts making fierce faces and waving his arms around. Oh whatever. It’s not bad but all a bit 80s video-esque for my liking. The Sladey house thought it would go down well in Bromley.

The judges aren’t that bothered and say that there was not enough Paso content and that Kelly wasted too much time with her sparkle motion cape action. Kelly retorts that she did lots of research into matadors and wanted to show that wimmin too could participate in the slow and agonising ritual slaughter of a large mammal. As long as their capes were pink and sparkly. Arlene also says that Kelly’s short outfit made all her bad leg/foot movements much more apparent. They get mainly 7s – their worst mark yet, but Kelly says that she doesn’t care if no one liked it because she’s hott and will get lots of votes anyway (not really…)

ALESHA: Lovely Alesha has trouble learning the dance, so in a not-at-all-contrived interview segment, her two grans show up with a tea urn and some fairy cakes and make her and Matt dress up in 1940s clobber. Her grans seem lovely too, and tell her to stop messing around and get on with it. For her foxtrot, Alesha wears a gold and lime green gown that really suits her (though I’m not sure about the matching eye shadow and nails). Her hair is lovely too. The dance is very elegant and looks ace to me – she gets all 9’s, seems to be on the verge on tears and says she wants a cup of tea afterwards. Awwww.

LETITIA: Letitia feels better after getting decent marks last week. She does the Paso to “Live and let die” - I don’t generally like inappropriate type music but all the ”Duh duh duh!!!” bits work quite well. She wears a blue and black sparkly dress with a deep v neck and slit skirt, which really suits her for once, and it is all very flamenco-y and dramatic. She gets lots of praise from the judges and her best score yet. Yay! Go Letitia. I love it on this program when someone obviously improves and gets into it more and more each week.

GETHIN: Gethin is doing the foxtrot and looks quite suave in a tux. Camilla has her hair up in a severe bun and wears a horrendous dress with loads of skin coloured mesh and glittery straps over her top half. The dance is pretty good, but Gethin spoils it by doing a Robbie Williams type slap inducing wink at the end. He gets good marks (7 and 3 8’s) and the judges comment on his improvement. Arlene leers at him a bit too, but that goes without saying.

DOMINIC: There are amusing shots of Dom trying to flap his cape around in rehearsal and ending up wrapping it round his head. A stern Spanish lady comes and helps teach him how to be fierce and bullfighterly. He is wearing a comical black toreador outfit with red sparkly flower shapes. Lilia comes up with some good choreography as usual but Dominic is very stompy and comes across more like an angry gnome than a masterly toreador. He gets average marks and is told off for not dancing in tinme to the music. In Tess’ Chamber, he makes various sour remarks about how the judges never give him good marks. Maybe that’s because you’re RUBBISH, Dominic. PS. Also no one likes a bad loser.

Come Sunday, Dominic's little Ferengi face gets even crosser when he finds himself in the Dance of Doom.

JOHN: Various football legends like Alan Hansen and Daveeed Ginola (still lovely, even though he's fat and grey now - Sarah) come on to say how competitive John is, while John says he isn’t competitive at all, oh no. John’s cute son is also wheeled out again. He does a foxtrot and again it is rather dull. Sort out this choreography pls, Nicole! Also, isn’t it time for him to do a latin dance? Craig hates it and gives him a 4 (booo!) but the others say he was not bad. His overall marks aren’t great though.

KENNY: Oh, this should be a laugh. Kenny goes on about how he offered his place to Gabby last week, but wasn’t allowed to do so (I should think not, seeing as people paid money to keep him in). He says he doesn’t care any more and is just going to have a laugh. Ola meanwhile decides to try and get as many votes as possible by squeezing into an outfit that barely contains her bosoms.

OMG What is Kenny wearing? A sleeveless black top to show off his beefy arms, a black glittery kilt (with the cape initially wrapped round his waste like a sarong), knee length black socks (nice!!) and shoes with cuban heels. The intro to Take Me Out by fellow Scots Franz Ferdinand begins - oh we're really flying the flag here. He does some cape waving (that suggests “laundry day!” more than anything else) and then stomps around fiercely while Ola gyrates frantically.

He appears to be wearing matching sparkly-trimmed pants under the kilt, which must chafe somewhat, and the dance ends with him standing over Ola while she lies flat on her back going “My eyes! My eyes!!” Bruno is in hysterics when it is over, as are many of the viewers, I would think. He gets slightly better marks than last time but still comes bottom.

At this point, Ceej was screaming: "FIREWORKS! NOW!", so the Sladeys set off for Blackheath to watch fireworks and drink mulled wine at £3 a (very very small) glass.

KATE: Kate chats about Gabbygate and how she wants to prove that she really does deserve to be in the competition. There are scenes of Anton being stern in rehearsal. She is doing the foxtrot in a blue and pink dress that I quite like. OMG, what is this??? She actually seems to know what she’s doing! She doesn’t look like every move is coming as a surprise to her! Anton doesn’t have to keep catching her and holding her up! She is actually not bad! All the judges say how much she improved and that she actually looked like a dancer for the first time! Hurrah! She gets some good marks, including the odd 7!

MATT: Matt, Flavia and her awesome abs are doing a Paso. Matt is wearing a sparkly black jumper and trousers, so he looks a bit like a jewel thief or 1960s spy or something. They dance to Smooth Criminal, which isn’t a very good choice, IMO, and it is all a bit modern and non bullfightery. Matt looks like a proper dancer though and the tight black clothes suit him. I’m not sure if he falls over once when he is kneeling down or if that was supposed to happen. Craig likes the innovative choreography but Len doesn’t. Arlene makes a lame “Matt-ador” joke that Matt himself made in the rehearsal tapes. They all say it is the best of the generally poor Pasos and he gets good marks - mainly 8s.

PENNY: Penny says she wants to prove that she was worth keeping after the dance off last week. Her cute toddler comes to watch her rehearse. She is dancing the foxtrot in a turquoise frock and is pretty good at these types of dances for such a big lass (see her quickstep in the first week).

The judges all love it and she gets 3 9s and an 8.

I miss the results show completely but John and Dom are in the bottom two and John stays, as he has, ahem, natural rhythm and actually appears to be able to dance along to the music. Also they all want to see him salsa next week. Me too!

I saw the results show and watched Len almost say "natural rythmn" but stop himself. The Dancers demonstrate the Viennese Waltz - the super hard one where you spin around a lot in huge puffy skirts. Then the Birmingham Ballet came on to show us all that proper dancers can screw up ballroom just as easily as the average punter - only they do it in flat shoes and throw up more often.

This week's featured musical number is McFly - who I used to think were OK for one song. McFly do one of their old Children in Need tunes, and attempt a single stadium-style "Whoo!", which falls flatter than a very flat thing being run over by a heavy roller.

Mark's current favourites are Alesha, jointly followed by Penny and Matt. he has gone right off Kelly, is bored by Gethin and is warming to Letitia…

Sarah's current favourites are Alesha, followed by Penny and Letitia. I'm still annoyed that there is no decent totty of the Ramps vintage on offer.

2007-10-30T12:58:00.000Z

STRICTLY COME DANCING: LOGAN VS LO-GONE

This week Brucie is even more incoherent than usual and there is plenty of controversy and rows. Hurrah! The dances are the samba, which seems to involve walking and pointing a lot and the American Smooth, which involves pretending to be Fred and Ginger a lot.

BOOBWATCH: Tess wears a nondescript red number for the first show and then a bizarre metallic outfit for the results show that makes her look like a sexy dalek/fembot type thing. Her hair doesn’t really suit her up, either.

ALESHA: Alesha starts us off with an American Smooth, wearing a red dress and with her hair up. I think this is the first time she has done ballroom and she is not bad. She looks elegant and dancerly and can’t stop smiling. The judges criticise her for some technical errors but she still gets pretty good marks.

GETHIN: Gethin is doing the samba and Camilla takes him to a samba club during the week so he can loosen up and get his hips going. I am finding Gethin a bit boring, even if he is quite fit. His routine is OK. Everyone says it is one of his best dances yet but he still needs to loosen up and get sexay.

KATE: Kate does the samba to Dancing Queen, which is not a great song (a) for that dance or (b) for the terrible screechy singers to attempt. She has a couple of OK moments but does seem to spend a lot of time being propped up by Anton (and his hairy chest – rowr!) and being dragged around the floor. She has a laugh about the whole thing at least, and is a lot less sour than Fiona Phillips was last year. I am quite warming to her. She gets predictably terrible marks (and is likened to a rag doll), but is delighted to get a 6 from Len.

KELLY: Kelly is doing the AS and wibbles on about how this dance fulfils all her princess/movie star fantasies. Her hair is all piled up on the front of her head, which looks rather odd and makes her jaw look massive. She is wearing a black shiny dress that appears to be made of vinyl. Hmmm. Her dance is very good but f***face Brendan incorporated 3 lifts into the routine which is a Dance Crime, apparently. They get 8s off everyone (losing a mark for the extra lift, plus Cabby Len calls Brendan a “donut”!) apart from Bruno who gives them 10. WTF? Billy Zane looks troubled.

DOMINIC: Dominic is doing the AS too. In rehearsal he falls over and hurts his shoulder. Good. But he recovers in time for Saturday. Bad. The dance is so so. Lilia, is it really necessary to incorporate some arse-grabbing action into every routine? Dominic is annoying enough without you encouraging him through the medium of choreography. The judges have a few criticisms about his posture, habit of staring at Lilia’s arse etc etc and he gets average marks.

SHAZZA: Shazza is also doing the AS and whinges on about her insecurities etc. She wears a weird grey/purpley dress that has a severe bodice, but the long skirt with slits is quite good as it shows off her legs without making her look like an apple on stilts. She is not bad and Bruno compliments her being for being classy with a touch of camp. She gets a bunch of 8s

MATT: Matt is doing the AS and wears a tuxedo that makes it look like he has no neck. He also has his hair in a Walter The Softy side parting, which pleases his mum no end. Flavia is wearing a bizarre primrose yellow floaty trouser suit thing like something Alexis Carrington Colby would wear to convalesce from a bout of flu. Their dance is very good (but he still has the “grim determination” thing going on at times) and the judges all go ape. Arlene wheels out a laboured pun re “Matt-inee idol”. He gets 4 9’s – the highest score of the night! Matt is the only bloke who has a chance to go far vs the likes of Kelly and Alesha.

GABBY: Gabby is doing the samba and wears a weird grey dress with lots of feathers sticking out of the back. She looks OK to me but loses timing a couple of time and apparently her voltas are bad. I don’t know what that means though. Isn't it a Russian river? She gets 7s and 8s.

KENNY: Kenny is doing the samba and gets a huge cheer just for striking a dramatic pose before the dance starts. He is predictably terrible. Most of the time he just walks around the floor while uber-minx Ola shimmys around in front of him. He does some painful looking hip waggles and messes up a knee slide for the grand finale. The judges are pitiless – Craig is repulsed by the hip thrusts and Bruno says he looks like a vacuum cleaner. Len still gives him a six though. Eh?

JOHN: John wheels out several of his apparently limitless supply of cute kids this week. He is doing the AS but apparently messes up and loses his performance briefly. I don’t remember much about the dance and the judges say it was boring apart from the final lift bit. Perhaps Nicole is just a rubbish choreographer? I know you can't judge a person by their hair, but Nicole's was a bit Hallowe'en tastic this week. John is not looking like such a contender now that the shock “OMG, he isn’t rubbish!” factor has worn off.

PENNY: Giantess Penny sambas to “These Boots are made for walking” in a gold mini dress and go-go boots. Much of the dance involves her strutting round looking foxy but there is a fast bit in the middle where they break into a sort of go-go dancing Tina Turner type bit, that I really like. Arlene thinks that it isn’t old school samba enough, but all the other judges enjoy it and she gets decent marks.

THE RESULTS SHOW: Professional dancers demonstrate the dances for next week: The Pasa Doble (aka retarded bullfighting dance that really ups the camp factor/LOL’s in the choreography) – I spend the demo smirking at the GRRR! faces that all the dancers pull as they attack their moves to Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes. Jack White must have been pressured by his English inlaws to let the BBC use it ("There'll be no eccles cake and Marmite food parcels for thee me lad...not unless you let the lovely Anton twirl his cape and make grr faces to one of yer 'its...")

The ballroom dance is the foxtrot, which has no USP that I can notice. Well, it's got swishy trotty bits...

