Strictly not dancing

Now the dust has settled on the 'Grand Final' (as opposed to any other kind of final), it seems a bit of perspective can be gleamed from the contest. Not that it changes anything, as Rachel and Vincent were robbed. Attractive couple that they are, Tom and Camilla wern't the best couple. Camilla, as a professional dancer, probably knows that she tried her best with Tom, but just couldn't drag him up to hit the heights until the show dance - the last of the routines. Rachel Stevens was far more natural, elegant and more technically polished, but Tom Chambers relied on his acting and his brazen good looks to brazen out the results (he never faced a dance-off). But, as with John Sergeant, the public weren't voting for the best dancing, but who they liked most, which makes a mockery of the title Strictly Come Dancing - since actually it is not that strict. They would be better to call it Strictly Come and Be Popular. At least Rachel knows that Tom lifted the trophy, but that bauble is for popularity, not skill and she, in reality, won the dance contest. It was the same for Lisa and Brendan. Some people didn't take to her (again accentuating the popular node of the contest), but when she finished third, despite scoring a perfect 80 out of 80, you could see Brendan wasn't too bothered, all smiling bonhomie and he must have prpeared her for that kind of result as well (since she had often been in the dance-off). He knew that, in professional terms, they were the best couple of the night and, having already won the contest in the first series, he was perfectly happy with the result. It was going to happen at some point that the best twosome would not take the competition. Tom may have won, but the other two couples can claim, with some justification, that in terms of strictly come dancing, they were the real winners.

Regarding last year's finalist Alesha Dixon and her comeback song, whose signature is that 'the boy' doesn't wash up, brush up or clean up, in fact, he does nothing. Now, it's a very catchy tune and Alesha's vocals certianly give it an infectious power, but the lyrics are ultra-retro. I can just imagine her on stage singing this, with a bemused George Formby by her side, silently, but plaintively pleading his case through incomprehension. It certainly hasn't got the sharp-eyed sassiness of Destiny's Child's ripostes to useless boyfriends 'No Scrubs' (which prompted from the male rapping fraternity a scathing answer in 'No Pigeons'). anway, I doubt very much that superstar Miss Dixon actually does much srcubbing, washing or cleaning herself when she can afford servants to do that kind of stuff. In the end, she gives the slob a second chance, but it's hard to see why he would change his ways - she only sticks with him not because he's great at housework, but because he's good at bedwork. To all those maligned men out there, however, is that doing the little things are often takne for granted. Why, I only did the washing-up last night for yesterday's dinner. My wife doesn't take me for granted though.