Fun Night In

Total purchases of the man in front of me in the queue at the supermarket today:

- Champagne
- Condoms
- Baby oil

Strictlywatch 2008: Week 8 Results

Give Americans the vote and they choose Barack Obama. Give the British the vote and they put Heather and Rachel in the bottom two of Strictly, and Ruth and Laura in the bottom two of X Factor. Dismal. Depressing. Democracy.

Strictlywatch 2008: Week 8

...in bizarro colour, due to funny picture on my computer screen. So spent an entertaining amount of the programme trying to figure out whether the dresses really were that ugly or I was having picture-balance based hallucinations.

Competition hotting up now, as almost all the duff dancers are out of the race. This is when I really start enjoying things, when you can actually start being amazed by how well the celebrities are dancing. Unlike other years when someone has really captured my heart, there are lots of dancers I am enjoying but none I am truly loving - although my nearest to a favourite would have to be -

Tom and Camilla, who danced first. Absolutely loved this quickstep, especially all the bonkers leaping around stuff that Tom did at the beginning and the end. He looked like some kind of brilliantly possessed penguin. He must get into the final and dance this dance again. Maybe wearing a fake beak. Also, they were dancing to 'A Town Called Malice', and there's a special place in my heart for song choices which make the singers have to put on terrible fake cockernee accents. If I went on Strictly I would dance to an exclusive melange of Blur, Ian Drury, and The Streets, for this very reason.

Next up Jodie and Ian, dancing a samba. I love Jodie and Ian but this was pretty bad. In fact it so bad that I fear this may be their last dance. Of course, it wasn't the worst - John was the worst - but I'm not sure the public's love affair with John has ended yet, so if Ian and Jodie end up in the bottom two with anyone else (and really they should) I fear that they are gone. It does make me sad that my last memory of Jodie will be playing fake maracas.

Then came Heather and Brian, dancing a tango. I am biased because the tango is one of my favourite dances (though I don't love it as much as the Argentine Tango) and also because I think I could watch alien-faced Brian take the bins out with joy in my heart, but this was a big step up for Heather - probably the best she will manage all season - and it should be good enough for her to avoid yet another dance off. Also they played the wild card of having her mother turn up to training in a Hurricane Heather t-shirt, and surely you can't go out the week your mother turns up to training in a Hurricane Heather t-shirt.

After that was Austin and Erin, getting down and slightly disgusting in a rumba. I have every sympathy for Austin when he said in training that the rumba is a stupid dance, because it is. He looked very stupid dancing it. Moving swiftly on.

Cherie and James followed them with a lovely waltz. Of course, if they hadn't managed a lovely waltz I'd have pickled Len's walnuts for him. It was beautiful, but an easy choice for Cherie, and not quite enough for me to banish memories of the horror of her terrible salsa which gets worse the more I think about it (I actually didn't think her paso was that bad.) Despite the fact that I picked her (maybe rashly) for a finalist, Cherie needs another good week to convince me, preferably in a Latin dance. I think she would do and incredible Argentine Tango so I hope she stays in long enough to perform one of those.

Then Christine and Matthew, with a jive, the only thing about which I can remember is that much was made of Christine's newfound ability to point her toes. Vote for Christine! She can point her toes! I wonder if she could be a surprise addition to the bottom two this week.

Then Rachel and Vincent. If Rachel and Vincent ever danced at the start of the show the world would end. I think they have friends on the production staff, because Rachel tends to get the best dresses as well. Rachel and Vincent were dancing the American Smooth, which confused everyone by being unlike any other American Smooth we have ever seen - ie based on a quickstep rather than a foxtrot. Given that I, like everyone else who is not a judge on Strictly Come Dancing, thought I knew what an American Smooth should look like and this wasn't it, I spent the whole dance thinking "this isn't an American Smooth" only to be told that it was, and then I couldn't remember if I liked it or not. As an Aside, in training, Rachel went to the set of Dirty Dancing the Musical, and I can't help but think that the announcement of her joining the cast as Baby is only weeks away.

John and Kristina danced a Cha Cha Cha next. They were as bad as you'd expect, and my personal tide has turned against John at this precise moment because I have realised that if he doesn't go out, Jodie and Ian will. Kristina's choreography continues to be excellent and I hope they give her a good dancer next year because I want to see what she can really do.

Lastly, Lisa and Brendan with a Viennese Waltz. As with all Viennese Waltzes, I was distracted by trying to figure out what a Viennese Waltz is and why it is different from a bog standard waltz. As with all Viennese Waltzes, I got to the end none the wiser. Another one that I forgot to check whether I liked it or not, but the judges certainly got all excited.

And there we have it. Dances can all be seen here. And as a special treat, the boogie penguin:

Strictlywatch 2008: Disaster!

The PVR had a sulk and didn't record it. That's a serious magnitude of sulking. I will have to watch online and get back to you. But it isn't the same.