There is some business re Three-Lift-gate, with Arlene and her bitchface and Len really pissed off that Bruno gave Kelly and F***face a 10, even though he cheated. We then get Wet Wet Wet performing a dreary song from the 80s that I find myself singing along to as I do the washing up. The shame! Marti Pellow looks really rough these days.

The results come round and – gasp – all the no hopers and B-listers get through – Kate! Kenny! Dominic! Shazza! Barnesy! The bottom two are Gabby and Penny and everyone is shocked and appalled. I hope Penny doesn’t lose as I really like her now, but Gabby doesn’t deserve to go home either.

They dance off and the judges all talk about how angry they are at having to chose between two good dancers. Craig saves Gabby but all the rest got for Penny. Phew. Gabby is obviously shocked but doesn’t cry and is quite classy about the whole thing. Penny also has the good grace not to look too pleased about being saved. The only good thing about it is that Gabby’s cockfarmer partner will be raging. He picks her and waves her around over his head for a bit in the last dance and that’s it for Gabby!

There’s lots of OMG-ery on various message boards but watching rubbish dancers each week is part of the fun of the show for many people – after all, Spencer off EE and Julian Clary did very well in their series and Fiona Phillips was round for 4 weeks or so, and she makes Kate look like Margot Fonteyn. It Takes Two showed Craig Upper Norwood saying that the Great British Public are FOOLS to make them choose between Gabby and Penny; and Len was practically in tears on the phone from LA, saying that it was the worst thing he has done in forty years of judging. Eh?

Someone, somewhere seems to have forgotten the point. Get over it, dance snobs!!

2007-10-25T21:41:00.000+01:00

CLASSIX FACTOR
Older readers may remember the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition being televised on Sunday evenings, inbetween the teatime Dickens adaptation and the obligatory David Attenborough wildlife programme. I certainly do. Every performer (particularly guitarists, clarinettists and pianists) prompted a poke from the nearest available parent, accompanied by a hissed: "See? that's what happens when you PRACTISE!" That was my cue to remember a vital unfinished piece of Physics homework (failed that O-level too).

Young Musician of the Year has been moved to BBC Four, to sit on the Super Spod shelf next to QI. But somebody at BBC2, probably thinking that there aren't enough white middle-class people making utter fools of themselves on TV, came up with the bright idea of an X-factor for classical musicians.

So here's the deal. We get Famous Cellist Matthew Barley who is a kind of Simon Rattle Lite - all curly hair and enthusiastic jeans. Matthew decides to widen the audience for classical music by creating a special school for talented young musicians to compete with each other to be the next classical star. Like..you know...Nigel Kennedy. But not G4, oh no.

Matthew gets his classical expert friends to be the judges and holds auditions around the country, just like on X-factor. However, having a dead dad or acting like a ment doesn't get you far if you can't play an instrument to at least Grade 8 standard. Having said that, we get a few choice specimens who don't make it. Notably a boy with a haystack on his head and a weird embouchure (music speak for not puffing your cheeks out when you play a wind instrument - in this case, a clarinet). Haystacks puffed like a bullfrog in mating season, which is Not Good and leads to a crappy sound. He seemed blissfully unaware of this, and staunchly defended his crap sound, backed up by his formidable mother. Oh yes, there are plenty of formidable parents around in this series. Another generically handsome posh boy flautist declared that he wanted to be a classical equivalent of Robbie Williams. I think Tchaikovsky got there before you, mate.

You can take it as read that all our contestants are a bit...well...intense. And most of them seem to already have places at the Royal College of Music. Which is nice.

After they settle in to the country house music school (it's never a warehouse in Peckham, is it?), Matthew gets them to improvise. Improvising is not something classical musicians do; this alone probably set jazz musos up and down the country a-cackling gleefully They have to come up with a few bars that epitomises their personality. Going by this, the bassoon player thinks she's Ivor the Engine. Most of them muddle through, and try to get away with playing as few notes as possible. More bizarre, performance-related tests follow, and the poor little scraps are mortified in shopping centres, pushed around by tango teachers, and end up doing a make-or-break performance in front of a group of very patient teenagers in Hoxton.

When not being forced into strange producer-led exercises to 'expand their horizons', they practise. They get up in the morning, and do some scales. Then maybe a lesson. Then more practice. Then lunch, where they talk about music and try to ignore Matthew speaking with his mouth full. And in the afternoon, they practise some more before being forced into the garden by the producers to do non-practising-type shots. Yep, that's right. Musicians are a bit boring - well the proper ones anyway. They play the same thing over and over again for seven hours a day. Then they talk about flattened fifths. And then they go to bed. Trust me, I know. I married a musician.

The Big Performance at the end of each week is where they perform a piece or do something for the judges. This week they each had 15 minutes in front of the incredibly patient East End teenagers. Nerdy guitar boy (the house favourite) demonstrated the versatility of the guitar sound rather well, though he should stay away from funk. The Winehouse-esque pianist made emo hearts go all a-flutter with Chopin's Funeral March (OK, it's really called the third movement of Piano Sonata no. 2 in B-flat minor).

The judges accuse the pretty blonde violinist from Suffolk, who works in a bar and runs jam sessions with bejumpered folkies to make ends meet, of using sex to win over the kidz. Ummm...flicking your hair while you play isn't exactly on a par with Beyonce, but this is Classical World, where talent is everything. Unless your name is Myleene.

In the end, the judgest decide to sack Robbie Williams Boy for being a smug, irritating little twerp, and a taciturn teenage trumpet player who crumples into a quivering heap at the very thought of a three word sentence. Not great for swapping anecdotes on a sofa with Sam and Mark...

Next week: Matthew waves his arms about and wears jeans which don't have the creases ironed in. And the youngsters do a bit more practice.

NEW COMEDY

2007-10-24T13:03:00.000+01:00

Flight of the Conchords is an HBO comedy show about two hapless New Zealand musicians trying to make it in New York. One of them (Bret aka Brit) looks like a cute version of Peter Sutcliffe and the other one (Jermain) looks like a cute version of Marcus Brigstock. Every week, there is 30 minutes of dead pan, rather repetitive comedy, where Brit and Jermain fall out over something and then they make up at the end. Last week saw the boys falling out over a girl they both liked, and competing to make her the most impressive birthday present – Jermain hand wrought her a butterfly out of glass and Brit produced an amazingly creepy painting of the girl as a bikini clad barbarian queen posing with a wolf with Brit’s face. It isn’t usually that funny though, so hopefully that was a sign that the show will broaden its wings slightly.

The main reason to watch the show is for the musical interludes. In one week, Brit and Jermain tried to fend off some muggers by taking on their rap identities (Rhyme-nocerous and Hiphop-opatumus) and rapping at them.

Later on they walk through the mean streets of NYC singing a motown style protest song that cracked me up (Sample lyrics: “Kids on the street being stabbed by knives and forks, and being called names like dork”).

I also liked Jermain’s Barry White style “It’s business time”, where he sings about treating his girl to two minutes of lovin’, in his socks. (“And then you say something sexy like “Is that it???””).

You can find all the songs on youtube (check out the David Bowie one or the Pet Shop Boys one) and I still sort of think that I am better off just doing that and not watching the program, but there are worse ways to spend a Tuesday evening, I suppose.

Snippets of TV genius

2007-10-24T10:47:00.000+01:00

No. 1 in a random series of classic TV quotes

From Oz and James's US Wine Adventure. Oz and James are paying homage at the memorial to James Dean, erected by an eccentric Japanese fan at the very tree that Dean crashed into in 1955.

Oz: He was a rebel without a cause, James.
James: He was a rebel without an airbag...

X Factor: Round one, number ones

2007-10-23T22:20:00.000+01:00

It was the first week of X Factor proper, having got through the ment-poking audition stages, the not particularly hard boot-camp and the sessions in the judges houses. We'd already lost lovely little Dominic from the boys and the only group in the finals who auditioned as a group are the Carpenters with ADD. Dermot is our new presenter to replace Riddler Kate.

On Saturday we saw the first of the proper singing rounds. This week: number ones.

Styling notes: Kimberluh looked like a sofa had swallowed Kelly Osbourne on her way to a fancy dress party as Gwen Stefani. Niki's DEAD DAD had left her a hairdresser's card and a scribbled post-it note telling her that the perm was a really bad idea in his papers, which she only found after the bootcamp weeks. Emily's stylist had clearly stuck Annabella Lwin's head on Avril Lavigne's body and decided that was a good look for a wholesome looking teenager with puppy fat. A devoted assistant was pulling out Andy's pubes with tweezers, one by one, to maintain the right level of slighltly pained brink of tears that the girlies loves. Beverley was wearing Captain Caveman on her head but had clearly lost weight since the auditions and was looking good otherwise. Rhydian looks like he's made of plastic. A 50p faced plastic Adam Rickett doll in fancy dress as the Judderman. Why does Rhydian look so bloody weird? In Hope, Leah is a foot taller than the rest and they cannot hide it, Raquelle appears to have borrowed her top from Borat. Overall, only Hope and Alisha look like pop stars should. Judges styling: Danni's face can barely move, Sharon's hair shade - crimson.

Performance notes: Same Difference have turned up on the wrong programme as clearly "tonight, Matthew, we are going to be H and Claire after Steps split up". Leon appears to be performing in a dance sequence from Absolute Beginners. Kimberluh will come into her own in about 30 years time, when it's OK to be a larger glamour girl in true Helen Lawson style - on someone barely out of her teens it's just painful. Will Hope ever sing anything other than Umberella-ella-ella-ella? Can any member of Hope other than Leah and Phoebe actually sing in tune? Rhydian keeps getting the words to "I would do anything for love wrong". Would, Rhydian, not Will. Andy is like a singing puppy - the Andyrex puppy. Judges performance: Sharon does an impressive turn as lascivious drunken auntie at the end of a wedding, Louis does bizarre turn as voice of reason.

Results: After an extended delay caused by the Rugby, we find that Alisha and Kimberluh are the bottom two. Sharon refuses to vote as her quite frankly bizarre music taste has put them in this position. Danni votes to send the black girl home. Louis and Simon see sense. Kimberluh is going back to pulling pints.

Next week: Songs from the movies, with special guest Celine Dion. I think I will need a drink.

Have we had an X Factor Drinking Game yet?

Next week's X Factor Drinking Game

1 finger beer/gulp wine/swig of spirits for each mention of the following.

"My/our journey"
Niki's DEAD DAD is DEAD and wanted her to enter the competition.
Emily nearly died
Daniel's child
Rhydian's arrogance/bad reputation
Westlife
"The girls will love you"
Beverley's class

2 fingers/gulps etc for the following events

Same Difference sing a song which is inappropriate for a brother and sister
Sharon brings one of the family on (dogs included).
Hope find some way to disguise Leah's height.
Louis rants about Same Difference being in the competition.
Danni votes against a black contestant in the bottom two.

Down your drink

Sharon and Celine have the same hairdo.
A judge walks off or refuses to vote at the end.

2007-10-22T17:30:00.000+01:00

STRICTLY COME DANCING: TANGO-A-G0G0

This week, the ladies and the men compete with each other for the first time, doing either the tango or the jive, which are two of my favourite dances. I notice that there are many EE cast members in attendance tonight, as well as Billy “no life” Zane yet again. Never mind, I'm sure the residuals from the DVD sales of The Phantom will dry up soon.

BOOBWATCH: Tess is wearing not a bad dress, it’s black with a weird gold tape bikini effect that emphasis her boobs. She is also wearing a very odd pendant that looks like a 1950s car hood ornament and has her hair all Farrah-ed up.

GABBY: I think Gabby used to look nicer without her severe fringe. Anyway, she was apparently disappointed to only come 4^th last week and is determined to do better today. She is dancing the jive to that Elton John “Saturday! Saturday!” song. She is wearing a very short grey dress that totally shows off her arse when she spins around. She is pretty good, skipping around like a maniac and grinning all the way through. At the end she does a cartwheel and the splits, which is just showing off really. The judges are all pleased (though apparently she made a mistake – I think she was slightly out of time with Ian while they dancing separately) and give her a bunch of 8s.

