Bad Boys Brendan and James Banter on Twitter

You might have deduced in previous years that Strictly bad boys Brendan Cole and James Jordan had turned into sweet ickle fluffity bunnikins over the past few years. Last year Brendan was so sweet with Jo and the year before very encouraging with Lisa - no sign of his strops with Sarah Manning. James has not shown any sign of abrasiveness since his first year with Georgina Bouzova.

Their tempers may not have returned by their swaggering, edgy bad boy banter is making me cry with laughter on Twitter from time to time. Take, for example, this exchange from last Friday morning:

Brendan:  Need to find way to stop elbowing my wife in the face while sleeping! It's starting to upset her? Don't know why, I don't do it in purpose!
James: Just tell her to sleep in the other room mate!
Brendan:  I like it! Wonder what she'll say?
James: I do understand her too. You do move a lot in your sleep!! Annoyed me!
Brendan: You are filth! People will start to believe you! Great rumour!
The moral of the story is never to believe anything James says on Twitter. Last night he was accepting congatulations on Ola's pregnancy - except she isn't pregnant. And by the end of the evening, both Vincent and Brendan were suggested as beimg responsible for this non pregnancy. I guess you had to be there at the time but it was very funny and one very good reason to follow these two on Twitter.

Learn Karen Hardy's Cha Cha Cha for Strictly Roadshow events

Those nice BBC people are running a series of roadshows around the UK to get us all dancing in the streets this month. The Edinburgh event is on Saturday 16th October between 10 and 4 in Festival Square outside the Sheraton Hotel.

Do any fellow Scottish Strictly fans fancy coming with me? All we have to do is learn this routine put together by former Strictly pro and ITT choreography commentator Karen Hardy. Simples.



I have to be honest and say that I expect to look like a Baby Elephant (sorry Millennium,darling) who has taken a small quantity of sedative or alcohol or both while I do this, but I'm willing to give it a go even if I end up making a prize arse of myself.

It should be fun. Earlier this year, there was a similar big screen event for the new series of Doctor Who. I didn't go but Bob and Anna did. She was chased by a cyberman and had a whale of a time.

I will probably want to go in the morning or very early afternoon as we have Doctor Who Live in the evening and I might need a rest, but who fancies coming along for a tweetup?

Strictly Come Dancing Twitterati - updated with Anton and others

I thought it might be a good idea to try to list all the various Strictly related Twitter accounts so that you can follow them if you wish.  It seems that a lot of the professional dancers and celebs have woken up to the advantages of a good relationship with Twitter followers. I've split them up into various categories - official  Dancers, Celebs, and judges, fan groups, blogs and good fans to follow during the Saturday night shows.

All the pros are on except Anton and Vincent, which is a shame because they would both be good value.

There are bound to be some accounts I've missed out - if you want to be on the list,or you know of any I've missed, please put the details in the comments and I'll add to the main directory.

So, without further ado:

Official Twitter Feeds:

BBC

BBC Strictly

Claudia Winkleman

Judges


Craig Revel Horwood

Alesha Dixon

2010 Celebs


Paul Daniels

Tina O'Brien

Michelle Williams

Jimi Mistry

Matt Baker

Kara Tointon

Goldie

Scott Maslen - not updated by him personally but an official site

Peter Shilton - not verified

2010 Professionals


Anton Du Beke - yes, really, absolutely - Yippee!

Aliona Vilani

Kristina Rihannof

Erin Boag

Ola Jordan

Katya Virshilas

Natalie Lowe

Flavia Cacace

Jared Murillo
murillonetwork - says it's official. Will give benefit of doubt for now.

Brendan Cole

James Jordan

Robin Windsor

Artem Chigvintsev

Dance Troupe

Ian Waite

Former Professionals (sob)

Matthew Cutler

Nicole Cutler

Lilya Kopylova

Camilla Dallerup

Karen Hardy Studios

Brian Fortuna

Former Judge


Arlene Phillips

Unofficial and Fan Feeds


Team Alesha

Team Ola Jordan

Team Robsy - for Patsy and Robin fans

Team Felicity

BrenMichSCD - forMichelle and Brendan

Team AliMatt
Team Aliona Angel

Team Tointon
Team Kartem

Team Virshilas
Team Gatya

Team Erin Boag

Team Murillo
Team Tina O'Brien

Team ScottSCD
Team Scottalie
Team Maslen

Team PamJam

Team Widdecombe

Team Flavistry

Strictly Series 8

SCD Fans

Layla Tango

Tweam SCD


Bloggers and Commentators

Matt Ball

Strictly Blog's Frankie and Clover

Strictly Come Blogging's Loulabelle

Strictly Goss

Mine

Jaye Nolan

Graeme Robertson

Antony Holeksa - Learn to Dance

Elizaday24

Good people to watch Strictly with


Soggous

Sarahgb

MammyDalby

Stephenpglenn

andyreeves

billiwilliams

Mags Haliday                                                                                                                                              

Jacq Kelly

Keris Stainton

Bridget Fox

The Spiderplant

OMG, Anton Du Beke is on Twitter - really!

