Dancing on Thin Ice

So that's it folks.  Torville & Dean have danced their last Bolero and not before time. The iconic routine used to fill me with rising emotions but recently I just worried that Chris would drop Jane on her head or get stuck in the splits and have to be airlifted from Borehamwood in a rescue helicopter.  At least Jane Torville's been taking health & safety advice and now performs with a crash helmet hairdo that's been dipped in concrete.  There's no doubt that our Ice King and Queen are two of the most beloved sports stars of the last 30 years but I really don't want to see them doing Bolero in wheelchairs.

Dancing on Ice was a brilliant concept.  It was Strictly Come Dancing with danger.  Celebrities, blades and blood.  The prospect of Bonnie Langford having her head caved in or Andi Peters losing a hand or two has kept us glued to our Sunday evening screens for 9 years.  However, like Strictly, it's a format that's become tired and the thrills are as thin as the ice now.

So what is the legacy of this once great family favourite?

For a show that produced many polished performances it's not the great dances we'll remember.  It's Todd Carty bumbling his way across the ice with a terrified look on his face and crashing out in the competitors tunnel.  How can we forget Keith Chegwin's brave attempts to get Olga's legs behind his ears and Lauren Goodger being dragged round the ice like an Eskimo's dinner.

DOI's outrageous costumes were like an explosion at the Mardi Gras Carnival but the weekly wardrobe highlight was always Holly's tits.  The series lost two of it's biggest assets when she left. The stringy bit of fluff from Norn Iron was never going to fill those cups.

The judging panel didn't have a Len or a Simon.  Instead we had to suffer an acidic balding queen whose highlights were comparing Sharon Davis to human sewage and being offensive to Head Coach Karen Barber.  Shame Tim Healy didn't smack him in the face when he was being vile about Denise Welch.  A talentless waste of space who looks like he's always got a bad smell under his nose.  Wave your hair and your prime time TV days goodbye Mr Gardiner.

Philip has been looking like he could do with a good rest recently.  ITV are getting their pound of his pasty flesh but since he lost his Holly he just seemed to be going through the motions.  It wasn't helped by the lack of on screen chemistry with Christine bleedin' Bleakley.  The woman is about as cold as the studio floor.  So ITV now have a Schofield-free day to fill in their schedules. I hope they let the poor man have a bit of a break before they launch their next Sunday evening shenanigans.  Celebrity Curling anyone?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if his next on screen wife is Susanna Reid when they discover she hasn't set the morning ratings alight after defecting from the BBC for an obscene pay packet. Will they never learn?  Surprised they haven't asked Philip and Holly to start 4 hours earlier during the week.  They could have a lie down when Lorraine and Jeremy Kyle are on.

Tonight they crowned the Champion of Champions and there was little tension as the arrogant little Scouser lifted the trophy.  I say trophy but it was more like a cheap vase from IKEA Market Place.  Ray Quinn was clearly the best skater on the show but he's a charmless man who looks like a schoolboy on steroids.

So that was it.  The end of Dancing of Ice.  Perhaps 2 years late but in it's day it was great family entertainment in a perfect time slot.  Next week it's Catchphrase :-(

American Horror Story

You can keep your Real Housewives OC/Atlanta/New Jersey/Beverly Hills.  The REAL American housewife is Georgia's Mama June from TLC's Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.  A robust redneck who actually has a red neck due to the constant rubbing of her many chins.  Hubba Hubba!

June is a 21st century Southern Belle-tent. She lives in a hog pen, next to a railway siding, with her litter of piglets.  She can't work due to a condition called 'fork lift foot'.  An accident at the local  Piggly Wiggly has left her with dead toes infested with silverfish.  Thankfully the rotting appendage is kept well hidden in an old trainer sock that hasn't ever seen the inside of a washing machine.  Shame she doesn't have any coupons for Dettol or Scholl foot powder in her vast collection.  Even Dr Christian from Embarrassing Bodies would struggle to hold down his lunch.