GETHIN: Gethin was also disappointed with his first score and says he is now used to snuggling up to the lovely Camilla (I love her surname, Dallerup!). He is tango-ing to “Gold! You’re indestructible!!” and is a lot better than last time, though rather blank and emotionless, and I find the choreography a bit dull. The judges pretty much agree with me, but Arlene announces that he is the chosen male contestant that she will sexually harass for the rest of the series (see Mark, last year…) He gets OK marks

PENNY: Penny is also doing the jive, in a very short blue shiny dress (she wears it well though. Ha ha, do you see what I did there…). She gives it her all but is not so great, tottering round and obviously stumbling a couple of times. She seems to have a problem with heels, which is not very Essex. Maybe they should be white. Afterwards there is a big discussion about how it is v hard for tall people to jive because their freakishly long legs are uncontrollable and don’t get with the beat, daddy-o. Way to put me off wanting to learn my favourite dance, judges! (Later on, Alesha and her super long legs jive excellently, btw). Evil Craig gives her a 5 and she gets 6s and 7s off the others, which isn’t so bad, but she still has a little cry in the Tess-aract.

KENNY: Kenny does the tango to a terrible version of “Call Me” with awful screechy singing. He gives a sob story about having dyslexia in the interview section. Whatever!!! He is a bit better than last week, though rather overdoes the glaring and his hands are a bit rubbish (gorilla like, as the judges say). He gets average marks.

Kenny looks more and more like Jamie Redknapp's chunky cousin every week. Actually, that would be a good combination. Lovely Louise-off-Eternal and Jamie...AT WAR. You've got the ex-girl band and sporty angles covered, and he's got a comedy football manager dad too. Everyone's a winner.

MATT: Matt says that dancing live is as embarrassing as losing your virginity on live TV. Eww, and also it can’t be as embarrassing as some of your EE performances. Matt is wearing baggy trousers, two-tone shoes and an open, short sleeved shirt with an odd flesh coloured vest underneath it. I would have gone for a black or white vest, personally. Also, I fear Flavia’s teeth. The performance is pretty good, with lots of twisting and finger snapping etc. Some times he looks like he’s enjoying it but he has a sort of look of grim determination on his face for some of it. Also there is one bit where he stops and just sort of claps and jiggles around a bit until he remembers what he’s supposed to be doing. He gets pretty good marks (7/8s) and the judges comment on how much he’s improved.

KATE: Kate’s fall offy feet crisis is now over and she is determined to do her best! Her best being rather shit, sadly. She does the tango and looks nice in a green and black dress with her hair up. As per last time, she just seems a bit hesitant as though all the moves are taking her by surprise and often it looks like Anton is dragging her around the floor. She seems very lacking in confidence for a presenter, even when she isn’t dancing. The judges all say that she didn’t do much wrong, but it was still rubbish.

Actually, the reason I want Kate to get voted off is because keeping her there means that her ex-spin doctor husband gets to whine to the cameras about how great she was, and what a fighter she is and all I can think of is: "this man used to work for Peter Mandelson". Think on that GMTV viewers!

DOM: There are lots of hilarious shots in training of Lilia shrieking “SHUT UP!!!” right in Dom’s slappable cheeky Ferengi face. I keep expecting him to start going on about Latium bars. They jive to Christina Haguilera’s inexplicable 1940s pastiche Candyman and Lilia wears a lovely sparkly dress and looks v cute with her hair all marcell-waved up. Dom is a bit shit and there is a hilarious arm wavy bit that even I can recognise as being terrible. Also, his braces pop off his trousers so some of the choreography doesn’t quite work. He gets OK marks but looks very serious as he receives his criticism

LETITIA: Shazza dances a tango to a screechy-vocalled version of Material Girl. Why do they do these awful 80s covers when the proper music is much nicer? She is wearing a long black lacy Spanish style dress that is more flattering than the shorter outfits they’ve put her in in previous weeks. She says that having to dance off last time aged her about two years and is determined to do better this week. She is not bad, though she pulls some embarrassing sex faces whilst dancing, and gets average marks.

JOHN: John is dancing the jive and appears to have lost weight since last week, though that may be the effect of a slimming black shirt vs a non-slimming yellow one! My b/f thinks he is too self confident and cocky and has gone off him, but I still like him, so there. I am not keen on Nicole though (for no good reason whatsoever – her hair makes her look like a lost member of Steps or something).

WILLIE: I really wanted to see Willie doing a jive, but unfortunately he is tangoing instead, dressed in a funereal black suit with Erin in a white shiny dress. She has picked some Authentic Tango Music, which to my ears does not have a beat and thus must be very hard to dance to. Apparently his footwork is good, but his posture is terrible, (like a walrus in the Sahara says Bruno, surreally.) He gets below average marks and everyone is disappointed after he did so well last week.

ALESHA: Alesha wears the shortest green dress in Christendom to do her jive to an excellent choice in music - Shake Your Tail Feather. Lots of shots of her bounding round energetically like a loon in rehearsal, laughing a lot and calling her dance partner “Cutler” in a faux stern fashion. I still love her. Her jive is really excellent, with loads of energy and enthusiasm and lots of super fast kicking, despite her freakishly long jive-averse legs. She gets 9 points from each of the judges, and comes off bouncing and shrieking with joy. Alesha to win!!

Mr P announced that he had died and gone to heaven after Alesha's dance. I ordered our daughter to kick him.

KELLY: Kelly is doing a tango to Abba’s Gimme Gimme Gimme (A man after midnight). Gay much, Brendan? She wears a red lacy number with a cut out boob-window and odd skirt that starts at her ribs, though her hair and make up are ace - she really has the colouring to pull off a Spanish style look. Her tango is good but not exceptional, in my eyes. There’s a bit where they both spin round doing flicky leg moves (why yes, that is the technical term) which I like and a high point, where she gives Brendon a good slap (if I was her I’d have sewn a few 50p pieces into the lining of my glove for that…). Also her performance is pretty good – she is really emphasising the “I’m an actress too!!” bit of her CV. Brendan gallantly admits to making a mistake in the dance and they get 8s and 9s.

RESULTS SHOW: The pro dancers did a very swoopy American Smooth,and somebody vox popped some of the celebrity audience. Jane Horrocks, surrounded by little Blonde Horrockses, said that poor Anton always got the raw deal. The Stenders gang were out in force, propping up the bar as usual and shouting for Shazza and Beano.

There is opera singing from Katharine Jenkins (going for Gethin because he's Welsh, and so is she...) and Andrea Bocelli. I've heard better - in fact I think I've sung a better tenor part than that. Anyway, Erin and Anton swish about to make sure nobody falls asleep. Woo hoo.

Anyway, the scores come in and Willie and John have to dance off. John!!! Gasp!!! Shurely Shome Mishtake! John gets through obviously – they don’t even pretend to have a casting vote type nail biter. Bye Willie, I am still gutted I didn’t get to see you jive. Next week: The American Smooth (aka the Fred and Ginger-y one) and one of the fast latin ones (salsa perhaps???) – which should be fun.

2007-10-16T17:48:00.000+01:00

STRICTLY COME DANCING: SHE-DEVILS ON HEELS

After the men’s poor showing last week, everyone is looking forward to what the ladies (PS stop calling them “girls”, Brucie you old dinosaur) can do. And speaking of Brucie, is it just me or have his scripted links to camera become even more incoherent, garbled, unfunny etc etc than ever before, such that I find myself grinding my teeth whenever he appears on screen? (some of his ad libs are still quite funny, mind you)

BOOBWATCH: Tess wears a strapless green number, which is not bad, but the highly pleated bodice makes it look a bit as if her boobs are made of paper mache. The fabric on the one she wears for the results show looks like old Christmas wrapping paper and has a weird sticky out bit along the neck line, as though a bit of the hem has become unstitched.

I lied last week and said they are doing the foxtrot and the rumba, when actually it is the quickstep and the rumba. The quickstep is the one where they charge from corner to corner of the floor and then do flappery type foot moves, the rumba is the boring one where the woman points to the ceiling and tries to look sensuous while the man writhes around her and rubs his thighs a la Vic Reeves and the judges argue whether it is supposed to be romantic or slutty.

STEPHANIE BEACHAM AND VINCENT SIMONE

There is a hilarious clip of Stephanie with giant hair as Sable Colby, giving Joan Collins a well deserved choking on Dynasty, and also of her being camp and bossy to creepy lothario Vincent. She has to do the quickstep in a bacofoil dress and does pretty well, even though it is to a dreadfully unsuitable KT Tunstall song – I really don’t understand why they do these period type dances to modern songs, it must be much easier to do it to a 1920s sounding song. Everyone says she has charisma and glamour (TRU!!) but needs to be lighter on her feet and she gets mainly 6s.

SHAZZA OFF EE AND DARREN BENNETT

Shazza worries about her looks compared to glamazons such as Penny, Alesha and Kelly and who can blame her. Darren seems nice and a good laugh as always. She does the rumba in an unflattering blue dress draped with netting and is OK but not brilliant. The producers have decided to try and draw attention away from Shazza's ample top half by getting her to wave her very shapely legs about, but all you think is: "Hmm...nice legs...Russian tractor driver shoulders...wonder if we're related?"

I have seen a lot worse anyway. The judges say they are too restrained and need to go out and get drunk together. They still get average marks.

KATE GARRAWAY AND ANTON “MADE UP NAME” DU BEQUE

When Kate appears, I hope they will pan down and reveal that her feet have been replaced by robotic limbs or roller skates or something but no such luck. She moans about her feet a lot and how it has messed up her training and then does a quickstep to Love Machine (see above re unsuitable modern songs). It is pretty bad. All the steps seem to take Kate by surprise, Anton is visibly dragging her round half the time and when they reach the bit between the flappering and the trotting, they just seem to stand there and mill around aimlessly. All the judges are very mean (with many references to laughing stock Fiona Phillips) and Craig gives her 2 points! The rest give her 4 and 5s. Anton is relieved that their first score is higher than Fiona Phillips. I can just imagine Fiona Phillips sat at home watching the show, drinking neat vodka out of the bottle and swearing blearily at the TV.

ALESHA DIXON AND MATTHEW

I love Alesha, she seems like she would be really good fun to go out with and I love her dirty laugh. Also she is a stunner! She is doing the rumba and wears a sparkly red dress that barely contains her bosoms. Unsurprisingly she is very good, looks great and puts in a convincing performance of Mills & Boon style emotion as the dance requires. I really hope she goes far in the competition. The judges compare her to “Salome” and “a gazelle” and she gets mainly 8s. Hurrah!

PENNY LANCASTER STEWART AND IAN

I was irrationally inclined to dislike Penny but she seems nice enough and quite down to earth. I think it's because we disliked the former Mrs Stewart so much on Make me a Supermodel; and after all, they're both tall blondes married to Rod Stewart, so it's easy to mix them up.

There is a hilarious shot of her in her LA mansion rehearsing while her dad sits there watching in his vest and trakkie bottoms. Class. She is mega tall (as is her partner) and looks great with her posh green dress, up-hairdo etc. Rod Stewart is watching and has a mysterious black eye. Hmmm. She does a quickstep to proper 1920s sounding music – hurrah - and is pretty good, skipping elegantly round the room, and looking like a bona fide Noel Coward character. I think the band like her too because the singers growl: "Go Penny Go!" just before the middle eight. The judges all love her (Bruno says something about “ecstasy” – perhaps that he is on it) and she gets 8s and a 9 – wowsa!

KELLY BROOK AND THAT C***FARMER BRENDAN

Kelly is not quite as stunning in close up as she was last week and does not seem like the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she is giggly and harmless, and still v beautiful. Brendan is so in awe of her hottness that he almost forgets to be a dickhead. Well I never. Then he mentions that he has to remind himself not to stare at her breasts all the time. Oh well. There is no close-up of Billy Zane polishing a knuckle duster and we are disappointed.

They dance the rumba to a song off Dirty Dancing, which is a bit too obvious for my liking, with Kelly in a high necked gold sparkly dress and pony tail. She is very good (even coping with a stray bit of fringe getting caught on her heel) and looks fantastic and the judges all love her. She gets 8s and a 9 and is now joint first with Penny!

GABBY LOGAN AND IAN

Ian was a right prat last series, but he says he will be nicer this series as Gabby is making an effort to be good, unlike the lazy slut he got landed with last year. The Guardianistas call him "Wolverine", and I think I can see why (ed: he has an adamantium skeleton?).

I think Gabby will be replacing Carol Smilie as the slightly underachieving joyless swot this series, as she goes on about how competitive she is. She does a quickstep to Dean/Nancy’s Things, wearing a red dress. The routine looks quite difficult and complex and Gabby does quite well. The judges are vaguely complimentary and give her 7s and 8s – which would be very good on any series apart from this one. Gabby says tight lippedly that she did it better in rehearsal and probably goes off screen and starts self harming or something to punish herself.

