Midweek Update
Pickled Resolve
What’s to be done with the girl that can’t really take her ale? Why, stick her on a chat show sofa of course!! Judge Alesha, together with Judge Craig and Judge Bruno, made an appearance on Alan Carr: Chatty Man last week. For those that don’t know it well, it’s more or less your standard chat show vehicle for a comedian, with the added bonus that the guests have free liqour available. Now most have the fairly good sense (I assume) to stick to a glass of wine. I did once see Mila Kunis take a swig from a bottle on there once. According to the reports, it seems like Alesha had already had a couple before going on, as she was increasingly going into the idea that all the constestants are gagging for it:
Everyone is really frisky on the show, everybody is horny. The year I was a contestant, everyone just was really gagging for it. As I was saying… you spend eight to ten hours a day rubbing up next to each other. Of course you’re going to get a bit frisky.
Upon Bruno trying to remove the wine glass from her hand, she simply said “give me the bottle” and proceeded to neck it down. It takes a lot to shock Bruno, but the look on his face was quite priceless. Alesha acknowledged the fact that she was pretty pissed in a tweet some time later:
Apologies for being pickled on Alan Carr! I did have fun though!
Whether Bruno did is perhaps more of a mystery.
“Strictly Come Dancing’s Alesha Dixon apologises for being ‘pickled’ on Alan Carr”
That’s one way for the British to dominate in Europe
According to Guinness World Records, Strictly is now the world’s most successful television format, having been licensed to 35 different broadcasters that serve 75 individual countries. Not only is it being broadcast, but it’s also a hit, and fast becoming part of the cultural identity – apparently, President Obama rescheduled his national televised address over the Libya situation so that it didn’t clash with Dancing With The Stars, while in 2007 the then Swedish Ambassador to Estonia, Dag Hartelius, took part in Season 2 of Tantsud tähtedega. But perhaps the greatest victory is the fact that Strictly, that most wonderfully British of formats, shaped at the Concrete Doughnut itself, is already a hit in Germany with Let’s Dance, and is becoming a hit in France. TF1′s Danse avec les stars was first broadcast in February this year, and has succeeded where even The Other Side has failed. During its initial run, it was only beaten in the ratings once, by an international rugby game involving France. By contrast, X Factor was apparently lucky to reach 2 million viewers. And this is in spite of the machinations of Lord Flattop and his plans for world domination. All I can say is HUZZAH AND HURRAH!!!
“Strictly Come Dancing: the worldwide phenomenon”
Get your specs on
For those of you that can, you’d better get your specs on, as the final will be broadcast by Auntie Beeb in full on 3D. Yep, you’ll get Judge Bruno flying right out of the screen at you as he (inevitably) gyrates his descriptions of what he like and what he doesn’t, invarably thrusting something at Judge Alesha that she could probably do without. And for those that don’t have a 3D telly at home, you will also be able to see it in 3D at selected Odeon and Apollo cinemas around the country. Not that I’ll be doing that, because I find using the 3D glasses uncomfortable to say the least, having to put them over my own spectacles. Oh yes, I know I could get contacts, but I’m not going to. I shall wait until such time as someone develops a way of attaching the 3D lenses to a person’s own spectacles, much in the way that men of a certain age would clip tinted lenses to their spectacles and hey presto have a pair of prescription sunglasses. Still, if 3D’s your thing, enjoy.
“The Strictly Final Live in 3D!”
McFlying high, up in the sky…
So, what do we think? Will we see a McFly reality double? Now that Dougie has been crowned King of the Jungle, I guess the onus is now on Harry not to let the boys down and go on to win the Glitterball Trophy. And to think, unless you’re a teenage girl, you’d probably never have heard of them prior to August. Hell, I’VE been accused of being a teenage girl and I’d never heard of them…well, that’s not strictly true. I’d heard of McFly, and obviously I knew that Harry had been in the Children in Need special in 2010 with Ola. But even so, I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a line up. And now they’ll probably end up going viral. There’s every likelihood that Harry will get to the final, and we know that the Housewives’ Choice will invariably do well once he gets there – look at previous finals, and you find the likes of Darren Gough, Colin Jackson, Mark Ramprakash, Matt Dawson, Matt diAngelo, Tom Chambers, Chris Hollins and Matt Baker, all very smiley, handsome and unthreatening as well as being good to very good on the dancefloor. Harry looks like he ticks all those boxes…even if he did have a one night stand with Lindsay Lohan. I wonder what the odds are on a McFly double?
“Pop pin-ups are high McFlyers”
“McFly’s Harry Judd: I probably made Lindsay Lohan start dating Samantha Ronson”
Artem – World Record Holder
If you haven’t been watching It Takes Two over the last couple of weeks, you won’t know that they’ve been in the process of setting a world record. The Pro-Dance Challenge this year (a challenge they run that features most, if not all, of the professionals) has been to set a record for the most botafogos in 30 seconds. In the end, it was Artem who gained the record, having managed a total of 79. So well done him.
Weekly Odds
Harry Judd – 5/2 on
Chelsee Healey – 3/1
Jason Donovan – 8/1
Holly Valance – 33/1
Alex Jones – 40/1
Classic Strictly
Once again, we’re looking at perfection, and once again, we’re going with two routines from the same couple, though unlike last week, not in the same week. In Series 7, Ali Bastian and Brian Fortuna enchanted everyone with their delightful ballroom routines and their burgeoning relationship. As the series went on, it was getting more and more obvious that they were becoming ever closer. This though didn’t affect the quality of the work that they put in, as these two routines show. In week 8 in Blackpool, they gained the first perfect score of the series with their viennese waltz (is there anywhere better to get a perfect score than the Tower Ballroom?), while in the semi-final they performed a delightful american smooth that finished with…well, some of you will remember how it finished. So, from Series 7, Ali Bastian and Brian Fortuna, dancing ballroom the way it should be.