Her baby piglet is a frightful pageant princess who lives on a diet of cold hot dogs and spaghetti with ketchup and butter sauce.  Alana's pageant talent seems to involve farting and rubbing her flabby belly at the stony faced judges like a vertically challenged stripper.  Think Shirley Temple on crack cocaine.

There's two sisters called Pumpkin and Chubbs and they are the living embodiment of the expression 'you are what you eat'.  Mama June feeds her guzzling girls from a trough.  Well it's actually something she calls a Multi-Meal.  It consists of grabbing anything and everything from the fridge and throwing it in a huge tin foil roasting dish with butter, BBQ sauce and full fat mayo.  In this house the kitchen utensils are mainly used as back scratchers or to pick up chicken droppings from the living room carpet so she mixes it all together with her bare hands. 20 minutes in a medium oven and serve with baked beans, tinned sweetcorn and more butter.   Nigella she ain't.

The eldest girl is called Chickadee and somehow she's managed to maintain a petite figure despite this tsunami of lard and carbs.  As slim blondes must be as scarce as hen's teeth in Georgia she's popular with the local teenage tom cats and delivered her own kitten called Kaitlyn on Halloween before her 17th birthday.  It's the Circle of Life only more grubby than the Disney version.

Mama June got married recently to her long suffering Sugar Bear.  A small toothless miner with an obsession for garden ornaments.  It took Sugar Bear 10 years to woo his woman.  June was always playing hard to get.  I can't think why.  She wouldn't commit but he wore her down with a romantic date at Bigshow's Burgers.  She wanted Rhett Butler but got Bilbo Baggins in a baseball cap instead.

Last but not least we have Uncle Poodle.  Sugar Bear's gay brother.  A homosexual hillbilly who doesn't say much but minces around the house teaching the piglets Spice Girl dance routines and offering fashion tips like a white trash Gok Wan.

It may be an American Horror Story but I bloody love this show.  It's like The Waltons on moonshine and donuts but there's more genuine love, warmth and fun in a half hour of Honey Boo Boo than in 9 years of The Kardashians.  Mama June is the real deal and I love her pearls of wisdom and her view of the world.  There is a heart to this show that makes you root for this family despite their faults.  You laugh with them and feel touched by their simplicity.  It would be easy to watch them with an air of disdain and superiority but this is a family full of love and honesty and they just enjoy life and being with each other.  They may be poor, but in some respects they're richer than Kim, Khloe and Kourtney will ever be.

I love you Mama June x

What a bummer!

Thank God Celebrity Big Brother is over! 3 weeks of intense viewing and I'm a wreck.  The best series ever and an emotional roller coaster from the minute they handcuffed Jim Davidson to Linda Nolan whilst we were still nursing our Hogmany hangovers.

The show was a PR coup for Davidson and Dappy. Two men with a chequered past who took a massive gamble but played the public just right to emerge as our winner and runner up.  Within the space of 3 weeks it became almost a crime to have a bad word to say about the poor downtrodden old man and the performing monkey. Did the leopards really change their spots or are we so sucked into celebrity and marketing that we're blinded by what we're served up on our 50" HD screens every night.

It's ironic that an immature doofus like Lee Ryan has become the most hated man in the UK for falling for 2 pretty girls in the house.  While Davidson and Dappy are now hailed as the people's champions, Ryan is getting death threats on Twitter.  How did that happen?

It seems that fame has a strange affect on us these days.  Violent and immoral behaviour is ignored if you're bankable or have a level of sporting prowess.  If you're good at making movies or can kick a ball quite well then the public and your peers will happily turn a blind eye and bestow you with plaudits for what you can do on the screen or on the sports field.  This is particularly prevalent in the world of football where the terraces will forgive any crimes and misdemeanours until a 'hero' transfers to another team.  Then the pitchforks are out and the baying mass of matching woolly hats attack them like they'd just strangled a basket of puppies.