THE MEN’S GROUP DANCE

This is supposed to be a merengue but it's more like a hopeless farrago, as they start dancing to a latin tune that then morphs into the Jackson 5. The choreography is all over the place. Stand out moments = a blatant incident of jazz hands and Dominic playing girl dancers’ bottoms like bongos. WTF?? Willy looks like he will struggle with latin. Kenny is as terrible and clunky as last week, Matt and Gethin are improved, Dominic is still annoying and John still looks like he is enjoying himself and is not bad. The judges tell them that they are all doomed. Doomed, I say!!

THE RESULTS SHOW

This is full of filler and a huge waste of time (especially when sodding Westlife show up). The men even do their retarded group dance again and it makes no more sense than it did the night before. The only good bit is when the Professional Dancers strut their stuff to a medley of songs from Chicago. Finally the actual results come on and – gasp – to everyone’s shock horror, Kate is through. Damn you GMTV viewers and your sympathy votes. Stephanie and Shazza have to dance off and Stephanie is much the same, but Shazza puts a bit more over acting into her performance and gets through. Stephanie is v gracious about the whole thing and makes “I’m too old for this shit anyway” type noises. What a shame, she was good value on the show.

Next week it is the tango and the jive, which both have much scope for hilarity. I am guessing that Kenny or Willy will be going home, esp if they both have to jive….

2007-10-09T13:33:00.000+01:00

STRICTLY COME DANCING V! WAR OF THE LOGANS

It seems like only yesterday when we were praising lovely Ramps to the skies, and here we are again, with a whole new bunch of slebs to slag.

This week we're only seeing the men...uh...perform. Which is good for Kate Garraway because she's been working her feet so hard, they've rebelled and swollen to the point where she could easily don a periwig and play George IV in the GMTV Xmas Regency Revels. I know this because Ceej's childminder watches GMTV in the mornings, and we've been treated to regular updates and explanations of tendonitis with X-rays from Dr Hilary Jones all bloody week. Well, at least she has lovely Anton for a partner.

None of the men particularly stand out as being super skill from the start this year, like Lovely Mark Ramprakash and Colin Jackson did in previous years. Could this be a year for the ladies?

BOOBWATCH: Tess has them firmly strapped down this week, but what's with the plastic cummerbund?

BEANO and FLAVIA

We all know and not-quite-love-not-quite-despise Beano from our Easties days. He's quite cute with stubble, and says that learning to dance might help him pull. Flavia says that he'll need all his acting skillz to create the right atmosphere. She's obviously never seen Eastenders - I don't think there is a dance that requires one to snivel damply in a public toilet. He does OK with the cha-cha-cha. Bit nervous and over-concerned with getting his steps right but he might improve when he relaxes a bit and gets over his nerves.

CORRIE BADDIE AND KAREN

Karen won last year, so this year she gets the no-hoper. That doesn't stop her being grimly perky about the whole fandango (they don't do the fandango, do they?) Former Corrie Baddie Brian Capron tries to tell us that he's done other stuff than Corrie, but they play his best Corrie psycho scenes anyway. Though anybody who tries to off Gail Tilsley can't possibly be all that bad in my book. He's...ummm...not that great, but game enough. Sadly he ends up in the bottom two and has to "dance off" vs Kenny Logan. The judges dump him. How I will miss Karen's mad facial expressions and naked emotion this series.

DOMINIC LITTLEWOOD AND LILIA

Professional cockernee who possibly does some daytime property programme. Anyway, Sarah is reminded of an Arthur Rackham pixie, and not in a good way. He's pretty light on his feet and gets through with his OTT performance - he basically leers a lot and sexually harrasses Lilia to a latin beat. The judges praise his "big personality" (a polite way of saying he's annoying) but that won't help with the ballroom dances, methinks.

GETHIN JONES AND CAMILLA DALLERUP

Now this is a bit weird because Sarah knows a girl called Gethan, but this is Gethin with an I, and he's a chap. He appears to be the John Noakes one on Blue Peter. Apparently he's rather hunky - Sarah doesn't see it but Mark does, oh yes. Anyway, he's godawful (but fills out his shiny purple cha cha cha shirt very nicely) and as Craig Upper-Norwood says, he'll need the teeny texter vote to keep him in unless he improves big time.

WILLIE THORNE AND ERIN "FACE OF" BOAG

Willie is an old snooker player apparently and everyone expects him to be rubbish. In your face, haytas! He gets the best waltz score of the night from the judges. I can't really see him being any good at latin, though. Bring on the jive!

JOHN BARNES AND NICOLE CUTLER

Awww...look at the big slab of yellow former football genius! He was so cute in that New Order video. Actually, he's pretty light on his feet and seems very jolly and to be having a good time. That enormous yellow blouse was a mistake though. Arlene tells him to stop eating all the pies and shape up. Craig provokes LOL's aplenty when he says that he likes a man with a bit of meat on his bones - a bit TMI there, Craig. John gets top marks of the night! Hurrah!

KENNY LOGAN AND OLA JORDAN

Oh, this is the COUPLES AT WAR! twist. Kenny is Mr Gabby Logan and also an ex scottish rugger player. He also has a huge Desperate Dan style chin. His waltz is pretty clumpy and graceless and he doesn't take the judge's criticism well. He improves a lot in the dance-off though and scrapes through to dance again.

THE LADIES GROUP SWING DANCE

It’s hard to tell who is any good in the group dance, but lovely Alesha Dixon (the girl who used to break it down and start shouting “boom shakka lacka!” in the middle of every Mis Teeq song), Stunner Kelly Brook (I’m not being sarcastic, she is really incredibly beautiful) though unfortunately she is stuck with cockfarmer Brendan as her partner, Gabby Logan and Mrs Rod “I’m a photographer too! Yes really!” Stewart all look they will do well. Bruno is going to run out of OTT metaphors to describe that lot. Stephanie Beacham adds camp value and I’m not sure how Shazza off EE will do - she seems to be trying to be bubbly and wacky to make up for her inferior looks/skillz. It’ll be fun to watch the wardrobe dept try to cope with her top heavy figure, anway. She looked like an apple on stilts on the Sunday show.

MARK'S TOP PREDICTIONS

Alesha and Kelly are my favourites to win so far, even though I barely saw them dance, plus I am liking John Barnes (and Gethin for Shallow And Obvious Reasons).

SARAH'S TOP PREDICTIONS

I think John Barnes is this year's stalking horse, and am also liking Dulwich Girlz Alesha and Kelly - despite having to mop up after a drooling spouse...

NEXT WEEK

The men do a group dance and the women dance individually, doing either the foxtrot (yay!) or the rumba (boo!) Will Kate Garraway's feet have fallen off by then? Tune in and see!

Most Haunted

2007-09-30T16:55:00.000+01:00

The temperatures are dropping, and the nights are drawing in. Time for the TV Dinners team to stop stomping around London, singing Carmen, holidaying in exotic climes, and get back to the serious business of watching telly and knitting.

I had a few rows to knit while waiting for Saxondale to start: I didn't fancy watching rich people buy a house and fuck it up, so I flicked the remote to FTN's Most Haunted.

Pardon the pun, but I've been dying to watch Most Haunted after seeing the odd clip while surfing channels, so here was my chance. Until Steve Coogan's rather creepily accurate portrait of just about every music biz friend in my dad's address book, anyway.

Most Haunted is the Anti-Antiques Roadshow. Antiques Roadshow takes place during the day, and involves a group of experts in a nice old house, poring over various bits of old tut and talking about them. In Most Haunted, a team of 'experts' in paranormal phenomena walk around a nice old house at night, and talk a load of old tut about ghosties. They even film the whole thing in night vision, so they all look a bit spooky anyway, especially when you see their eyes in negative. Interestingly enough, Derek Acorah's eyes in night vision are pitch black. This, I think, is all the evidence we need that he is in fact Satan.

So here we are, on the lawn of a pretty little medieval manor house, which apparently has been a pub, a boarding school and a family home in its long and turbulent history. I'm sorry, but show me a house over 200 years old in the British Isles that doesn't have a long and turbulent history. That's what history is. Anyway, this long and turbulent history means that there are a lot of disturbed spirits running around the place. Or floating. Whatever it is that sprits do.

Firstly, Yvette Fielding. WHAT HAPPENED? Twenty years or so ago, she was a lovely, bubbly children's TV presenter with eye-scorching yellow jumpers and beautiful curly russet hair. Now she shops for crushed velvet frock coats at Goths R Us, and some demon hairdresser has transformed her tumbling locks into a bleached, straightened mulletty affair that wouldn't look odd on an ageing glam rocker. Yvette (whom Derek Acorah calls "Eveet"...eh?) no longer smiles. She looks grim. And slightly scared. What demon hold does Derek have over her and her loved ones that she is condemned to spend her fading years following him around old houses and going "eek!" at crucial moments?

So anyway, Yvette finds a few middle-aged chaps to talk about strange happenings (footsteps on the stairs, ghostly games of knock-down-ginger...you know the score). Then a 'historian' (I think he might have an A-level) gives a few gory facts: religious persecution (it's 700 years old ffs! Every manor house in the country was involved in some way!), pub brawls, small boys getting roasted over open fires... to whet our appetites before the ads.

After the ads a Parapsychologist - not even the University of Greenwich offers a course in parapsychology, and they're pretty desperate for students - waves a tricorder around and talks about temperature fluctuations.

The purpose of all this flannel is to soften us up for the appearance of the The Silver One himself. Derek Acorah even dresses dodgy. Slicked back silver hair, buttoned up black shirt, diamond ear stud...I almost expect him to start flogging Yvette a dodgy Jag or asking if I've had an accident that wasn't my fault recently. But instead he presses his fingers to his temples and looks troubled.

Derek: "I'm sensing damp...lots of damp"

It's an old house mate. They didn't do draught proofing in 1474.

Then he twitches and genuflects and says that there's a lot of Catholicism about. Well you know, that's what Catholics do, genuflect and say their Hail Mary's all day...no wonder Luther got bored and went to set up his own religion. Derek says there's a lady in white, and she hates her father. He then closes his eyes.

Derek: "I'm feeling my vision going away..."

A subtitle says that a young woman's Protestant lover was murdered by her catholic father in 157something. That's an "ooooh..." moment. For me it's an "oooh...Derek has a researcher..." moment.

The parapsychologist waves his tricorder and reports a drop in temperature. They're standing next to an open window. Derek babbles on about people drinking...Yvette hears a spooky whistle and the crew go off to investigate squeaky doors.

So, we've got a whistling white lady, a room full of drunkards, and...Derek gets "residual energy...thinking energy...like water being thrown over our shoulders..." Even Yvette can't resist a WTF look at this point.

Derek scurries off, apparently that's scurrying energy, saying that he's on the trail of two priests in hiding. Yep, well, it's an old house, and many country gentlefolk resisted the Reformation as best as they could, and there were a lot of deaths. Derek finds a priests' room, and 'sees' lots of blood. Oh, someone died then. Apparently one priest is angry, and the other one isn't. Well, maybe he doesn't like all the drunkard ghosts downstairs. And that white lady must be a bit of a pain too.

Another sweatier and obviously lesser psychic joins them as the producers get bored and switch the camera to night vision, and that's when I noticed the black eyes of demon possession.

I'm afraid I only lasted up until Derek found another spirit chap called Sam who directed them to a room where some bloke called Joseph committed suicide. The magic subtitle appears again, and says that a bloke called Joseph did commit suicide in 1878. Before we switched channeles, I saw the previews begging us to stay, and to expect demon possession (Sweaty Psychic goes "Raaaaorr"), Yvette screaming, and Derek saying he feels a bit tired...

2007-05-26T23:25:00.000+01:00

SEVEN AGES OF ROCK PT 2: ART ROCK

Mr P, the guitar geek, has promised to grumble in a separate post about Part one of Seven Ages of rock: apparently they didn't mention that Jimi was practised loads before he was hailed as The God of All Guitarists and...well, I stopped listening...

Anyway, I'm doing Art Rock because I was there. Kind of. My dad went to Floyd gigs and even worked for Nick Mason for a while (Mr Mason is known in our family as That Bastard Mason and loyalty compelled me to shout "Git!" every time he appeared on the screen. He didn't give me a summer job processing his royalty payments either. Git.). We had all the original Velvets' and a few Bowie albums, and my mum officially fancied Bryan Ferry. I also was at the iconic Wall gig at Earl's Court in 1981, so there.

