OI! FATTY! IT’S JANUARY SO YOU’D BEST GET ON THE TREADMILL! Is what I’d be shouting at you if I wasn’t one of you; a Festive over-indulger that left a world of salad and steak for one populated almost exclusively by Toblerone and Terry’s Chocolate Oranges. We’ve all been there and now you’re probably sitting clutching your list of New Year’s Resolutions desperately trying to convince yourself that you’ll achieve all of the things on it.

You won’t.

Why should you? You’re your own person and you don’t need a list of goals to tell you that you should probably crack open a bag of cress every now and then before you start to resemble Michelle MacManus & Rik Waller’s illicit love-child. You don’t even need a list of goals to tell you that it might be time to get yourself on a dating website and meet someone new before you fall into the arms of an ex-lover because you’re horribly lonely.

None of that matters though because there’s always something better than a list and in this case adverts are willing to take on the role of your conscience and the New Year ad schedule is packed with sanctimonious bullshit designed to get you out there into the world looking svelte and feeling amazing thanks to some pro-biotic yogurt.

That’s the thing about adverts, isn’t it? They play up to an accepted norm about the society that you live in. Take the hideous Morrisons advert in which two middle-aged children discuss the recession and the need for people to ‘tighten their belts’ in January. You think this is fine because they’re Northern but they’re actually creating a sickening dystopian vision of a world where children are no longer free to be children and have to think about food vouchers and Freddie Flintoff’s bath of gold doubloons. Of course, Morrisons are trying to add an innocent expression onto something that responsible adults seem to talk about all the time whereas some ad campaigns are just cynical.

Take a moment, shut your eyes and imagine a meeting room where six people are sitting. None of them are wearing suits or any kind of formal business attire and one is wearing a pair of tattered brogues with no socks. One man fiddles nervously with his spectacles as he examines the stoney faces around the room. They’ve been given the ultimate contract; a weight loss brand that needs a change of direction.

One woman in the group suddenly rolls back in her ergonomic back-supporting office chair and makes a loud exclamation of joy. “I’ve got it,” she shouts, “why don’t we show overweight people that if they follow the Weight Watchers plan, it’ll make them thin?!”

There is a stunned silence in the meeting room and the glass walls begin to de-mist as their collective breath is held. Everyone looks to the man wearing a rugby shirt at the head of the table. He nods sagely and the room erupts in applause. The creatives have done it again! Fat people can be thin and they will show them the light!

“Wait though!” Cries the man with no socks. “How can we convince our target audience of saturated fatties that they want to be thin and beautiful?” The room falls silent again: all that can be heard is the nervous tapping of pens on the table.

“What about writing a song and getting a pop star to sing it?” The quietest woman suggests. “We could make the lyrics really motivational so that they really speak to our target market?”

There is some muted discussion in the room. It’s too quiet for us to hear but we all know that they’re discussing who to have sing it. Rik Waller and Michelle MacManus are busy making babies and Craig Colton from last year’s X Factor is far too shit. They need someone that people can aspire to be like. Someone sassy and respectable that will quite literally sell their soul for money.

If only there was someone that fitted the bill. They have a long conversation and seem to come up with nothing. They’re standing up to leave, presumably off to think about it over some champagne and oysters when a Britain’s Got Talent judge walks into their office, looking for scraps.

“Hark!” They cry in unison as this fictional account becomes alarmingly Dickensian. They’ve found their woman. A sassy, respectable woman with a big, idiotic face who would quite literally sell her soul for money. They don’t even need to negotiate with her. Alesha’s shaking hands with them all before they even name a figure. Her only stipulation is that she doesn’t have to touch any of the fatties and that she doesn’t have to rap. She’s moving in a new direction.

Now you know how the Play Weight Watchers campaign came into being, aren’t you a little more open to its message and its 3 minutes and 14 seconds of bad miming, worse dancing and sanctimonious ‘body positive’ thrust? Doesn’t the sight of these people who, you’ve got to hand it to them, look great inspire you to go out there and go to meetings, living by a strict ‘point controlled’ system which requires you to lose weight by emptying your wallet?

Or does it still make you want to tear your own eyes out and stuff them into your ears so that you don’t have to see or hear this abomination ever again? What’s it going to be, fatso?

Winners and losers.

