STRICTLY COME DANCING: FOXTROT TANGO OVER AND OUT

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

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

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).

SCD: LIVE!

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

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.

STRICTLY COME DANCING: SURVIVAL OF THE SLUTTEST

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.

STRICTLY: THE BLOKES!

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!!!

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!!

STRICTLY COME DANCING: IT'S THE SEMIS

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!

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

STRICTLY COME DANCING: SHOW 9 OR IS IT 10?

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!!!

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.