Seven Ages of Rock is also great for playing our favourite TV game, called "'E's Dead". The concept is simple. You need at least two players. The first person to shout "'E's Dead" when a now-dead actor/musician appears on the screen scores a point. If challenged you must name the dead person before you can get your point. Tonight's scores were Sarah: 4, Mr P: 1.

We started with the Floyd in their drippy trippy phase of singing about bicycles and wet posh girls. The rather fine archive footage - seriously, old farts like me only watch these things for the archive footage - was spoiled by arty editing (how can you possibly out-farty the Floyd? Fools!) and updated inserts with clever clever effects. They actually managed to wheel all four surviving members of Pink Floyd, though not in the same room - that would have been fun - and the po-faced narrator managed to slot in a drummer joke ("four musicians and a drummer..."). They all said that yes, they were interested in pushing the boundaries of music, blah blah, and there were shots of them discussing chord changes in a studio, and Syd looking slightly embarrased on a stool while a 1960s BBC chap asked them why they had to play so loudly. More clever effects meant to illustrate the effect of LSD on an archive shot of Syd playing guitar, and a film of one of his lamer pre-breakdown songs that everybody apart from three emo teenagers in Wantage would prefer to forget.

"Meanwhile..." intones the narrator. "Syd's every move was being watched by a young singer from Bromley with funny eyes..." Cue the first bit of archive Bowie footage. According to this lot, Bowie had a novelty hit with Space Oddity, and then was cut adrift in the music scene..hang on, is The Laughing Gnome to be airbrushed from history altogether?

Over in New York, a young and pretty Lou Reed was thrown together with a not as young but very beautiful Nico, a grumpy John Cale and silent, long-suffering Sterling Morrison and Mo Tucker. They tie Mo up in the name art. Nico sings flat. Andy Warhol looks a scream. John Cale appears to remember everything, while Lou purses his cat's arse mouth and claims not to recall if they actually play a psychiatrist's convention (cue shot of Edie Sedgewick - damn...missed that one - et al dancing with the Velvets in front of a group of very nervous psychiatrists). A clever bit of editing makes it look as if David Bowie is taking notes or something.

David returns to the UK, apparently, and comes up with Ziggy Stardust - a fictional amalgam of Syd, Jimi, and assorted other doomed heroes. A horribly overrated album follows, and lots of music journalists make lots of money from analysing the true meaning of Ziggy/Dark Side/Roxy Music.

The problem with this pseudo academic approach is that it forgets the most important aspect of these chosen groups. Do they rock, or do they not? Aged seven, I couldn't give a monkeys about pushing the barriers of performance. The big question was: could you dance to it? Did it groove? Floyd grooved (especially post-Syd, when they basically let Richard Wright build a groove, and sat on it for 20 minutes); Bowie grooved; Roxy grooved (before they went all lounge).

Genesis didn't. Peter Gabriel popped up with a neat goatee to explain that he felt impelled to take the Floyd levels of performance into a complete new universe of wankery, resulting in an experience that looked like a failed audition for Playaway. The rest of Genesis had enough self-knowledge to look slightly embarrassed.

We return to the Floyd, who are irritated that selling gazillions of albums not only means more Ferraris to buy, but more people to play to. Apparently The Wall was the concept album gig to end all concept album gigs. I just remember lots of inflatables, a dirty great wall being built, and Dave Gilmour doing the solo for Comfortably Numb on top of it, and not being able to speak for 24 hours afterwards.

Thank heavens for Punk. We recovered by playing our favourite DVD of Spinal Tap...that's a proper rock documentary.

SOUL BRITANNIA DRINKING GAME

2007-04-08T21:25:00.000+01:00

Work in progress from me and Mr P.

Every time Robert Elms manages to shoehorn trousers into an examination of the social impact of post-war immigration policy and its impact on British society = ONE FINGER
Every time Van Morrison smiles, either in archive or on present-day footage = REST OF GLASS

BACK TO LIFE

2007-04-08T20:36:00.000+01:00

What gets me about these 'real' reality shows such as The Apprentice and Masterchef, is yes, they're full of bright youngish folk actually learning a craft or how to sell frozen water to Inuits; and no, it isn't just about scratching your arse with a bunch of other misfits while teeny txters send shout outs to their mates along the bottom of the TV screen. But let's face it, why are they really doing it?

If you've always wanted to run a restaurant, then why did you train as an opera singer/marketing executive/graphic designer/merchant banker/lawyer, exactly? There are any number of catering colleges dotted up and down the country that will gladly show you the correct way to hollandaise. You can even do degrees in hotel management and catering. You might have to start the hard way, the same way as Jamie and Gordon and even Ainsley did: washing dishes and burning your fingers on the breakfast service grill. But, you know, give it a few years and a lot of hard work, and you'd probably make a really good chef de partie, or even an exec.

But no...let's be honest...you're not very good at what you do now, you can cook a bit, and you want to be on telly. Why not spend a few weeks getting humiliated by Turner and the Torode, and then start up a home catering company for those who want their canapes prepared by Him/Her Off The Telly. If you do actually win and get the year of washing dishes in a Top Restaurant, then good luck to you, but I'll be surprised and impressed if a) the chefs will have anything to do with you, and b) if you last six months.

The same with The Apprentice. If you've sat in your marketing office, or salesroom, or looked around your lab and said: "Sod this, I've always wanted to sub-contract the manufacture of cheap electrical goods to a Hong Kong factory and sell dodgy home electrolysis kits to Daily Mail readers," then good luck to you. But face it love, you wanted to live in a nice London pad for a week or three, get driven around (you never see Apprentices use public transport - too many youths going "brap" and making rude comments about crappy loudspeaker phones?), and more importantly, it's Telly. After a couple of months of tabloid hounding, you'll be able to set up your own motivational "consultancy", get a cable TV show - or even do a column on the next series...

Take it from a corporate slave of sorts. The reason why the Apprentices are so crap is that anybody who's any good at what they do applies for a job, works steadily and well for a year or two, gets promoted, or moves on to another, better position in another company. Or they start small, grow slowly, and get rich trying. Bit like Siralan. But that's boring TV, so let's get these fame hungry bozos to flog coffee on the streets and sell kisses to dirty old men in pubs, because that's all that they deserve. And we know it.

Anyway, this is what the Apprentice has taught us about Young Thrusting Businessfolk Of Today (YTBOT).

A YTBOT never wears a dressing gown. Dressing gowns are for wimps.
YTBOT do not know how to make coffee.
YTBOT have never owned or walked or dog, and have no friends who own or walk dogs. This is why they think that all dog owners are gay men and mad.
YTBOT do not have ideas, they have IDEATION

MAKING YOUR MIND UP

2007-03-19T13:06:00.000Z

MARK:Yes, it’s that time again, as the UK votes for the entry that will come 16th in the Eurovision Song Contest this year. Wogan is presenting and already seems quite drunk, the way he is glaring at the autocue and swaying slightly. Fearne Cotton is his girly sidekick, wearing a weird shiny dress and terrible blusher – it looks like someone has drawn red circles on each cheek with a wax crayon. The “panel of experts” consists of Capt Jack from Dorkwood and Mel off Mel and Sue. Mel is wearing a bizarre miniature top hat at a jaunty angle – I later decide that this hat disguises a microcomputer that is beaming useless Eurovision trivia directly into her brain. Mel keeps saying “Eurovish”, when once would have been enough really.

SARAH: I like it that they appear to have taken Morrissey at his word and drafted in proper pop singers - well, pop singers that have actually seen the inside of the Top Ten and appeared on the cover of Smash Hits at least once - instead of the usual crew of stage school shriekers, ex X-factor competitors and session musos looking for a last hit at the Big Time. But of course it is all doomed.

BTW. I hate Fearne Cotton, but have to admit that she did a pretty good job managing Terry and the various popstrel types.

MARK:The first act is Liz off Atomic Kitten. She goes on about being a scouser and liking Eurovision and then shows us the bar she used to work before she was famous. It’s a good job she remembers where it is as she’ll be back there before long. She has a weird corkscrew perm and wears a short yet blousy blue dress to sing a bland and forgettable motown knock-off type song – there’s nothing wrong with it and her voice is quite good, but it isn’t anything great. The best bit is when all the boy dancers get overexcited and start doing backflips and somersaults etc. Capt Jack says something weird about her being a “down home girl” that makes him sound like a record exec from a 1950’s Cliff Richard film, as do all his comments tonight.

SARAH: Well, she can sing a bit. It was OK. But nothing special.

MARK:Next is Brian Harvey, the roughest one out of E17. (Sarah: I thought the roughest one was the bloke who looked like a bald fox, but not in a good way. Oh, hang on, they were all bald. Except for the fat talented one...) He goes for the sympathy vote by going on about his accident a lot, though frankly if I managed to fall out of a car I was driving and run myself over I would rather keep quiet and hope people forgot about it. Jesus, what is going on with his hair? It looks like a mohawk that has slipped to the back of his head. That can’t be a deliberate hairstyle, can it? For his song he wears a black suit with weird gold bits on it like circuit connections. Perhaps after the accident they rebuilt him like a bionic man or something and they need those bits to recharge him. The song is like an Alexander O Neill song and his voice isn’t really up to it. Next! Capt Jack says that it has a crazy groove that will make the beatniks go ape, or something.

SARAH: I kept wondering when he was going to get off that stage and come and fix my light fittings like he promised last week. Time to call Learn Direct, Brian.

MARK:Next is Big Brovas, who had a couple of big hits a few years back that melded the Sound of Music to hip hop beatz way before Gwen Stefani thought of doing it. Can I just say that Terry Wogan should never ever be allowed to say “urban flava” ever again. For the performance the women dress like Victorian hookers and wail away over a groovy string sample while the blokes rap a bit in the background and a couple of goth ballerinas act out goth tragedy (ohs noes, my mum told me I couldn’t listen to “My Chemical Romance” until I’d finished my homework. Why does everything rot and die! I wish I was dead, but in a sexy way like in an Anne Rice novel” etc etc) through the medium of dance. It is actually pretty good and I want it to win, even though it would do terribly at the actual ESC. Capt Jack says a few things that are euphemisms for: “it is performed by black people!”

SARAH: Quite liked it. In the way that I quite liked Big Brovas before my crazy next door neighbour started playing their album very very loud at 6am every day for a month.

MARK:Then we get Cyndi, who is a french singer who wants to do well for the UK and drinks some beer (like proper beer, nothing nice like a 1664 or anything) to prove how anglophile she is. She wears a black formal frock and sings a ballad that is an exact genetic splicing of “Wind beneath my wings” and “My heart will go on”. Ugh. It is very turgid and slow and predictable, complete with rousing key change 3/4 of the way through. Her gimmick is that the backing dancers walk on half way through. Awesome!

SARAH: Bu...buh...she's FRENCH! It's a neo-Napoleonic plot to take over our airwaves with their wavy-armed torch singing! A bas les chanteuses ennuyants avec les key-changes mediocres!

MARK:Then we have Scooch, who are the Fast Food Rockers that time forgot. There is a fat blond bloke with horrid hair, a weasel faced dark haired gaylord and two women who look like make up sales ladies from Debenhams. They are all wearing nasty cheap looking air steward type outfits and sing a song with an aviation theme so they can talk about flying over lots of European cities in a cynical attempt to get inhabitants of those cities to vote for them. It is all v sub Steps, complete with moronic “I’m an aeroplane” dance moves and camp interludes for the gayest bloke to say things like, “Would you like some salted nuts” in a suggestive voice at regular intervals. For the finale they wheel some trolleys around to show that they have a union jack flag on the back. This is really awfully cynical stuff. Capt Jack goes wild in the aisles, in case you were in any doubt that he is also gayer than Christmas.

SARAH: God, I hated this knowing try-hard camp nonsense with a passion. My husband quite liked it.

MARK:Finally we have Beverlei Brown (who??) and Justin out of the Darkness. Justin obviously could not want to be there less. There song is very weird, starting off like a track from an Austin Powers movie and then ranging over a wide number of musical genres, none of them any good. Justin’s high pitched cat strangling vocal does not go with Beverlei’s voice at all. There is a pointless guitar solo. There is a funky horn section. I really do not understand what is going on with this song. Capt Jack praises its “Euro funk style”. I don’t really understand what that means either.

