Not a good week really. I drove back from London on Thursday morning after saying goodbye to kinder and by the time I left the North Circular and reached the Redbridge Roundabout, I was feeling slightly peculiar, shivery and cold. Decided to put my foot down and get home as quickly as possible as I had the feeling that if I stopped I might not get going again. Made it and went straight to bed and spent the next 24 hours with a rocketing temperature which then plunged so I was cold, felt hungry but if I ate anything felt sick, and generally all was yuk.
Emerged feeling shaky and wiped out and still feel that way now it is Sunday but the sore throat seems to be receding and the temperature has gone so whatever it was I hope that is the back of it. I have, therefore, spent the last five days reading my way through a bagful of old Mills & Boon that I got hold of some time ago and have been saving up for such a purpose. All I could cope with. I read one after the other and they all ran into one and they are all back in the bag and will be off to the charity shop some time next week.
Saturday night found me sitting in the armchair with woolly sox on, blanket round my knees, hot water bottle, hot drink and the remote to watch Strictly as per. Hopping mad that last week we lost Thom. OK he did not exactly strike me as Einstein and his personality was not sparkling but to go out when a sleb whose highlight of this series is his routine dressed as a lobster and who was voted through was a bit much to take.
Claudia absent last night so Zoe Ball took over. Reason given was that one of Claudia's children was ill. A friend of mine commented that would a male presenter have gone home and given up his slot to somebody else? Pretty sure the answer to that would be no but I am prepared to be shot down for thinking this. Zoe did really well and, as with Claudia, showed up just how wooden, banal and awful is Our Tess.
OK here are my thoughts:
Judy and Anton - dire dire dire. Judy was meant to be Cruella da Vil and Anton made his entrance with two dalmatians who took one look at the dance floor and decided this was not for them. Sensible pair.
Scott and Joanne - he was Fenster from the Adams Family and the role suited him beautifully as all he did was lurch around the floor with his arms hanging. He is worse than dire.
Sunetra and Brendon - weird jive involving a lot of furniture moving and not a great deal of content. It was OK.
Alison and Aliajz were apparently doing a Wuthering Heights theme dance. Cannot recall Cathy arriving on the Yorkshire moors flying in but there you go. Great fun and lots of wafting. Big woman big personality and she is great but her dancing not so much. Another week or so before she goes I think.
Ola and Steve - incredibly difficult lifts which worried him so much he forgot to dance.
Pixie and Trent. Simply cannot take to this pair. They both look so pleased with their blonde selves all the time and look like escapees from the Village of the Damned. Trent also looks like he should be piloting a spaceship in Thunderbirds are go.
Frankie and Kevin - great pairing and he is popular with the audience and his lovely personality is endearing which always helps who his partner happens to be. This year Frankie is proving to be a great dancer and they got a 10 last night for their tango.
Mark and Karen - simply cannot take to this woman but he is a sweetie. Permanent grin on his face, having 'the best time of my life' and turning into a great dancer. His jive was brill.
Simon and Kristine. She is a great dancer and I am beginning to feel sorry for her as she has been cast as the Strictly Femme Fatale and the breaker up of marriages, relationships etc. If a male dancer was doing this nothing would be said but as she is a woman and a blonde the tabloids really go to town on her. And do not tell me this sort of thing does not happen in 2014 because it does. Remember Ulrika Johnsson - the weather girl who is well known for having four children by four differet men? boy was she given the treatment and she did make the point that nobody was having a go at the likes of Rod Stewart or Mick Jagger for having multiple children by different partners.
Anyway she and Simon have a good partnership and are dancing well together. He is coming along nicely.
Scott and partner (forgotten her name) - paso and not bad but because he is so good more is expected of him and he was not that impressive tonight.
Caroline and Pasha continue to improve. I like this pairing very much.
As it was Halloween we had the usual dressing up and white faces and black teeth and ghouls rampant and it all gets tedious. It is the same every year when SCD goes for a theme week.
Tess continues to call everyone luv and my darling and I would clock her if she did that to me. She is so patronising as well though this, of course, may be just her natural manner. She just tries too hard and fails every single time. I still blench when I look back to the BBC's coverage of the Jubilee on the river in 2012 and Tess prancing about in the park in a fake coronation.......
Zoe repeated a joke she gave on ITT introducing her pet Crow called Russell. Russell Crowe - geddit? Well it made me laugh.
Not saying any more as I know who goes out tonight and the so called results show can now be taken or left by moi. I just watch as the names are called as I love seeing the various reactions and though Len's Lens is cringemaking they do pick up some funny things that pass us all by. They usually have a half dead singer on well past their best or a new singer/group who will never have a best as they are uniformly awful so I mute it when they are 'singing' and make a cup of tea.
the VTs remain utterley utterley cringemakingly awful as ever.
Keeeeeeeeeeeep dancing