(Ironically, I missed watching it live because I was at the... ballet.)

State of the Nation

Just passing on my personal congratulations...

Anyway, as well as voting for President this week, some states were voting on issues that also take the temperature of current American thinking.

California, Arizona and Florida voted to ban gay marriage in their states. (Boo! Also, Obama spoke out against gay marriage, which makes me feel a little depressed.)

Michigan voted to allow medical use of marijuana. (Yay!)

Nebraska voted to ban affirmative action based on gender or race. (Um, well, there are arguments either way...)

Washington State voted to allow doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. (I am in favour, but "yay" seems a callous way of putting it.)

It'll be interesting to see how these pan out and if they catch on nationally / internationally.

Election thoughts, deep and shallow

Barack Obama's wonderful acceptance speech is both on video and transcribed here. Seriously, the man can talk. It actually made me a bit tearful, which isn't something I say about political speeches every day. And not only in a good way. I'm with John Cleese in Clockwise on this: it's not the despair, it's the hope, the terrible hope. It's hard not to see Obama as some kind of magic wand that will heal the whole world. He's so attractive and so charismatic and says all the right things. (I've learned to be wary of men like that.) And then there is the glorious optimism of all the people who voted for him, and in particular the culmination of the dreams of the civil rights movement and of black America. (Damn, am going to have to type fast, I am getting teary again.) But in the end he is just some bloke. And the USA and the world are in such a lousy state. The reason hope is so awful is that it's so high risk. The fear of disappointment is so great. Will we look back in four or eight years' time, disillusioned, wondering what all the fuss was about? I sincerely hope not.

And while we're on the subject of disappointment, can we just discuss this?

Oh Michelle, what were you thinking? The greatest moment of your husband's life and you choose a dress that combines to make you look pregnant and funereal and covered in blood all at once? I hate to say it but this looks as if you chose it just in case your husband was assassinated at the critical moment, so that it wouldn't show the stains.

It's Election Night!

Last time I was this excited about an election was when Tony Blair got in in 1997! Yay! Tony Blair! Remember how great he was and how we totally still love him and get all excited about him now?

Oh.

Anyway, go Obama.

Me On Telly

If you can stand it, there's a half hour long interview with me here. The interview was done for German TV so you will have to negotiate a German website and guess some of the things to click on. Also, you'll need pop ups enabled. And the first minute is in German before it goes into English. But if you get through that you can enjoy two girls in short skirts on a sofa, one of whom is me, one of whom should really have brushed her hair first, one of whom is me.

Strictlywatch 2008: Week 7 results

Andrew is gone. Praise be. I couldn't handle another dance from him and I certainly couldn't handle seeing more of his horrible "trendy dad" leather jacket in the practice footage.

Also, this was the first results show that I have watched in full without fastforwarding everything. I don't know if it's because I was too ill to press FF or because Bruce has got so doddery (doddery he is) that they no longer give him anything much to say but just hurry along to the pro dances, which is all I really want to see. They were top notch this week, and a special shout out to Lilia's bum in the Proud Mary dance. It is a force of nature. I also particularly appreciated how pissed off Kelly "Take Me Seriously" Jones from the Stereophonics looked performing with a bunch of sequined dancers, obviously forced into it by his record company desperately trying to raise his solo profile.

Lilalia has asked me to review my choices for the final. I reckon Austin and Tom, with Cherie if she can pull herself together. My previous girl choice was Rachel but I'm not sure if she's connecting with the public. It's quite an open thing, Rachel could easily still make it, as could Lisa if she continues to improve and people can get over the fact that she is dancing with Brendan. Which is a big ask...

Strictlywatch 2008: Week 6 and 7

The briefest of reviews today because aside from everything else, I appear to have picked up a bug in Uganda so I am now addressing you between meals of dry crackers and plain boiled rice. It is really not my week.

Anyway, last week's Strictly was a little disappointing mainly because of the lack of capes in the Paso Doble, so I was delighted to see Tom rectify that this week, even if it did send Len into apoplexy. This week I enjoyed much more. Now that Mark's gone (in last night's traditional Saturday night Strictly dream, he was having an affair with Camilla, in case you're interested) there are very few really duff dancers left, and one of them is John, who doesn't count because he's so great to watch anyway. Some of the dancers I didn't warm to much at the beginning (eg Austin, and Lisa who did a terrific tango) are really growing on me, and previously guaranteed yawnfests such as Christina are turning out lovely dances. Cherie was weak this week, and I hope she picks up, because she is probably my favourite when she is on form. Ian and Jodie on the other hand were excellent, and very poorly marked for what I thought was a beautiful waltz.

This week I'd like to see Heather (forgettable) and Andrew (embarrassing) in the bottom two, with Andrew to go. I really hope he isn't saved by a sympathy vote for his knee injury. His knee certainly had nothing to do with those awful arm thrusty things.

Dances from week 7 here.