Ballroom Blitz

You know winter's coming when the nights start before you finish work. What is the point of turning the clocks back. We all have to suffer just so some highland heffers can get to the milking shed in daylight. Wouldn't it just be less hassle to give them torches?

The other thing that tells us it's time to whack on the central heating is the Saturday evening battle of the egos. Strictly Come Dancing faces off to X Factor again in the frantic, annual ratings battle that makes sure all of us are completely confused about what time the shows start. This is why Sky+ was invented.

Simon's show hasn't gripped me yet. I love the auditions but I'm struggling to get excited about the live perfomance shows. Nothing seems to be working this year. The songs are badly chosen and none of the acts really seem up to the challenge. The only person who seems unphased by it all is that cocky Welsh git with vampire hair. Get 'rid o' him'! Sorry.

The only thing of note this year has been us getting a sneaky peep of the real Sharon Osbourne when she threw a wobbly because the public put a couple of her dodgy acts in the bottom 2. It was very unprofessional and to be honest would we really care if we never saw her and her black bridesmaids dresses ever again.

More of X Factor later. I'm flicking over to Strictly now.

Doesn't it just warm the heart when Brucey shuffles his feet and spins Tess across the floor before missing his cue and mugging at the cameras. Oh how we laugh. He could make a career out of this. He's finding it so hard to read autocue these days. I think they should revert to large print on big white cards for the old duffer. OK he's great for his age but should we really be subjected to progressive dementia in the guise of a light entertainment show?

This year the celebs are really going for it. Most of them seem too competitive for my liking and burst into tears if they're snubbed by the judges. I reckon Alesha & Gabby might resort to poison & knee capping to keep themselves ahead in the competition.

Poor Anton has had to contend with Kate Garraway's swollen tendons and her inablity to walk across the floor without tripping. No wonder they keep her sat down on GMTV.

Kenny Logan's samba was more like watching something off WWE Smackdown than a dancing competition. He's threatening to wear a kilt next week in a futile attempt to drum up some support. If he survives this week we may get an eyeful of his Paso Doblés!

Gethin Jones has a great game plan. He's spent the last two weeks thrusting his groin at Craig and Arlene. I bet they both need a quick wipe down with and extra strength Bounty after he's performed.

The wardrobe girls have a great sense of fun this year. They keep putting poor old Chubby Barnes in tight lemon satin and pink lycra. Makes him look like Letitia Dean if she lost a few pounds. I feel sorry for the lovely Darren Bennet. He must feel like he's dancing with a wheelie bin that's been on Pimp My Ride.

Deano off Enders is quite good but I'm so fascinated by the way his hairy chest joins up with his beard that I can't concentrate on his dancing.

Dominic Littlelegs is just a munchkin on a spring with about as much rhythmn as Captain Scarlet.

Penny Longlegs Stewart is sweet but as tall as a house. I'm not sure tall people make good dancers. Her jive last week looked like an ostrich having a seizure.

Kelly is my favourite. Pure Hollywood glamour. Shame she's lumbered with the ugly Kiwi lothario. I'd love to see Billy Zane deck the greasy twat.

I reckon Kate will go tonight but part of me hopes the public will keep her in just to annoy the judges and give us another glimpse of Anton's chest.

Pole to Pole a.k.a Bugger off Michael Palin

Another trip to Liverpool. I wonder what new treats lay in store on my Virgin voyage to the City of Yob Culture. I should have seen the warning signs when I got a Polish cab driver who didn't know where East Croydon station was. He'd only been in the country for 3 days. The gangly Pole had bloodshot eyes and smelled of paint. He had a strange hairline on his neck. It looked like he'd had a haircut at sea during a typhoon. Can you get a boat from Poland to Dover?

He probably got here a lot faster than it took me to get up to Liverpool on that Sunday. Six and a half bloody hours it took. I think we went via Dundee! I wouldn't have minded really. I had a load of magazines and 12 hours of Iain Lee Podcasts to catch up on. Everything was quite peaceful as we eased gently through The Chilterns. However just as I was getting the hang of my new Bluetooth headphones the tranquility was shattered. We were invaded by a group of Eastern European fruit pickers who piled on at Milton Keynes Central. I've never seen such bright and colourful chunky knits since Wincey Willis left GMTV.

The Iain Lee podcast almost blotted out the noise of the chattering Poles and I was just getting into the chill zone again when this woman with a glass eye and wearing what looked like a tambourine on her head started singing.

All this and the bloody shop was shut for stocktaking so I couldn't even have a stiff drink to calm my increasingly taught nerves.

I don't know what happened next but as we approached Crewe the whole lot of them went quiet and fell asleep. I've heard that Crewe is a really dull place but never seen it have such a dramatic affect on humans before. Crewe did the business and we had peace and blissful quiet for the rest of the trek North.

Arrived at my hotel feeling slightly weary with my jeans slipping down my arse. I'd forgotten to bring a belt. Thank God I had my nice Abercrombie & Fitch pants on!

I struggled up to my room with my trolley case, man bag, steam iron and ironing board. Every bloody door had a security lock on it and I had to drop the ironing board and iron to stick the stupid card in the slot. I thought I'd be clever and put the key card in my mouth as I made my way to my room. I was breathing hard now and had a bead of sweat tickling my left cheek as I clattered along the corridor.