Billi can be a bit obsessive about Anton Du Beke, not at all in any way like me, of course, but that can be useful some times. She was kind enough to send me an invitation on Facebook to "like" Anton's new page.

Like? I think I can go a bit further than that. Our boy seems to have embraced the technical age as enthusiastically as he embraced the Widdy on Saturday night.

He's also taken up Twitter and seems to be updating both this and Facebook himself in his own inimitable and utterly charming style. My Strictly Come Dancing Twitterati has been duly updated.

Let's just have a reminder of his and Ann's training footage - it's absolutely hilarious. Full of humour, and typical Anton mini-rants, it's unmissable.



He and Ann were brilliant on It Takes Two last night. I'm sure Ann could have wanted no more than to spend her birthday in Anton's company.  The two of them do seem to genuinely get on and spark off each other which I suspected might be the case. They were on fine form, with Anton joking (at least I hope he was joking) that they had to change their routine on Saturday night to remove the gymnastics so people didn't think they were copying Matt.

Ann said she wasn't nervous at all because she had seen people so much better than her be torn to pieces by the Judges on Friday night that she was just resigned to her fate.

Their Salsa on Saturday night is going to be the most anticipated dance in Strictly history. Anton described it as "nonsense in a short frock" and Ann said they were so desperate that they were putting things in the Salsa that didn't belong in  it - Anton interjected "like the waltz". I actually think that that's the best way for Ann to do a Salsa and it's a blessing that she's with a partner who, bless him, really isn't that great at Latin.

I, for one, can't wait.

Cuteness, vampishness and Widdecombe (tho not all together) - Series 8 show 2

I'm having a bit of a guilt trip that Tess wore a long dress after reading what I wrote yesterday about her knees. It was a very fetching purple one shouldered number. Her hair looked like last night's style had fallen out.  I do get upset every single year about this - you would have think that by series 8 she would have learned to point her toes at the end of the wee dance with Bruce. Don't her daughters learn about good toes/bad toes at the dance classes they must go to?

Anyway, tonight it was Jimi and Flavia who were first up. Flavia, so the intro said, had cut her hair back to the 2007 style and her mission was to get back to the final like  she did then. Their routine was a bit gangly and there wasn't enough gratuitous chest flashing, but there were some fast moves in there. However, I really don't think it was worth the 2 marks more than Felicity's that Craig gave it even though he was much more scathing about it, saying he was like the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. Flavia's choreography was a joy to watch but he did seem to be walking through parts of it at times. A good, pacy opener to the show, though.

Next up were Erin and Peter. Their waltz was quite simply choreographed by ballroom expert Erin Boag, but Peter looked awkward and tight for most of it and although Alesha said he smiled through it, his facial expression looked more like a grimace to me.His arms were quite unpleasant to look at.  T Dropping Erin at the end was not a moment he'll want to remember. She is such a trooper. She fell down, went through his legs and got herself into a smiling, graceful finishing position.

The one we were all waiting for was Michelle and Brendan's Cha Cha Cha. She's been touted as the one to watch and we've seen some fun and feistiness in the training room, she has the longest legs I've ever seen, and she's obviously been in a girl group. It all fell a bit flat, though - a bit unsure and tentative and limp, not to put too fine a point on it. She and Brendan looked fantastic together but her wish to have nothing less than an 8 was never going to be fulfilled. The judges told her to work on strength through her legs to produce a better hip action. Craig was quite mean, saying it was a big disappointment and Len talked about bad technique.  I love Michelle as a character because she just took it and said she was going to work on her legs to get them like rugby player Gavin's.

Then we had Gavin and Katya. It looked like he was trying to get her into some sort of head lock at the start. I'm surprised that Len didn't have a go at them for taking ages to get into hold. However, he had good posture, lots of rise and fall and more precision in his footwork than I expected. He did look a bit grim and scary though and didn't have the tenderness that the dance required. The judges were much more positive about it than I felt it deserved - I thought it deserved to be around 3 marks less than Scott's, not a mere 1.

Gavin is a bit dour, so we needed a bit of cuteness - and we got it as candyfloss couple Tina and Jared hit the floor. Tina was in a quite demure pink dress with silver hotpants underneath, Jared in geeky checked trousers with a bright pink shirt and a mustard coloured bow tie. They totally played up to the High School Musical theme, with Jared starting the routine with his head in a book, albeit a sparkly one. The routine was pretty simple but incredibly cute to watch.  The judges don't often criticise the professionals, but Jared was told to challenge Tina a lot more with his choreography. They'll be around for a while though because they are just lovely.