50 years ago a government was brought down because an MP was shagging a topless model.  How did our morals and standards change so dramatically over two generations?

Talking of low standards.  I tuned in to Splash last night.  Vernon and Gabby have about as much on screen chemistry as a couple of ironing boards.  Poor Tom Daley is never quite sure where the auto-cue is so he's relegated to posing in his wet Speedos and trying hard not to look at Keith Duffy's bulge.  Keith was there for the Craic and he didn't let us down. His crack was bared on both dives as his skimpy trunks slipped off as he plunged into the pool.  I bet they were high fiving in the production box. Isn't that the only reason for having that underwater camera?  Tom disappeared for about 20 minutes.  No doubt rewinding that shot on his iPhone in the loo.

Gabby kept saying you could feel the tension in the pool.  Such a shame that doesn't transfer to the viewers.

Why are we obsessed with watching famous people doing stuff badly? Does it make us feel good about ourselves?  We'd rather watch Danielle Lloyd belly flop and bruise her tits than be made to feel inferior by some dedicated athlete striving for perfection.

And that brings me to The Jump.  Channel 4's new hit celebrity show.  Davina McCall mugging to the camera with a bunch of reality TV whores in day-glo spandex.  The show is built around a final death defying ski jump.  The trouble with this concept is that the final jump-off looks about as scary as stepping off a pavement. Why the hell did Sir Steven Redgrave sign up for this?  One of our greatest sporting heroes reduced to racing down a hill with Anthea Turner on a dinner tray.  Maybe he just got his 2013 tax bill?

Last and probably least is the new and revamped series of The Voice. The first 2 series didn't go well. Something had to done.  They got rid of the annoying woman and the irritating no-name on the end.  Trouble is they've replaced them with another annoying woman and an equally irritating band boy.  I LOVE Kylie but she should never have exposed herself on this dire show. Her outrageous flirting with the male contestants is just cringe-worthy.  However the main problem with this show is the 'voice'.  I don't know where the production team get these people from.  I guess there's not a queue banging on the door for a show that has no interest in a performer beyond the final programme.  Maybe if The Voice does manage to find a star there might be a few more decent singers showing up at the auditions.  A pair of tone-deaf twins,  a wailing shoe artist covered in oranges and an old busker with the wife on a flute. The Voice....my arse.

This is a man's world 2...

SPOILER ALERT!

Men are dicks and you women are completely to blame.

Straight, gay and regardless of colour, creed or religion, men are raised to think of themselves as superior beings who have no boundaries and will be forgiven for all crimes and misdemeanours because it's expected and accepted behaviour.  How did this happen and why is it still prevalent throughout what is supposed to be a modern and educated society?

The answer is easy. Women. It starts with Mothers and that influence follows their sons into adult life.  A mother's love is a wonderful thing but throughout a boy's formative years they encourage and promote a view of masculinity that seems so out of kilter in today's world where we talk of sexual equality.

We're taught to be the best at throwing or kicking a ball and admired for having the biggest muscles.  We need the biggest house, the fastest car and the most attractive mate.  We equate popularity with our sexual conquests and the amount of money we earn. All of this ego-feeding stuff bears no relation to how we are as human beings.  Don't get me wrong.  Ambition is a very good thing and everyone should strive to be the best that they can be but why is there still a huge chasm dividing what's acceptable behaviour for a man and woman?

So what's all this got to do with Celebrity Big Brother?  It's got everything to with the show.  People knock Big Brother as low-brow reality TV but it's also our society, values and morals served up within the confines of a load of spray-painted MDF.  It started as a social experiment and for me it's grown over the years into a cultural barometer.

Celebrity Big Brother 2014 has really highlighted that sexual equality is still a myth and men are still behaving badly and still getting away with it because women let them!