SARAH: I willed this to be good. And my will failed.

MARK:Fearne chats to some foreign people who are in the audience – a Maltese guy and a Ukrainian girl both rate Big Brovas! We want them to win at home too! They show clips of other Euro entries. All I can remember is that there seem to be lots of trannies and also a bloke pretending to be a vampire. My brane cannot process this as yet.

SARAH: Terry mentions that Ireland have already secured their place in the bottom three by choosing something with tin whistles that makes My Lovely Horse look quite professional. Actually, I think My Lovely Horse would do really well if it went into Eurovision. Imagine all those Ukranians and Uzbekistahnians wondering about horse dentists...

MARK: There is a break for the phone voting and then we are back. Fearne is now wearing a different black dress that he makes her rack look plasticky and flat like an Action Man’s chest. Weird. Wogan is now clearly drunk – he drops into a chair like a sack of potatoes, does a link standing on a step with Fearne on the next step down (so she comes up to his elbow!) etc etc. whoever is directing the show also seems to have had a few. We get odd cuts to cameras that aren’t pointed at anything and interviews with people who are basically in total darkness. My BBC working boyfriend is shocked at the poor quality (his exact words “I would expect something like this on BBC3 but…” !!)

Lordi perform again from last year and amuse me and then Brian and Liz get the chop. Byeee! No surprise there. Then Big Brovas get the chop (Noooo!!!) followed by Justin/Bev. Justin races from the stage in record time, no doubt off to instantly sack his manager. We are down to Cyndi and Scooch and they have a “sing off” – both songs sound a lot worse the second time round. They have a little break for more voting and then announce the winner, only Wogan and Fearne each shout out a different name so that no one knows who has won. What a shambles. Fearne has a quick word in Wogan’s drunken ear and he shouts, “Oh right, it is Scooch after all!” and we all shake our heads in disbelief. After Jordan and Daz Sampson I always think that this show cannot get any stranger. I am clearly very naïve.

SARAH: What with all the allegations of phone vote tampering flying about this week, I suppose they couldn't possibly have fixed this one. I fear for the sanity of the Great British Public. Next year, I think the hopefuls should perform in front of a panel of deaf/blind performing monkeys who will then cast their votes by pushing the failed entries into a crocodile-infested lake. That would work as well as any, and possibly solve the unemployed ex-popstrel problem too!

Next up – the semi finals, where they try and whittle down the 60 or so entries into a reasonable number!

ITV GOES POSH:Mansfield Park

2007-03-19T12:52:00.000Z

For those who don't read, here's the plot of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

Fanny Price, a poor girl with rich relations, is sent to live with the rich relations at Mansfield Park. This happened a lot in Olden Days. The relations never fail to remind her of her place, except the boring middle son, who is nice to her, and gets her to read good books (always important in Jane Austen World). Along come the Crawfords, a slightly twisted brother and sister seduction team who set about seducing Elder Daughter Maria (played by Teen Slater) away from her rich-but-stupid husband; and Boring Middle Son away from the priesthood. Henry Crawford also tries it on with Fanny, but is rebuffed and runs off with Married Maria instead. This brings SHAME upon the lofty Bertram household and everybody realises that Fanny is actually quite a good egg, and more deserving of Mansfield Park than anybody else. Middle Son bins off the Crawford hussy and marries his cousin instead.

So it's a kind of Cinderella story, with added commentary on the patriarchy, sexual politics, the morality of building one's family fortune on human misery, and loads of other stuff about families, rivalry etc. Fab book.

But this is ITV1, and all ITV1 wants is nice frocks, pretty houses and men in britches jumping in ponds. Thankfully the pond-jumping is avoided, but there are plenty of nice frocks about. One of the prettier touches is the change in Billie/Fanny's clothing as she rises in status. She starts off wearing something in brown cotton, and ends up strolling through the lavender hedges in a gorgeous pale blue satin confection that looks good enough to eat.

Somebody has also decided that, as a poor relation, Billie would not have the usual Regency rules of ladylike decorum forced upon her, and therefore she has to express her free-spiritedness by tearing about the house like her life depends upon it. There she goes up the stairs...and there she goes down the stairs. Good thing it's a big house. Billie isn't as insufferable a little prig as the other Fannies I have seen, but I did wish she'd stop running like a hoyden and do something with her hair. The action was mostly shot on hand held cameras that made you feel slightly seasick, but I think it was to make the point that the bulk of MP is about YOUNG PEOPLE HAVING FUN! and not nice frocks and britches. Look! there goes Billie again...she must have forgotten her hat...

Billie's arch nemesis in MP is not a giant Slitheen or even a Dalek, it's her Aunt Norris, played with twitching evil relish by Maggie O'Neill (aka Her from Shameless). Auntie blames Billie for everything, and is eventually banished for blaming Billie for not marrying Henry Crawford and driving him into Teen's married arms.

Edmund the boring middle son was suitably po-faced and intense. Actually, I thought Roistering Eldest Brother Tom was more interesting, and so did Billie by the look of things. Teen didn't have much to do other than look beautiful (check) and rather calculating (check check). Nothing was made of Fanny Price's bluestocking tendencies (except for a timid question over dinner about slavery), and she wasn't banished to Portsmouth to experience Middle Class Hell after refusing the advances of Henry Crawford.

ITV1 crammed one of Austen's denser novels into two hours by concentrating almost wholly on the central romance, which kind of works if you haven't read the book. It galloped through the more meditative aspects - and believe me, there are a few. I kept wishing they'd slow down a bit, and give Billie a hairbrush.

NEXT WEEK: Northanger Abbey, starring That Hussy Emma Grundy!

CELEBRITY APPRENTICE

2007-03-16T15:30:00.000Z

Celebrities and Apprentice in the same show? How my cup runneth over! For a one off special, a male team and a female team compete to raise money for Comic Relief via the medium of a funfair. Siralan and his minionators are all present and correct (though Nick and Margaret don’t really get to do much. Boo – hopefully they will get to say something in the boardroom on Friday) and the teams are as follows:

BLERKS:
Alistair Campbell – Tony Blair’s rabid attack hound
Piers Morgan – unctuous and hateful ex editor of the Mirror
Ross Kemp – Ger-want Mitchell, also well known for being beaten up by his missis after being caught shagging another bloke ALLEGEDLY
Danny Baker – Ex Chris Evans sidekick and local radio presenter.
Rupert Everret – moose faced fillum star

Wow, Campbell and Morgan on the same team??? I assume that Attila the Hun, Adolph Hitler and Dr Crippen had other engagements.

LAYDEES:
Trinny – the thin one out of Trinny and Susannah
Cheryl Tweedy-Cole – Girls Aloud foxtress, Footballers Wife and pugilist.
Maureen Lipman – everyone knows who she is, though I’m not really sure how she first became famous
Jo Brand – the comedienne. I once saw her in real life, examining a GIANT CHAIR on Hampstead Heath with her kids.
Karen Bradey – the chair of Brumingham FC

Siralan banters with Karen re football, mocks Trinny’s failed dotcom venture and teases Cheryl re her “singing a bit in manufactured band” skillz. There is then hours of blokey banter with Danny Baker about being cockernees or something, which makes me throw up a little bit inside my mouth.

To begin with the teams have to negotiate which of a limited selection of rides they want for their sections of the fair. The women go all out for dodgems and then have to accept a load of crap (helter skelter, spinning vomitator machine) while the men get thinGs like the coconut shy and hoopla which they think will be more suitable for celebrity chums to play on.

It turns out that Alistair Campbell and Piers Morgan are actually quite nice and good natured. Ha ha, only joking! They are just as hateful as you would imagine and instantly take over, bossing Rupert around and ordering that he phone up Madonna and Julia Roberts so they can get involved somehow. Rupert whimpers that he doesn’t know them that well and looks more and more like a bemused camel. In the end he says he doesn’t like being in front of cameras without a script and doesn’t appear again the next morning. The blokes recruit Fit Tim from Apprentice 1 instead. Sadly he does not take his shirt off at any point.

Ger-want and Danny go and sort out food with a famous chef while the Twunt Twins brainstorm and fail to get many takers for their tickets. They complain that they are used to having PA’s to do everything for them and aren’t very practical. They even have to get Tim to work their stapler! Urgh, so much hate…

Trinny knows a famous chef who can get them cheap food, but when the chef’s assistant arrives at the hotel he is “misdirected” to the bloke’s suite. Morgan tells him to stay, even though they haven’t got a clue what to do with him. Trinny goes to find out what is going on and then has to actually fight her way out of the suite, dragging the chef after her while Morgan and Cambpell try to physically restrain them. What a bunch of bullying bastards. It is a good job that Trinny’s felt tip pen fu powers are strong – she basically has to colour in Piers Morgan before they let her leave and then has to have a little cry to calm down. If only Two Fisted Cheryl had been there…

The men are worried that they haven’t got enough mates, so they hire some stocks and also scrounge a load of crap from BHS as hoopla prizes. BHS!!! Awesome! I’m sure the A list celebs will love getting a free fibre filled pillow and practical nylon jacket as a prize.

Later, Maureen, Karen and Jo are sorting out the food while Trinny and Cheryl phone all their rich mates and sell them tickets. Trinny sells one to a blonde lady for £150,000 (!!!!!) and Cheryl just has to phone her hubby Ashley, his Chelski team mates and then Simon Cowell to raise about £100k. Cheryl complains of being sleepy so Trinny ropes her into a bizarre aerobic routine, explaining that this is what her Russian Doctor in Austria does with her to help her detox. Cheryl’s eyeroll to camera is comedy gold. Later on Trinny is squawking down the phone to Maureen about some irregularities with the tickets while Maureen is up to her elbows in chicken satay (oh Maureen, you should take you rings off before you do that – most unsanitary). So Maureen tells her fuck off and hangs up on her with an evil smile. Cheryl sweetly asks Trinny if she has a touch of OCD, which made me laugh a lot, mostly because it was so completely unexpected. Why Mrs Cole, with these unexpected comedy skillz you are really spoiling us!

The fair comes around and the ladies have Girls Aloud, McFly and Take That helping on the stalls, whereas the blokes have Tracy Emin (who paints some coconuts like breasts to sell) and Mick Hucknall, who looks like a creepy rapist. Ashley Cole, John Terry, Girls Aloud Nadine and Desperate Housewives’ Jesse Metcalf also show up but Ger-want’s EE castmates are conspicuous by the absence. When Siralan arrives, the women’s rides (apart from the dodgems) are pretty dead compared to the blokes but then again they don’t really care given the insane prices they got for the tickets. Oh, who has won????? Such suspense - not.

At the boadroom Siralan has a go at the blokes for the stupid time wasting business re kidnapping the chef. Then Nick and Margaret read out the results. The women get more money for the food, but the men get more money for the ride receipts. The men got about 200k in ticket sales and the women got about £600k!!! Overall, the men raised about £275K and the women raised about £750K. PWNED LOL LOL!!11 eleven!!!, as a twelve yr old on the internets might say. The look on team leader Alistair Cambpell’s face is absolutely priceless, such a bad loser. One of the women comments that they have raised over a million between them and they all applaud each other. Then Siralan says that the men have to come back into the boardroom and that someone is going to be fired!! Cliffhanger!!!

PROJECT CATFIGHT, MORE LIKE...

2007-03-12T14:32:00.000Z

For the final task before the final, the four remaining contestants (Less-dour aussie Monica, Bouncy Luke, Bitter Queen Giles and Likeable Queen Wayne) have to make a wedding dress for ITV Cat Deeley clone presenter Holly (“She’s too tall!! Not perky enough!! Amend the formula!!!”) and what’s more, they have to make it in Debenhams on Oxford St on the shop floor while the hoi polloi leer at them. They all get to quiz Holly on what kind of dress he likes (there is a funny bit where Holly says “not white” and Monica starts chanting “Holly’s not a virgin!”) and then talk to two top frock designers (who both look as if they have stopped off on the way to notorious gay muscle club AM:PM) about, um, other things to do with dresses.

They buy their fabric and all moan about having to work in Debenhams with shitty sewing machines. Giles and Luke panic and are a bit rubbish! Wayne and Monica, not so much! Then Giles makes me hate him slightly less by going to the Julian MacDonald “Designer at Debenang” bit and making fun of all the shitty clothes.