The absolutely most anticipated and talked about couple, although not always in a good way, were up next. There was a small glimpse of Anton in cardigan and tie in training which made me almost lose consciousness. Anne's dress was a full bright pink affair that looked like it was made of PVC with a silvery spangly jacket. She actually looked good. I think a sigh of relief went round the entire nation like a Mexican wave as she said that she didn't want to pull off any dance moves that wouldn't be appropriate in front of the Pope. But on to the routine. Anton had his fixed grin on which is not usually a good sign, but, actually, it was better than I thought it was going to be. I never expected to use the words endearing and Ann Widdecombe in the same sentence but it was. It was enjoyable and nostalgic and Anton's clever choreography as usual showed his partner off as best as possible. I'm glad they weren't last, beating Paul Daniels by a point.  Next week they've got the Salsa which is bound to be hilarious.

Ann has exactly the right, realistic attitude to it. They seem to be doing nothing but laughing during their training. If only Strictly had been around in the 90s, we could have had her on every year and she wouldn't have been able to do some of the truly wicked things she did as a Home Office Minister. I have to say that I just love Anton more than ever now.

In complete contrast to the previous two acts, Kara Tointon vamped it up to a level only just acceptable on a family show broadcast at 6pm. She wore a flesh coloured leopard print, well there wasn't enough of it to say dress, but I can't think of another word. She had black lipstick, a black leather choker, hair scraped back into the most severe ponytail. You get the idea. Artem her partner in a black leather hooded waistcoat and nothing else on top.  We saw him flashing his nipples in training as well. The routine had heat and passion and technique. She fell quite early on but managed to recover her momentum. I'd like the Jury's opinion on whether both feet stayed on the floor during the last spin, though. She got 30 despite having a fall so this definitely bodes well for the future.

In general, though, apart from the final performance of by a very sexy looking Robbie Williams and a very dad like looking Gary Barlow, Friday night kicked last night's backside by some margin.  One whinge, though - what is the point of having a professional dance troupe if you don't use it? Having said that, if they had, we wouldn't have had the fun of reading Lilia's hilarious tweets as she and Darren spent the evening with Camilla Dallerup and her husband Kevin Sacre.

I can't wait until next week now - although I've just realised that I'm not actually going to be around for the next two shows. Next week is Scottish Liberal Democrat conference which doesn't finish until 7, and the week after, Anna and I are at Doctor Who Live. We had booked for the Thursday performance which was cancelled. Someone will need to please tweet me the voting numbers I'll need.

As I write, we are just over 24 hours from the first It Takes Two of the series with the eccentric and hilarious Claudia Winkleman. If you live in Scotland and you are recording it through the infernal wickedness of Sky Plus, don't forget to set it up on BBC London or at least not Scotland because remember we don't get it on a Thursday up here.

With ITT every weeknight and the results show being moved back to Sunday, this means that tonight is the last night there won't be any Strictly on the telly until 18th December. That thought alone makes me ridiculously happy.

Vests, nerves and wellies - Strictly Series 8 gets under way

Well all I can say, having finally watched the first show of the new season is "Darn you, BBC!" Well, actually, it's a bit more than darn, but this is a family blog.

Not only have they infuriated me by removing five of my favourite dancers, but they've also conspired to make the line up and show unmissable. I may forgive the second if not the first.

The new titles added a sleekness and a bit of backbone to the pink and glitter that there was before.

It looks like Tess has completely ditched the ballroom look this year. Her black dress actually looked more like a vest (and was about as long) and her hair looked like it was taking the natural look to its margins - I spent most of the show wondering if her style was going to completely unravel. I know this is mean, because I am no oil painting, but if I were her, I wouldn't be inclined to show off those knees too much.

First up for Strictly 2010 was Felicity in a sunshine yellow dress. Her cha cha cha with Vincent was totally playful, charming and engaging and the chemistry between them is clearly good. She looked like she was enjoying every minute. Her timing was spot on and I really liked watching the way she moved. She placed her feet in a precise way. Craig was unspeakably mean about it, but if you stripped back his comments he was right on some of the technical aspects. Len was right that she needed more hip action. I actually wonder if that particular aspect of her routine was the reason her dress had had the frills which looked like dusters attached to it. It deserved much higher than the 4 Craig gave it.

Next up was Scott Maslen looking mighty fine indeed  in a DJ as opposed to tails. He'd said in the trailer that he had demons to slay after fluffing his lines in the live EastEnders episode earlier this year and he wanted to get through a live performance without incident. You don't expect to see rumba-esque body strokes in the opening of a waltz but it worked, big time. Craig was right about some of  his hand positions, and I think his description of the dance as "dangerously romantic" was pretty much spot on. This was an inspired routine from Natalie. Presumably her aim was to make her mark on the competition early and she did that in spades.