Dappy

Why is a man admired for shagging 5 girls on a night out but if a woman did the same she would be vilified as a dirty slag?  The Dapster comes from a traditional Greek background.  They have what is referred to as a Matriarchal society.  You could be forgiven for thinking this sounds very feminist but you'd be so wrong.  This actually means that Mum stays at home doing the cooking and cleaning with the daughters while the sons and husbands are out drinking, shagging and doing a bit of work in between to earn some cash. Greek girls are taught to stay at home with their workhorse Mothers and to just be happy with their lot. So it's not Dappy's fault that he thinks this is okay.  His mother and sisters are to blame for to their complacency.

Lee

A 16 year old boy in a 30 year old man's body.  Someone who's clearly been spoiled and never had anyone say No to him.  Years of endless groupie sessions have eroded his ability to reason that his actions might have a consequence and that his conquests have feelings.  It's all about what makes him happy.    If anyone dares to question his behaviour he throws a tantrum and cries until he gets his own way.  Even better if he manages a cuddle and a kiss from the person he's been hurting.  Mommie Dearest turns up on telly to defend her boy and points a well manicured finger at the two hussies who she thinks are leading her little angel astray. How does a boy raised in a female environment turn out to have so little regard for women? What makes this worse is that there is a wider view that Casey and Jasmine are completely to blame for the whole love triangle situation.  They are being called bunny boiling bitches by some critics and those are mostly of the female gender.  So women are not only raising boys to act like dicks but they're fighting with their sisters rather than calling a dick a dick.

Olly

So here's a thing.  We have a nice young man who doesn't feel the need to be nasty or treat people badly.  That's a good thing.  Right?  Wrong!  The women in the house have a real problem with this and couldn't wait to stick the knife in at the first opportunity.  A man's not supposed to be nice and therefore has to be mocked and bitched about.  Why does honesty have to mean you have to be hurtful?  Why does having an opinion mean you need to make someone feel bad about themselves?  Being nice seems to be so unattractive to women that even Sam Faiers finds Olly as alien as ET.

Jim Davidson

OK so here's a man with a past and I'm not even going to get into that.  The evidence is out there.  Just Google him.  However, apart from a few slip ups over the last two weeks, he's managed to play the game very well.  With years of experience under his belt, the master has played his cards dead right and the women in the house have been pawns on his chess board.  Despite his past and despite his nasty comments to some of the females in the house, he's now the favourite to win the show.  His rise to the top fuelled by nagging women.  Poor old Jim.  Poor misogynistic, racist, homophobic Jim.  Men want to be him and women...well women created him and will be texting furiously to get him the crown on Wednesday.  All of them just aching to do his ironing while he's out playing snooker and having a few pints with the lads.

I love women and men (Oh Yes!) but some of them need a metaphorical slapping.

Little Boy Blue With The Horn

Until he signed up for Celebrity Big Brother, Lee Ryan was known for being the Sporty Spice of Blue.  You know, the one who did the screechy bit at the end of the tracks. He was the blue eyed baby of the group.  The cheeky little brother of his 3 protective siblings.  Maybe something they should have thought about before letting him out on his own.

Ryan was cheered into the Big Brother house but a week later those fans had turned into a baying mob.  Things started well as he spent the first couple of days chained to a small bird with massive breasts.  It looked like the start of a fairytale and the viewers loved their canoodling under the duvet.  It seemed like a very cute Big Brother romance was blossoming. Snow White's Prince had come. What a lucky guy.  He's probably got this series in the bag. What could possibly go wrong?

So whilst he's reeling Casey in with his cheeky chappie charms he suddenly decides he needs an upgrade and starts flirting shamelessly with Jasmine Waltz.  Jasmine reciprocates as she apparently hadn't noticed Lee and Casey were getting close.  So Jas becomes the Wicked Queen which is good because we all love to hate a foreign tart.  It's at this point that Lee decides to bed hop between the two and seems to forget that they are all living under the one roof.

Lee claimed that when he saw Jasmine his heart started fluttering.  More like his dick was twitching. Casey is spurned and Lee runs crying to the Diary Room because he doesn't want to be seen as a player.  Too late mate.  You played her.