For the “something old” they have to go to an antique shop and buy something – Monica and Giles both buy weird old hats and the other two buy jewellery. For the something borrowed bit they are allowed to borrow something from Debenhams shop floor – I would have chosen a Wii myself but they all chose shoes… They then have to show their dresses in the shop window and see what people think of them…

Monica’s – a pretty, eggshell blue dress with flowery bits on the shoulder straps and a tulip skirt. My favourite, though the antique granny hat she puts on the model is not great.

Luke’s – is not properly finished as usual. It is white (gasp!) with an excessively low cut bodice and a huge skirt that looks a crumpled up paper bag.

Giles’ – what the hell? It is sort of light gold coloured and covered with bits of torn up lace so it looks like a bird’s nest. Also, it makes the model who later wears it look as though she is huge. Not at all flattering.

Wayne’s – is sort of ivory coloured with black lace round the bodice and a black netting bustle thing. It would be a nice dress for anything apart from a wedding, unless you were Elvira queen of the night or something.

The judges say pretty much the same thing – Monica wins (hurrah!) and Wayne comes second. We are down to Giles and Luke and the voice over helpfully reminds us that Luke has won the weekly tasks a few times and that Giles has never won. They are given a final moment to try and saves themselves. Giles bitches about Luke’s time management skills and Luke says that Giles’ designs are “dated” and that he dresses like a clown (paraphrase…) Meow!! Of course Luke wins – I can’t believe I actually got the finalists I wanted!!!

NO KELLEY, YOU’RE THE NEXT FASHION VICTIM

2007-02-23T15:40:00.000Z

Hurrah, Project Catwalk is back, this time with Kelley Osbourne replacing wooden Liz Hurley as the hostess – she is lots better than the Joan Collins de nos generation but still has to cope with the dreadfully stilted scripted bits, oh well.

It’s a reality show for fashion designers where each week they have a task (ie make a stylish dress for Tara Palmerama Tompkinson out of office supplies!) and the worst one gets the boot. The last three have to go away for six months and then come back with a proper collection for the final. The mentor is still Ben De Lisi. I saw some of his fancy frocks in the paper during London Fashion Week so he must be properly famous! His mentoring style involves flapping round telling everyone they are doomed and rubbish and then having a queeny fit when they ignore him. A colleague of my boyfriend was chatted up by Ben in a narsty gay bar in soho the other day. Apparently he (Ben that is) was off his tits…

The judges are (1) a hard faced lady from Grazia (a mag which does not exactly scream “FASHION!!” to me – more like “How to copy Teri Hatcher’s style whilst shopping exclusively at New Look and H&M”) and (2) baleful orange welsh goblin Julian MacDonald. Julian is rocking a dreadful Farrah style perm this series and still amuses us by saying things like “That is the ugliest dress I have ever seen in my life” and “What a load of crap!” to contestants faces.

The competitors have been whittled down and now we have left

1) Giles: A spiteful queen who acts like a David Walliams character all the time and appears to do all his shopping at Burton. My fave moment of the series so far was the look on his face when everyone said he was the worst designer. I hope he loses soon.
2) Wayne: Another gay – this time a fetish club host (ie has to dress up like member of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and say “You’re not coming in dressed like that” for a living). He would be quite handsome apart from his retarded clothes/hair but sadly has a rotten brummy accent. Possible final three but has a tendency to make outfits that are more like costumes than clothes, apparently.
3) Shawla: A girl with a severe fringe who thinks she is the best at everything when she patently isn’t – ie one outfit made the recipient look like a council estate midget, in Julian MacDonald’s professional opinion. What is worse she keeps going on about how awesome she is too. Get evicted soon pls thks.
4) Luke: A cute young black guy with a big afro. Is quite likeable and enthusiastic but is also about twelve years old and not very experienced. I always think he is going to be evicted due to his youthful inexperience and poor time management skillz but then he won last week so I hope he gets to the final three…
5) Monica: A dour Australian girl with a severe bob. Is quite moany and negative but seems to be one of the most talented and skilled and is kind of no nonsense. Dour Australian girl to win!

MASTERCHEF GOES LARGE DRINKING GAME

2007-02-22T16:55:00.001Z

If you want to guarantee that you’re pissed before 7pm, take a drink whenever…

Anyone says they “have a passion for food”
Anyone is asked whether “they’ve got what it takes to win Masterchef”
Anyone is asked/explains why they want to “change their life”
Anyone says “plate of food”
Any time the competition “just gets tougher”

MYSTERY INGREDIENT CHALLENGE
Any time someone uses every single ingredient in their dish
Any time someone makes something piss easy like cheese on toast or pasta with bits in it.

PROFESSIONAL KITCHEN CHALLENGE
Any time the proper chef asks how long a dish is going to be, the competitor says “Three minutes, chef!” and the proper chef says “Well, you haven’t got three minutes!”
Any time a competitor has to chuck it away and start again from scratch

FINAL COOKING TEST
Any time someone makes something really rank (radish broth??? vom!!!)
Any time a judge refers to “big flavours”
Any time the best looking (male or female) contestant gets through to the next stage

FRIDAY FINAL MYSTERY INGREDIENT TEST
Any time someone gets their fancy flavoured vinegars mixed up

The Pope Dunnit

2007-01-22T22:00:00.000Z

I fancied a bit of detective tosh last night, to chase off the hangover wrought by champagne cocktails and several glasses of wine at lunch, so settled down to watch Waking The Dead because it's got She Queen, the best thing about Brookie, and Shoestring Trevor Eve in it as a police psychologist and a super Met Chief Inspector type who open up unsolved murder cases, wear white coats, frown at dusty corpses and write on plate glass windows with magic markers. They have a team of youthful underlings who provide something pretty to look at and do all the running around. They also have Tara Fitzgerald as the slightly weird but sexy pathologist. Tara wears a white coat all the time and isn't mean to a winsome Victorian child once; neither does she get her cornet out and treat everybody to a soulful rendition of the Concerto de Aranjuez while shutting down a pit and giving Pete Postlethwaite a heart attack. Which is nice.

So, the plot goes something like this. We get a flashback - last night's was to the 1990s, when hair was big and bankers had secret lovenests behind the filing cabinets. Somebody shoots a shagging couple. Fully clothed. You didn't get naked sex on TV until at least 1997. Fifteen years later, builders in the process of turning the bank into a trendy wine bar hit a ceiling and out drop two skeletons, still at it by the look of things. Cut to Shoestring and She Queen swapping witticisms over coffee while the underlings smirk at each other. Tara pokes the shagging skeletons with a biro and deduces that they were up to No Good. Shoestring links it all to Black Wednesday, and the underlings laugh as She Queen cries: "Norman Lamont! Young 'uns these days ..." Peter Capaldi appears from nowhere as a reformed fraudster who now lectures bankers on what to do with their shit, which is a Freudian analogy for money. Anyway, Peter twinkles at She Queen and uses lots of psychobabble to bamboozle her, but she's a proper psychologist so she only pretends to be bamboozled. At least, I hope so.

A blonde pops up from nowhere, says she's a journalist writing about a missing lady banker who was married to a cocaine dealer from Dublin. DNA shows that yes, it is the lady banker and her lover, and Tara proves, using the young ones as giggling props, that they were killed in flagrante with one bullet. Wow. The youngsters stop giggling and look meaningfully at each other until She Queen turns the hose on them. Not really.

There are a couple of men in suits who look worried, and then after one goes off, the other, slightly more important one picks up his mobile phone and starts speaking in Latin. Something like: "Gettus riddus of that blokeus wot sold us the gearus". Shoestring waves pictures of Roberto Calvi and starts muttering about Opus Dei-led conspiracy theories. I begin to suspect the hand of Ian Paisley in the writing of this script, and the young 'uns smirk. The Gards say they've got better things to do than go around arresting shifty chaps just because some English bastard says they should, so Shoestring has to shifty coke dealer chappie around the disused warehouse himself. Coke dealer falls off a high place despite Shoestring's frantic attempts to save him. Is there any point in watching the conclusion? Or should I just tune in to see Shoestring and She Queen try to arrest the Pope, and fail. So they go for Ruth Kelly instead...

Just The Two Of Us

2007-01-04T10:47:00.000Z

As the New Year comes upon us many people look at changing things in their lives as they look forward. TV producers are not among those people, they are part of the few who decide that the best way to kick off the New Year is to move an ornament to a new place on the sideboard and try to convince themselves it is new and a change. Hence the 2007 viewing kicks off with some frighteningly weird Celebrities trying to out-stupid each other in a house in Peckham, and alongside? The wonder that is "Just The Two Of Us". Now it has to be said that the only thing worse than a talent competition is a celebrity talent competition however, like Vanessa Feltz to a chocolate eclair, my eyes are inevitably drawn...

Tess and Vern are hosting. The same judges are back, but with the frankly bizarre inclusion of Tito Jackson who is sporting a bowler hat, which along with his lack of neck and large head makes him not unlike an Afro-Carribean Odd Job. Ce Ce Sami is still there being painfully thin and prefacing everything she says with "What singing is all about is...", which makes me imagine that her book on the subject would not be exactly succinct. Trevor Nelson is the resident Nice Bloke again, and to be fair this seems to be genuinely what he is like, and he still looks about twenty-one even though he must be nearer twice that now. And finally we have Stewart Copeland, who obviously dislikes being a respected drummer and composer and would rather have exposure on TV as a shouty septic fool with an array of vacuous soundbites.

The couples:

Fishwife & Hobo (Hannah Waterman & Marti Pellow) . Hobo can sing, Fishwife can sort of. However she makes up for it by showing Tess exactly how to present your bosoms to full and proper effect.

Tiger Woods & Pram Face (Luke Bailey & Natasha Hamilton). I don't know who this lad is, but he has a fair voice and Pramface is always good value, doesn't quite have the spark she had with Scouseman last year though

Chef & T'Pau (Gregg Wallace & Carol Decker). The annoying one from Masterchef has a voice like a goose farting in the fog and Carol Decker still sounds the same, although she looks miles better than she did 20 years ago. They went out first night.

Watchdog & Dyejob (Julia Bradbury & Tony Christie). She really can't sing, but did better on the swing night, and Dyejob has terrible hair and dead, black shark eyes.

Love-Rat & Goddess (Brendan Cole & Beverley Knight). Love-rat is not a half bad singer actually, and his stage presence is pretty good. Beverley is flawless as always and can sing anything, as well as being a Goddess.

Joc & Jim (Jocelyn Brown and John Bardon) Ah the token comedy celeb wo can't sing but will probably get to the final. Joc is as always far too earnest in her praise but fabulous

Squeaky & Sweaty (Janet Ellis and Alaxander O'Neal). Sweaty must be well brassed off, he got Fiona Bruce last year and now he's got this one. They went out second night and unless I am very much mistaken Sweaty was absolutely flying on some chemical based substance, as he was twitching and muttering like a good 'un

Butch & Bitch (Mark Butcher & Sarah Brightman) Butch really can sing, and is easily the best celeb from that point of view - not that it makes a difference when the public are involved. Bitch looks better now than she did in the 80s ( bit of a theme here?) and is keeping the screeching to a minumum so that is a bonus.

So there you have it. It is largely awful, but no doubt I will be glued to it right til the bitter end as usual..

CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER

2007-01-03T20:07:00.000Z

Well, it's here at last. Our six-monthly fix of classic reality TV is on RIGHT NOW. Coming to you live and direct from a sofa in glamorous Peckham, the TV Dinners BB team (well, Sarah and Mr P anyway) is on hand with reactions, arguments about whose turn it is to make the tea, and carefully honed insults.

Davina appears to have gone for the Croydon Vampire look this evening. I haven't seen earrings that big since Sade was going out with Robert Elms. This year's house hasn't changed much. The hot tub is bigger and the outside seats are heated. The Slebs apparently demand privacy in the toilet and shower, which I'm quite glad about actually. If I want to see some washed out old has-been chopping out lines in the middle of the night I'll go to China Whites

Mark Oh shut up Davina, you're not funny and just because you've had a few babies it doesn't mean you're an expert on wombs. I also made comments on her witch like attire, though there is the possibility that she was going to pull off a daring jewel theft straight after the show.