Goldie looked like he was having fun at a disco. His routine was cheeky but managed to avoid being embarrassing. His hands were pretty dreadful and Craig was right to point out that Kristina couldn't hide that forever  by making him put them on his hips. There wasn't much in the way of technical difficulty in the routine but it was fun. He's going to have to stop mucking about in training and do some work, though. As an aside it was interesting to see in the intro that he went out of his way to mention having introduced his wife to Kristina and her boyfriend, last year's partner Joe Calzaghe because he "didn't want any of that nonsense."

Poor Patsy Kensit. From her intro she's doing the show for therapy following her break up with Jeremy Healy after only 10 months of marriage. She said she'd had lots of laughs and would recommend it to anyone as a pick me up - but she's been insulated for 3 weeks in a training room. Unfortunately, on the live show, nerves well and truly got the better of her. She was tight, awkward and gawky. She really needs just to let herself go and enjoy the experience. You could have had Nadal and Federer play a full grand slam final between her and Robin Windsor so she has to work on her hold. I think she could do it if she could overcome her nerves - you could see that from the training footage. She looked gorgeous in a floaty, scarlet dress.

If Scott Maslen had intended to snatch the first night sex bomb mantle, Matt Baker made sure he was disappointed. It didn't look good to start with. When he and Aliona came down the stairs at the beginning with her wearing next to nothing and him wearing a tartan waistcoat and a tie - for the cha cha cha, I almost despaired. In his VT when he spoke about comparing dancing moves to sport, it really did not bode well. Gimmicks in Strictly are usually there to hide bad dancing - but Aliona Vilani clearly hadn't read that rule. There she was standing behind a pair of sequinned wellies. He was on the stairs with binoculars, playing up to his Countryfile background. It could have been awful - but it was brilliant. The third staircase up to Tess's tower is actually a good addition to the stage. Matt came down it and did 2 cartwheels across the dance floor in a testament to his gymnastic routine. He even had a bit of a stumble as he arrived at Aliona but it didn't look like it had bothered him.

That boy really knows a) where his hips are and b) what to do with them. It is utterly wrong that a contestant could make me think of Darren Bennett on the first show. He danced confidently and cleanly, far away from Aliona. It was utterly stunning. Aliona had almost produced a biography in a dance routine and I think that'll be one of the things we remember about this series. I just hope that he can pull off similar when he only has one week to rehearse, not three. I think all the above can be summed up by a simple "Phwoar!"

I always thought the combination of Pamela Stephenson and James Jordan was going to be great. She plays the deferential woman, but she will give him what for - and it seems that they have developed a relationship that's spirited in the right way. She looked radiant and graceful last night. Dressed in a floaty aqua number, to mix my reality tv show cliches, she owned that stage. She did look like she completely belonged there. It was great to see her husband Billy Connolly in her training footage. He might whinge about her dancing with a man half her age, but he's clearly very proud of her.

Bruno raved about the grace and elegance of her arm placement, saying that it was the best he'd ever seen on a first show and I think he's right. It was fantastic. I hope this partnership goes a very long way.

The show was like one of those dreams you really don't want to wake up from - and then all of a sudden there was a huge crash to reality when Paul Daniels took to the floor with Ola. The gimmicks this time were back to their traditional use - Ola's aim was to waste as much time as possible centring people's attention on a
box. Paul is 72 and wearing less well than Brucie who's 10 years older so you have to admire him for giving it a go, but he really has no sense of rhythm and his cha cha cha to Could it be Magic (or Tragic as Bruno said) was about as dire as it gets. It would have been bad even without the added embarrassment of him singing along. Paul disarmingly said "Whatever Craig says, I agree with him".

When I got up this morning I saw that Twitter was full of references to Paul having said something homophobic to Craig. What he actually said was "Don't give up your day job tasting sausages." Well, Twitter is very smutty, but it's a good job I know what my Strictly judges are up to. Our Craig is the face of British Sausage Week and will spend the week after Hallowe'en promoting the British banger. I love sausages, and they've had a bit of a bad press this year, so I hope Craig helps to give them a bit of good publicity.

As far as scores are concerned, Matt and Aliona shared the top of the leaderboard with Pamela and James, both with an impressive 31,  Then came Scott and Natalie with 29, Felicity and Vincent with 23, Patsy and Robin with 22, Goldie and Kristina with 20 and Paul and Ola with 16.  Injustice of the night (there's always one), was Felicity getting only one mark higher than Patsy. In my view she should have been a couple of marks below Scott.

As season openers go, that was one of the best we've ever had. And there's more to come tonight, in less than two hours. And, on top of that, there's one of the sexiest and most talented men on earth, Robbie Williams. What more could you ever want from a TV show?

New Strictly Titles!

Well all the pink and sparkles and fancy writing have gone to be replaced with something much more sleek and modern.

I like it though  - what do you think?