A gentleman would have reigned himself in but not our Lee.  He decided to clamp himself to Jasmine's face and dry hump her all over the house while poor Casey looked on like a lost puppy.  Now if this wasn't bad enough he started attacking Casey for making HIM look bad.  The American slapper sneered and bitched about the Page 3 babe to anyone who'd listen.  Two selfish people who deserve each other but the outcome is obviously going to be more Karma than Kamasutra. Never mind.  When Jasmine dumps Lee he can go running back to the big strong arms of Duncan James ;-)

 So that was how Mr Ryan went from hot favourite to rank outsider.  Oh how we clapped and laughed when the BB crowd started chanting 'Get Lee Out!'.  He was crestfallen and cried a bit more before he actually said to Casey 'It's me, not you' as they walked up the stairs to face the mob.  Would he redeem himself when he was given a second chance after the fake eviction?  Did he heck as like.  He just rubbed Casey's nose in it some more and played the victim, in between rubbing himself all over his prize and declaring his love for the LA home wrecker.  At least the other housemates get a bit of respite from her grating voice when she's got Lee stuck to her lips.

Liz Jones should remember that beauty is only skin deep.  She might be a needy and socially inept but she shouldn't feel inferior to a woman whose fame is based on her track record of destroying relationships.  Liz may be right that animals have souls.  I think there's more need for a debate about Jasmine Waltz.

I like strong women but people like Jasmine and Louisa confuse strength with just being a noisy bitch.  I would argue that Louisa is nothing more than a petulant child who makes a lot of noise and stamps her feet and cries if she doesn't get her own way.  I didn't like her on The Apprentice and she's confirmed my low opinion of her in the Big Brother house.  She's a mean girl with a very inflated opinion of herself, a big nose and a very whiney voice.  I'm just being honest Louisa!

At the other extreme we have Sam Faiers.  I keep forgetting she's in the house.  Another example of how dull most of these reality TV 'stars' actually are.  Without a script and constructed storyline they're about as interesting as cat litter.  Even Ollie is starting to resemble very loud wallpaper and the most animated he's been recently was when Big Brother took away his makeup bag.  This was so traumatic for him he said he'd rather eat his own testicles.  I was surprised to hear that he had a pair of balls!

I really can't take much more of Dappy's performing to the cameras.  He's like an anti-social teenager who spends most of his day in his virtual bedroom and crawls out to find some food and annoy the grown ups.  I can't think of one actual conversation that he's managed to sustain since he's been in there. I reckon he only took the job to hide from the bailiffs.

So what of the grown ups?  I can't quite believe that Lionel Blair is my current favourite.  It says a lot about the other housemates when an 82 year old ex-hoofer (yes I said hoofer) is top of my list.  I love that he hates the mean girls.  His feelings for a 'transformed' Jim Davidson are pretty much aligned to my opinion of the nasty comedian.  Jim's been very clever and playing a good game but everyone knows he's a See You Next Tuesday.  Lionel's managed to control his feelings for Jim whereas Linda hasn't done herself any favours by making her battle with him her raison d'étre.

I hope Lionel stays the distance as he's provided the most memorable moments for me this season.  His sex club compere performance was sublime. It made me laugh out loud and sick up in my mouth at the same time. After sitting through another episode of Lee and Jasmine acting like dogs on heat and Louisa shouting at everyone it was so refreshing to see Lionel remove himself to the garden smoking seat and let go a huge rattling fart.  The man's a legend.

SPLASH!

Newsflash! Gemma Collins exits first heat

A Barrel of Monkeys

Well thank Christ Christmas is over!

Two weeks of stuffing our faces and binge drinking in front of the telly with people we avoid like the plague for most of the year.  Once it's all over what do we have?  An empty bank account, low self esteem and an overflowing wheelie bin. God has a lot to answer for.