Folded:

• The Hangover (out now on DVD and funnier than a dog with no legs)
• Be original; buy a BlackBerry (get the different one)
• The Thick of It (so many put downs you’ll wish you were back at school)
• Eggnog latte (from Starbucks where the staff are a hell of a lot nicer than the customers)
• Hair wax (shiny)

Creased:

• Putting up Christmas decorations (more fun than taking them down, but still less enjoyable than sitting around doing nothing)
• Be boring; buy an iPhone (get the better one)
• Poor Malcolm Tucker (dark, less funny times are ahead)
• Alesha Dixon: Who’s Your Daddy? (don’t know who your father is? You now have Alesha as your spokeswoman. How d’you feel about that?)
• Hair gel (greasy)

10 - We don’t want this, because it’s not like we walk down the street bellowing “BALLOON PORN!” into our phones enough as it is. But thanks for telling us about it anyway, foetus…

9 – If Skins was really an accurate representation of teenage life, then it’d actually look just like this – Best Week Ever

8 - Ways to be cleverer – Readersdigest

7 - Movie monsters! Woo! – Wired

6 - A slow motion raspberry. Don’t watch if you’re eating anything, or thinking about eating anything – I Am Bored

5 - The Time Life photo archive is now online. Take two hours off from whatever you’re doing and marvel – Google

4 - Reasons why we love Jean Claude Van Damme, number 48 - Newsweek

3 - Want to listen to Alesha Dixon‘s new album? Yes you do. You do. You DO – Popjustice

2 - What does the new Lost poster teach us? Nothing, that’s what. Don’t look so surprised – Docarzt

1 - Remember Chocolate Rain? Ha ha ha. Oh, Chocolate Rain - Comedy

Alesha Dixon, remember her? Yes you do, she was the girl from Mis-Teeq who shouted everything like Pat Butcher impersonating a small dog. You know, the one whose husband had an affair with Javine off Eurovision.

OK, perhaps you know Alesha Dixon as the woman who won Strictly Come Dancing last year, beating such luminaries as That Woman Who Used To Be In EastEnders and A Bald Snooker Player. During Strictly Come Dancing, Bruce Forsyth repeatedly told Alesha that she was 'Europe's Beyonce.' And now that Alesha's got a new single coming out, entitled For You I Will perhaps it's time to see how true that prediction is. And we've got a teaser of the For You I Will video first. Lucky us!

But what's For You I Will by Alesha Dixon like? It's actually kind of alright, in a 'don't offend the grannies who watched Strictly Come Dancing' kind of way. It's a bit James Bond-y, Alesha looks pretty in the video, some of the instruments are made of bits of cars and – thankfully – there's no UK Garage-style rapping in it. But the video does cut off after one minute and 40 seconds, so maybe the second verse is a nang dubplate ragga freestyle remix. Or something. 

Let us know what you think of For You I Will by Alesha Dixon – out on iTunes on Monday – below, won't you.

Perhaps the greatest Christmas present a woman can receive is the gift of a gaudy mirrorball that looks like it was bought from a car boot sale, and that's what Alesha Dixon got after winning Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday.

Alesha Dixon won Strictly Come Dancing after a tense dance-off with her dancing rival Matt Di Angelo off EastEnders. Well, OK, maybe not tense – what with Alesha and Matt doing five dances each, all the old Strictly Come Dancing contestants doing a dance each, the Spice Girls singing a song accompanied by a dance and Bruce Forsyth doing a comedy song and dance number, watching the Strictly Come Dancing final felt a little bit like wading through treacle. But, hey, who cares – Alesha Dixon has now won Strictly Come Dancing and is now almost guaranteed to get this year's Christmas number one.

No, wait, that's the other one. What exactly do Strictly Come Dancing winners do again?

This year Strictly Come Dancing trounced X Factor in the ratings, and it's not hard to see why. In one corner you had Rod Stewart's wife with her bum hanging out and in the other hand you had a weird shouting Welsh alien singing 15 songs from the musicals that all sounded exactly the same. And, as any teenage boy will tell you, bums win. Even if the bums belong to Rod Stewart's wife.

So Saturday night's Strictly Come Dancing final was more than just an overlong dance assault presented by an old man and a woman dressed as a perfume bottle – it was a celebratory lap of honour that reminded everyone time and time and time again about every single thing that happened throughout Strictly Come Dancing from beginning to end in such detail that we may as well have not watched all the other episodes in the first place.

