The Slippery Slope

A few weeks ago, I blogged about Strictly. I think it’s fair to say that this series has been controversial so far, and it’s been just about impossible to predict from week to week who will go, with some of the poorer dancers surviving on the basis of the public vote. I think that letting the judges decide who to save based on a ‘dance off’ has actually had the effect that wasn’t wanted, in that some people are voting to keep people out of the bottom two. It’s the ‘sympathy vote’ gone mad. I really don’t know who is voting for Kate Garraway though. I think Arlene’s comment yesterday said it all, ‘bored now’!

All of which is by way of introduction to the fact that I have identified my favourite over the last few weeks. And once you have a favourite, you begin to care, and as we know, that’s the dangerous stage.

I picked out Gethin Jones* as having the ‘cute’ factor from the start, but he didn’t really strike me as having the potential to go beyond a few weeks until his foxtrot. Suddenly, he was transformed. His Viennese waltz last week was beautiful, and he got 36, a fantastic score. I had no worries, as he was top of the leader board, with others.

This week, as soon as I discovered it was the rumba, I began to worry. It’s a notoriously difficult dance, a slow Latin, needing the hip action he’s been criticised as lacking. There’s also not that much for the man to do, and from what I can remember even gorgeous Mark Ramprakash wasn’t great at it.

I actually thought he did really well, but it wasn’t ‘showy’, and his marks were probably fair. He was in the middle of the leader board, always the most dangerous place, and pretty much what I’d expected (well, he was never going to be bottom with the likes of Kate and Kenny still in!).

I did the only thing I could do. I picked up the phone and voted. I hope it’s helped, as I don’t know the results yet!

*I think I may have to start watching Blue Peter – they seem to like taking his shirt off.