I've just chucked a wad of cards in the recycling bin and not one of them showed a picture of black skies, horizontal rain and empty bags of Aunt Bessie roast potatoes blowing around the street.

Christmas has become like Reality TV.  It's all fake but we just can't help being drawn into it.  It's now just the bit in between X Factor and Celebrity Big Brother.

OK so Christmas over and a brand new year kicked off with the lovely Emma Willis welcoming us to a very plush and opulent (cheap and tacky) Big Brother House. The new house is like a Gypsy furniture showroom.

So who would I least like to see in this year's house?  The odious Jim Davidson.

And first out of the eye is.......Jim Davidson!  Bugger!  Obviously trying to raise his star profile after a mauling in the press.  He should have had a chat with Michael Barrymore before signing up.  For some reason he turned up on launch night dressed as Dr Who.

Housemate number two was Linda Nolan.  She was big in Japan and is now just...well...big.  She swept along the runway in a red cape and was a dead ringer for camp 70's wrestler Adrian Street. Just Google him and tell me I'm not wrong.

Up next was herb-loving Dappy.  Seriously dude you look like a gay dwarf in your Nan's bathroom curtains.  Apparently he's got a third leg which I assume is a nod to the size of his penis.  Considering he's like Camden's answer to Jimminy Crickett I'm not sure that's much of a compliment.  He's been kicked in the face by a horse recently.  Animals are a good judge of character.

Oh Jeez it's Liz Jones.  A post menopausal mess with a beard who wanted a baby to get a year off work.  She looks crazy, but not in a good way.  Reminds me of Mary the witch from BB6. Dappy looked like he might cry when he was handcuffed to her.

Sam Faiers was next.  Poor girl must have starved herself over the holidays for her OK magazine spread and no doubt there's a fitness DVD lined up.  She looked gorgeous but I bet after a week in there she's gonna look like a bag of spanners.  I hope she's taken in lots of makeup, concealer and false eye lashes.

Her buddy is an LA groupie called Jasmine Waltz.  More of an American Smooth but she looks like good fun so I'll give her a 7 for her first performance.

Lee Ryan's joined the party.  CBB is becoming a cure for bankruptcy.  However I think Lee will be good value.  What's not to like about a guy who likes badgers?  He doesn't think before he speaks.  In fact I don't think he thinks at all but he's easy on the eye.  Cute and dim.  Perfect man really. I think him and Sam would make a good couple.  He's like Joey Essex but with more charm.

However he's paired up with a pair of big tits on a small tap dancer.  I'm not sure big breasts and tap dancing are a good combination.  No idea who she is but she's annoying me already.  Not keen on women who define themselves by the size of their mammies.

Gotta love Ollie.  He just looked so happy to be there.  He sounds like Tom Daley on speed and that's not where the similarity ends ;-)

OMG not Lionel Blair!  Mr Showbiz said he loved young kids which in the current climate wasn't the best opening line.  The look on his face when he was shackled to Ollie was priceless and creepy.   I wouldn't fancy going for a piss with Lionel chained to my left wrist.

Luisa.  The whiney voiced, bisexual bitch off The Apprentice.  Clearly her cupcakes aren't selling like hot cakes. Hopefully she'll be fired first.

And finally The Real Deal. It's only the legend that is Evander Holyfield!  I'm not sure he knew where he was and what he'd signed up for.  He looked dazed and confused and why did Emma ask him if he'd ever been to Borehamwood.  Was that question really on the auto-cue?  Maybe she had brain freeze. When he was being chained to Luisa he looked like he'd rather have Mike Tyson bite his other ear off.  I know how he felt.

So there we have it.  The House of 2014.

A brilliant bunch of misfits and eccentrics and has the potential to be one of the best series ever.

People who moan about Z list celebrities going into the Big Brother House really don't get the brilliance of the show.

Talking of 'brilliance'. Why is Marco Falcone wearing Rylan Clark's teeth on BBBOTS?

Happy New Year x