MAKE ME A SUPERMODEL

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

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

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

The boys:

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

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

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

The girls:

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

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


SARAH WRITES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now our thoughts on the celebrities…

THE BLOKES

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

SARAH: He was very annoying.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SARAH: Mmm...cute.

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

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

THE WOMEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SARAH: Mr P was very sad.

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

ROBIN DUD

by Sarah and Mark

Hmmm, we were not too impressed by the first two episodes of Robin Hood. Let us count the ways…

1. Robin looks like a cross between that Hobbit in Lost and over-acting Chelski midfielder Joe Cole. Also he is a bit smug and lacking in charisma. And a razor.
   
   
2. His non comedy sidekick is very tiresome and has many non comedy schticks (ie going on about food and comfortableness, doing something wrong and then saying “I knew that was wrong actually”. This will not get tiresome over the course of the series – oh no of course not) At one point he has a bath and inexplicably starts crying – no doubt aware that he will never get the gay lovin’ off Robin Hood that he so clearly craves.
   
   
3. Alan A Dale has apparently invented hair styling wax – not bad for the 12th century. He could almost be a young Alun A Armstrong. Oh, he's his son.
   
   
4. There is a really stupid bit that is just thrown in as an excuse for a lame fight. Robin and Sidekick meet a cloth maker and his buxotic daughter – who is clearly as old as her so-called dad and who apparently has full access to the Boots No 7 make up counter. Daughter takes a shine to Robin and he is all “Oh no Goodwife Cleavagely, thine father will surely kick mine arse if we doth canoodle” but then he does it anyway and the father tries to kick his arse (ie they stand there waving swords at each other like majorettes until Robin does a backwards somersault off a roof – something that is apparently so awesome that we get to see it three times from different angles like a 1980s Jackie Chan film.
   
   
5. Maid Marian is not um conventionally attractive - despite the best efforts of Monsieur L'Oreal and his suffering rabbits - and is predictably feisty/moxiesome etc. She makes fun of Robin a bit as it is not at all a cliché to have two people who end up together starting off hating each other. PS Marian, Zhang Zi Yi called flrom the set of “Crouching Hero, Flying Daggers” asking for you to return her decorative stabby hairpin things.
   
   
6. In the end Robin decides to save a load of peasants from execution – a task that is made easier by the fact that the baddy soldiers all politely stand around for five minutes while Robin beats them up and does all his heroic things. Later on, they fail to shoot him and his pals with arrows, even though Robin etc are all on horseback and right next to them – they must go to the same “failing to hit a cows arse with a banjo” classes that Joe Cole’s Chelski team mate Frank Lampard has been attending lately. I keep expecting Monty Python dialogue to issue forth from a guard's lips at any moment. Or at least an argument about swallows.
   
   
7. Keith Allen's Sheriff of Nottingham is dastardly enough, I suppose, but no Basil Rathbone (or Alan Rickman). Guy of Gisbourne is a black leather clad hottie who appears to have invented the Drizabone.
   
   
8. They've kept all the "in the name of King Richard" nonsense. Honestly producers, King Richard did not give a monkey's fart about the plight of Nottingham's peasantry. He was much more interested in rogering his courtiers and raising taxes to go on another killing spree in Palestine.
   
   
9. Episode two introduced the rest of the Merry Men - bit of a miserable bunch, if truth be told. They rescue Robin (again) from the Sheriff's castle. This is pretty formulaic - every Robin Hood story ends up with Robin or some other Merry Person getting incarcerated and the others having to set them free. A departure may be if Little John or Alan A Armstrong said: "Oh sod it. I'm fed up with schlepping up to the castle every other night, getting my hose soaked in blood and ripping my doublet on some stupid guard's chain mail. And it's quiz night at the Tavern..."
   