Housemate 1: JERMAINE JACKSON
OK, what's going on here? Has somebody on high decided that the Jacksons MUST PAY for the destruction of young Michael's soul by appearing on crappy reality shows. Last night we had Tito in a bowler hat, delivering soul man Yoda-isms on Just the Two of Us ("Mmm...listen to the record you must"). And on Channel 4 we have Jermaine Jackson going into the Big Brother house. Jermaine is a clean freak who does white glove tests on the furniture. He is also a very picky eater, and doesn't know if he'll have to cook his own meals. His face appears to have melted.

Apparently he loves the Central Line.

Mark ...and has stolen Grace Jone's hair. I wonder if the Jackson family get a bulk discount for those hideous braided pseudo military jackets?

Housemate 2: Danielle Lloyd?
Apparently a former ex Miss Great Britain who was had her title taken away for dating one of the judges, who happens to be God of Football (shut up Mark) Teddy Sheringham. Shopaholic Scouser and "full time model" - pretty enough, but a bit bland. Why are people booing her? Does she skin kittens and wear them on her feet?

She thinks Winston Churchill was Britain's first black prime minister.

Don't think she knows who Jermaine is. Awkward silence. Nope, she definitely doesn't know who Jermaine is...

Mark I'm sorry but Teddy Sheringham has a face like a bag of spanners and she could surely do better. What people will do to get their hands on a Top Shop store card, eh?

Housemate 3: Ken Russell
WHAAAAT?

Yes, THAT Ken Russell. Alan Bates doing naked wrestling in front of the fire... future London Mayor candidate Glenda Jackson getting her threps out...Oliver Reed tossing crocodiles out of the window.... He comes out of the car yodelling Singing in the Rain and looking a bit scared. Apparently he identifies with Mad Pete and starts doing Tourettes style jerking and swearing. Oh dear.

Neither Danielle or Jermaine know who he is. He introduces himself as "an old film maker" and says they've never heard of his films.

Mark WTF??? Did Michael Winner ask for too much money or something? Gets out of his car dressed as a gypsy troubador for some reason and seems to be very very drunk. Davina has to help him down the stairs - perhaps they can get a Stannah stairlift installed in time for his eviction.

Housemate 4: Jo off SClub
Didn't she do Just the Two of Us last year? Anyway, I remember she was the one who could actually sing (though the Atomic Kitten was still way better). Has retired from the music industry to breed very ugly small dogs. The Heat photographer goes crazy and she's blinded by the paparazzi flashes. Lot of SClub fans in tonight. She looks scared and denies any plans to bring out a single when it's all over. Yeah, right...

I think she'll get on well with Ken. He'll probably cast her as Clara Schumann in his next composer biopic.

Mark Seems like a very nice girl. All the gays in the audience go crazy

Housemate 5: Leo Sayer
I would have thought he'd have made enough money from that summer 06 number 1. Oh well. He's "very positive" and doesn't have many negative qualities. Apart from making you want to punch him repeatedly in the face. The mid-Ulster farmer's daughter who lived next door to me in Halls was Leo Sayer's Number 1 fan and had posters of him all over her room. She also collected Leo memorabilia...

Jermaine greets him like an old friend, and Ken says: "Oooh...I know who you are..."

Mark Oh good, a wacky fun housemate. We don't get enough of them.

Housemate 6: Shulpa Sheti
Ah... a Bollywood queen. Is scared by the idea that people might not recognise her. Constantly travels with an entourage. Polite cheers from the crowd. Well, she is very glam and queenly, if slightly dim. Thinks her reception is a bit low-key and hasn't seen much of Big Brother. Davina is beside herself with glee and has to help her up the stairs.

Ken's going to love her. Danielle greets her politely with a "Who the hell are you?" look.

Mark Very beautiful and glamorous. I somehow can't see her mud wrestling in a paddling pool full of offal though. I wonder if loads of British Asians will vote for her and keep her in, like when you see all those Bollywood films in the top 10 UK box office.

Housemate 7: Carole Malone
A tabloid columnist. Doesn't like WAGS (oops...that's Danielle buggered then) or people who are famous for appearing in reality shows. Apparently doing the show because she's a journalist and it's the best story ever. Think Vanessa Feltz scooped you in CBB1, Carole.

Swears a lot. Somebody shouts: "Who are yer?"

Walks in and tells everybody that she knew they'd be there.

Mark I can only assume she has a book deal or something. I instinctively want to hate her but she doesn't seem too bad really.

Housemate 8: Donny Tourette
Lead singer of the Towers of London - a young persons band, I presume. Kind of Rainbow meets Bad News meets Splodgenessabounds meets an Amish TV producer's idea of a rock band. Spits, swears and looks like Paul Kaye playing Rod Stewart. Bet his real name is Oliver.

Greets Leo Sayer like a long-lost brother. Apparently he used to hang out chez Leo in Buckinghamshire...

Mark Is apparently most famous for (a) going out with Peaches Geldof and (b) starting fights with people and losing, ha ha. So an irritating dull scenester c**t, then?

Housemate 9: H from Steps
Or Ian, as he is called now he's a Serious Actor. Oh hang on, I read in somebody's else's Metro that H has come out as gay. Isn't that like cheese admitting that it's made from fermented milk?

His biggest fear is crotch shots. He wants to be himself and make lots of wicked friends. I give him a week.

Big hugs from Jo SClub. Awww...bless.

Mark Looks about 1 million times better with dark brown hair but is still an irritating clown. Ohs noes - he will split the "gays with bad taste in music " vote for Jo.

Housemate 10: Cleo Roccas
I remember her cleavage from the Kenny Everett show in the 70s, and she appears to have aged quite well. Sees herself as a "happy doodle on God's telephone pad". Maybe the housemates will band together and rub her out.

Classic quote: "I'm into Oil. Old, Ill, and Loaded..." Gets a house point for that.

Mark (shrugs vaguely) Could be fun or could be like Suzy from the last normal BB.

Housemate 11: Dirk Benedict
Face from the A-Team. Admits to specialising in the "shallow" and "vapid". Hates groups, being observed and working. Mr P mildly excited, but I never watched the A-Team so I've no idea who he is.

Enters in an A-team style van puffing a cigar. We like that. Does lots of tiresome goofing about for the screaming mob. Davina says that famous Hannibal Smith line and in he goes.

Looks terrified. Immediately hits on Danielle..

Mark I used to watch the A-Team and Face was the least hateful one! I hope there is a task where he has to build a tank out of fruit crates and washing up liquid bottles.

Housemate 12:
Well, they don't move in until Friday. And it's going to be a family. Who will adopt the cutest celebrity or something like that, and Davina says that the slebs should fight adoption with all their sleb might. So, what, the Gallaghers are moving in? Or maybe it's the next door neighbours from HELL who used to throw eggs and assorted foodstuff at us?

DORKWOOD

2007-01-03T13:47:00.000Z

There is more gleeful plundering of Joss Whedon’s TV oeuvre as the team get involved with some rubbish demon/aliens (basically people with big fangy masks on) which are being kidnapped and made to fight in cage matches with disgruntled blokes a la Fight Club. That man who was Guppy in Bleak House tracks down an evil estate agent (redundancy ahoy) who is organising the whole thing because he is having a crisis of masculinity or some such. Why can’t he just buy an X Box 360 and pretend to shoot stuff like normal people, eh? Estate Agent ponces around with his shirt off for a while and I am surprised that him and Guppy don’t start feeling each other up given that the show is supposed to be shockingly sexy etc etc. Anyway, Guppy bonds with the fangy aliens and has a bit of a death wish, though not nearly enough of one for my liking.

Onto the double bill finale and Capt Jack and the boring Japanese girl get transported to the 1940s so Jack can snog a handsome RAF officer. Hubba hubba. The others get them back by opening a magic time portal, even though it is hella dangerous or something. At one point the snivelly Welsh bloke shoots Guppy. Hurrah! He doesn’t die though. Boo! Meanwhile a sinister looking bloke creeps around being sinister. I am sure that will be important for later.

It turns out that the magic time portal has destabilised the space time continuum. That old chestnut. What this basically means is that some people with the Black Death pop up on the streets of Cardiff (and people actually notice the difference? Hmm). Sinister bloke continues with his sinisterness and tricks WPC Fringeface (tm freakytrigger) into getting her dull, cheated on boyfriend just to the right place so that Mr Sinisterpaws can gorily stab him to death. Fringeface has a hilarious overacting sobby fit and they decide that the only option is for them turn back time like Cher but then – ohs noes - it turns out that this was Sinisterpaws’ plan all along and when they do they release a big CGI monster that rampages around Cardiff causing literally a dozen extras to run around screaming and die cheaply. Jack saves the day, and then dies and then comes back to life again. I missed the whole “he’s immortal, woo!” bit so it seems like they are making it up as they go along by this point. Then the TARDIS appears and Capt Jack runs off for his contractually obliged crossover. Hmmm, I would probably watch it again if there was nothing else on (or if I heard that they go all out and just turn it into gay prorn) but generally I am finding this show to be distinctly mediocre.

XMAS TEEVEE SPECTACULAR

2007-01-02T15:29:00.000Z

SCD FINAL!! Our sporting heroes had to do five dances each thanks to Tarbuck’s dodgy ticker. Wowsa. Mark came up trumps with a couple of excellent booty shaking latin numbers, a couple of OK ballrooms and a barnstorming freestyle with some great lifts. Whatever the haytas on the Guardian message board say, he was a much better dancer than Matt, always gave a better performance and had much better chemistry with Karen, so I’m glad he won. Karen had a breakdown as expected and Mrs Ramps made some barbed comments about how she supports her husband and loves him WHATEVER HE DOES, so there, tabloid scum!!

THE RUBY IN THE SMOKE!! (AKA: BILLY VS MRS OVERALL) This is based on a Phillip Pullman novel that I haven’t read and is a spiffed up costume drama that manages to include every cliché and narrative device known to Victorian fiction. Billy is a spirited young lady who is orphaned when her dad dies in a dodgy shipping disaster, so she hooks up with a Scooby gang of assorted nice people (including a dishy photographer that I am sure I have seen in something else, but I couldn’t quite place him). Julie Walters is excellent as her nemesis, a murderous granny who wants to get hold of a legendary ruby because some posh lady called her a slag ages ago. There are triads, opium dens, coded messages, confused parentage, reference to the Indian Mutiny and dastardly maharajas and lots of scenes where people run around Limehouse and hit each with bits of wood. It was all very sketchy and rather incoherent, but I still enjoyed it. The next instalment is due to screen this year and is called “The Shadow in the North” – possibly about the rise of Manchester United?

DR WHO XMAS SPECIAL: Catherine Tate mysteriously appears on board the tardis and makes fun of the doctor a lot. Good. It all turns out to be part of some dastardly stroke overcomplicated stroke implausible plan by a giant spider lady to hatch loads of baby spiders so they can take over the earth or something. One of Julie Walter’s villainous minions from Ruby in the Smoke also appears in this as Catherine’s dastardly fiancé, who was feeding her magic space juice as part of the plot. He croaks it in this one as well. The giant spider thing looks impressive at first glance until you realise that it can’t actually move and the actress is forced to wave her arms around and overact in order to convey her galactic eviltude. I thought Catherine Tate was quite good and the plot is OK but not great. Entertaining enough for xmas day and not bad compared to some of the rubbish plots they had in the last series. At the end there is some preview stuff for next series which will give all the dr who nerds plenty to wank about on the internets until it finally airs.

DRACULA: This is like a reimagining or something, which means that they totally mess the plot up. Jonathan Harker snuffs it pretty quickly, without even getting to partay with the three hot vampire chicks. What a swizz. Instead, the main character is Lucy’s husband who has got the clap and wants Dracula to cure him so he can get some loving off Lucy. This works about as well as can be expected. He is played by the blue eyed bloke off “Line of Beauty” and ends up getting his head ripped off. That’s what you get for standing around smirking for four hours in a ponderous drama about the 80s. The actress who plays Mina is intensely irritating and I am annoyed that the plot is not reimagined so that she dies horribly as well. Dracula is played by Shifty Marc Warren. He spends half the time going “grrrr” and waving his head around in slow motion and the other half poncing around in a Robert Smith wig and licking ladies necks lasciviously. I am asleep by the time Lucy turns into a satanic blood sucking hussy, which was probably the best bit. Oh well.

SCD: BYE BYE BABY BABY BYE BYE

2006-12-18T12:29:00.000Z

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!

2006-12-17T10:11:00.000Z

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

2006-12-15T15:12:00.000Z

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

2006-12-13T17:37:00.000Z

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!

2006-12-13T13:57:00.000Z

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...