At last I reached my room and bent down to stick the card in the door. The red light came on. Pulled it out with my teeth and tried again. Red. I was now pushing it in and out with my head bobbing up and down at the lock. Red, Red, Red. I was getting pissed off now and dropped the iron. I tried to catch it but lost my grip on the ironing board. I went with the momentum as it fell and stumbled back on top of my trolley case. Two old American women who were passing helped me up and it was then I realised that my jeans were now round my knees! I think I made their evening as I couldn't get rid of them as they tried to help me, my luggage and my A&F undies into the room.

I was too knackered to go out for dinner so I ordered room service. A spotty Pole delivered a pizza that looked like it had been zapped by a death ray from the planet Mongo. To accompany this cheesy cow pat I had a dirty glass of Shiraz that tasted like boiled iron filings.

I crashed out on my bed to watch Michael Palin going round Europe. I'm sure I recognised a couple of people from the journey to Liverpool. I must have drifted off to sleep but was woken up by mobile ringing. I got up with a start and slammed my foot into the leg of the bed. As I hopped around the room swearing into my phone I realised I'd ripped part of my nail off and there was blood pouring from my little toe. I went to bed with my foot wrapped in an M&S napkin and a blood stained sock.

The journey home was pretty boring by my standards and my toe had recovered by the following weekend. The bruising had gone down just in time for me to squeeze into my new Paul Smith shoes for my mates 40th birthday party.

There was six of us getting ready for the party at my place. It smelled like the House of Fraser perfumery department and there was lots of whooping and dancing around to 12" Hits of the 80s. We all agreed that A Flock of Seagulls were shit. As usual, the cab was late but we finally piled out and into a grey people carrier that stank of kebabs and ashtrays.

I told the driver where we were going. He looked at me blankly. Tapped his Tom Tom and this robot voice started giving him directions in Polish. Half an hour later we were on the M25. We shouldn't have been.............

Wimoweh a Wimoweh.....

A bloke starts a new job at the zoo and is given 3 tasks on his first day.

The first one is to clean the weeds from the exotic fish pool. While he's doing this a huge fish jumps out and bites him. To show the others who's boss he beats the fish to death with a spade.

Realising his new employer won't be best pleased he disposes of the fish by feeding it to the lions, as he knows lions will eat anything.

Moving on to his second job he starts cleaning out the chimp house and is attacked by them as they pelt him with coconuts. He swipes at two chimps with his spade, killing them both. Thinking quickly he decides to feed them to the lions as he knows lions will eat anything. He hurls the corpses into the lion enclosure before his boss finds out.

He moves onto his final task which is to get honey from the South American bees. As soon as he starts he's attacked and stung by the bees. He grabs his spade and smashes the bees to a pulp.

By now he knows what to do so he throws the bees into the lion enclosure. He knows that lions will eat anything.

Later that day a new lion arrives at the zoo and it wanders up to another lion and says 'What's the food like here?'. The other lion says 'Absolutely brilliant. Today we had fish and chimps with mushy bees'

If You Can't Stand the Heat.......

Well the withdrawal from Big Brother 8 has been painful this year. I decided to keep busy by removing a skin tag from my neck with this herbal concoction that I found online. I should have resisted. The web site looked like it had been created by some kid doing a GCSE project. The warning signs were there but I still found myself giving away my credit card details to some unknown potion peddlar from Cheadle.

I guess you get what you pays for. After a week of this miracle treatment I have an unsightly burn under my ear that looks like I've been given a love bite by Esther Rantzen. The painful throbbing and peeling flesh feels like isolated sunburn. Like I've been poked with a Star Wars light sabre. The skin tag has turned black so I think it's working but next time I'm just gonna bite on a face cloth and snip it off with the nail clippers.

The nights are drawing in and I'm struggling to find something to replace Big Brother. I can't stick these cooking shows. Chefs seem to me like spoilt kids who really ought to have had their legs slapped by their Mums when they were kids. Mothers have a lot to answer for I think. I'm convinced that adoring Mothers are the main reason why the male of our species can't function selflessly in the real world.

Any road up. Back to the 'reality' world and Hell's Kitchen. I've never seen this show before due to my chef allergy but found myself being sucked in by Angus Deaton's dry and hilarious commentary. The man is a comedy genius and he's got great legs too.

The celebrity cooks are the usual bunch of n'er do wells. Someone called Rosie, who looked like a potato and should have know better, was the first person kicked out of the kitchen. However she was beaten to the door by the blonde one from Blue. You know. The one who did the high bits. He had an altercation with Jim 'what's his name' and then after a moody stare-out with Marco he was stripping down to his white vest and returning to obscurity before the 2nd ad break.

Abi Clancy seems to be doing well in the dessert department. I'm sure there's a few blokes out there who only watch the show to see her puddings.

Nice to see my favourite Big Brother winner back on prime time telly. Brian Dowling's mincing skills might be an assett in there but I hope he manages to resist licking too many bowls.

The patrons of the Hell's Kitchen restaurant are also a mix of the rich and semi-famous. Ziggy was there the other night. He was Chanelle-less and having dinner with that Aussie bloke with a red Mohawk who specialises in managing tomorrow's chip papers.

And finally I have to get back to The Chef himself. There's footage every night of various female diners with excessive cleavages getting themselves hot and damp over the grumpy bloke with a napkin on his head. I just can't see it.

I get Gordon Ramsay. I can also see that Jamie has a certain Cockney cheeky charm. This Marco bloke has the personality of a wasp and looks like a John McEnroe auditioning for The Hair Bear Bunch.

Give me a Gino D'Acampo any day of the week. In fact I'd rather have Fanny!