   
10. Robert Webb has a straight-ish part in the Christian Slater role. I expect he'll have a 'dilemna' and betray Robin in some way or other, and then we'll find out that Robin is his secret half-brother. He nearly did get the chance to kill Robin this week by sneaking off and dressing up as a Sheriff guard and taking a swipe at the boy while he and the Sheriff were engaged in another Law and Order vs Freedom to dress like a hippy and live up a tree debate. Robin shoots him, but he's wearing a particularly hard breastplate or something and survives to trade insults ("Lavender boy"??) in the inevitable finale fight.
    

DR WHO

There was another two parter where the tardis lands on an alien planet, hovering on the edge of a black whole against like totally the entire laws of physics. Some humans had a base on it – staffed entirely by vaguely familiar actors like her out of Secrets and Lies and him out of Casualty etc. It turns out that the main boss from Doom or something I trapped in the centre of the planet and wants to escape – which it tries to do by possessing him form casualty and writing all over him with a felt tip pen. Also there are some squid faced alien slaves who are also handy for possessing type purposes. There is running around in a corridor! There is crawling down an air vent! There is implausible resolution where him from Casualty is sucked out of a hole in a space ship and everyone else is just fine etc and so on. This one starts out quite well and is properly spooky in parts but then goes a bit rubbish at the end. Also there is a bit where the boss from Doom tells Billie that she is going to DIE!!! Gasp – he must have read that bit in the Radio Times about her leaving at the end of the series.

After that there was an annoying jokey episode about a group of internet nerds who are obsessed with the Dr and meet up all the time – what can that possibly be all about? Main nerd is played by shifty looking Marc Warren out of Hustle and about three million other things. Peter Kay also pops up as an evil alien (with a northern accent – I wish they had rolled out the “lots of planets have a north” line again) who was designed by a nine year old and it kind of shows. Shifty Marc defeats the alien by snapping his magic stick – the Staff of Hasty Plot Resolution, as I like to call it. It turns out that Shifty Marc saw the doctor once when he was a kid and Dr Who was solving a Sapphire and Steel sounding 70s mystery. Hmm well lots of people seemed to like this one but I thought it was kind of irritating – also highly reminiscent of similar “jokey” episodes from X Files and Buffy. Next week looks like it might be good though – some kid traps people in crayon drawings or some such.

WELL I GIVE A MONKEY'S FART!

What a difference a week makes. BB has gone from unmissable to awful to unmissable again in about three days. It is like a roller coaster of emotions and Heat magazine hacks will be reduced to smoking puddles of hysteria by the time it is all over. Sensible Dawn, Raving Mentalist Shabhaz and Thick Lipped Posho George have all walked. The Teen muppets have paired off and become jealous at each other for said pairing off in record time. The group has split into “young breeders in love” versus “the rest” in record time too.

Grace (aka young margeret beckett) is now like the lead heather of bitchville. Imogen is just dull and whiny. Lisa is loud and annoying. Mikey is a dull blank cipher. Sezer has turned into a hateful little cockfarmer but will surely get the boot on Friday. I must have imagined it but did he say he is a Jeanette Winterson fan? Weird. Richard is kind of annoying. Lea is moany. Pete is a darling (I love it when he says “meow!” in his tourettes tic attacks) and Glyn is amusingly gauche. Nicki is pretty dreadful with her childish whining and hysterics (I CAN’T DRINK TAPWATER! I HAVE A MIGRAIINE! ETC!!) but is also pretty funny. Keep her in pls!

We also have two new housemates. Sam – who is kind of like a she-male version of Traci Bingham (super! awesome! etc) and Aishlene (sp???) - when I first heard about her I thought “Oh god, not another dull promotions girl stroke model” but she seems to be good value – hard as nails and with a keen Sezer bullshit detector.

Sezer, Richard and Lea are up for eviction and it seems as though Sezer is bound to go – I can’t wait to see his, Grace’s and Imogen’s faces when his name is called out. TV Gold! (why yes, I am counting my chickens etc…)