Seriously, everything. Presumably because the finalists had to do five dances – and therefore had to change sparkly sequinny outfits five times – the Strictly Come Dancing final was stuffed to the brim with any old filler that was at hand at any given point in time. Week-by-week retrospectives that reminded us that Kate Garraway couldn't dance and Dominic Littlewood was a bit of a twerp and Letitia Dean probably blasted vomit all over the place like a disgusting oil rig that smells of guts? Check. Dances by all these people that proved that they weren't so great after all? Check. Bruce Forsyth doing a big show-stopping number about how all women are suspicious of his constant sexually-predatory behaviour? Weirdly, check.

Dances by the two Strictly Come Dancing finalists? Oh yeah, that too. To win the coveted – yet painfully ugly - Strictly Come Dancing trophy, Matt Di Angelo and Alesha Dixon had to perform a punishing five dances each. At least we think it was five – by the time they'd both done three each we started to glaze over, all the dances seemed to blend into each other and we started to lose track of time. For all we know, Alesha and Matt might have danced anything up to a trillion dances each.

But we'll stick to five for now. Dancing their favourite ballroom dance, their favourite latin dance, some weird double dance to a T.Rex song, an identical dance danced identically at the same time as each other and a frantic piece of nonsense at the end. And picking either Matt Di Angelo or Alesha Dixon as the winner of Strictly Come Dancing was too close to call, which is something we learnt by having everyone involved in Strictly Come Dancing hitting us over the head with that fact every six or seven seconds.

In the end, though, Alesha Dixon was inevitably crowned as Strictly Come Dancing champion over Matt Di Angelo, which might have something to do with the way that at no point during the series did she muddle up her dance, go and sit on some steps and start crying like a big baby girl in front of millions and millions of viewers.

So congratulations to Alesha Dixon, who joins other Strictly Come Dancing winners like, um, that cricket bloke and, you, know, the others. Since winning Strictly Come Dancing, bookmakers have already slashed the odds of Alesha Dixon getting a number one record next year, even though nobody seems to have realised that, as gifted a dancer as she may be, when Alesha Dixon sings she makes a noise like a binbag of terrier puppies being pushed down some stairs.

Kenny to win.

Read more:

The Final: Results - Strictly Come Dancing 

We can't quite believe it, but it's the final of Strictly Come Dancing tomorrow night, as Alesha Dixon and Matt Di Angelo face off to, um, dance. And stuff.

It's an emotional time here – not just because it marks the end of Strictly Come Dancing, but because it also means we'll have to end our near-obsessive Strictly Come Dancing research on the Digital Spy forums. Whatever will we do without Strictly Come Dancing in our lives? What's that? What do you mean there's always Dance X? How dare you insult us like that! Get out! Go on, get out!

So, will Strictly Come Dancing 2007 be won by Matt Di Angelo or Alesha Dixon? Here's the Strictly Come Dancing betting odds for Alesha Dixon, with help from Paddy Power…

Alesha Dixon – So far throughout Strictly Come Dancing, Alesha Dixon has broken record after record. Most top scores, highest score ever, best use of dance to show an ex-husband how stupid for shtupping Javine after meeting at a Boney M-themed musical… and yet last week Alesha still found herself in the Strictly Come Dancing dance-off. So this week Alesha Dixon had it all to prove, and so she went about her Quickstep to Valerie with a ferocious amount of attack. Dressed in what seemed like a stolen wedding dress, Alesha thumped through her absurdly busy routine and made it look like the easiest thing in the world, even though if Letitia Dean tried it she'd be committed to an oxygen tent for the rest of her life. As for the Strictly Come Dancing judges, they were dumbstruck: "Alesha, you might be the last girl standing, but you look like the First Lady of dancing!" they said. SCORE – 38

Alesha's second Strictly Come Dancing dance was an Argentine Tango to I'd Be Surprisingly Good For You. Apparently the history of the Argentine Tango is about banging a bunch of whores, which meant that Alesha needed to put on an all-out display of sexuality. And she did – rubbing her bits up and down her partner like nobody's business and getting within a hair's breath of an actual tonguey snog at a couple of points. Alesha's dance made her nan – in the audience – cry, although we don't know if they we tears of happiness, sadness, sexual repulsion or what. Again, the Strictly Come Dancing judges mightily approved: "The irresistible power of subtle seduction. All the way through, it was great." SCORE – 38; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 1/3

Next week - bugger off, it's Christmas. But next year – Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack betting odds. Can you see how happy we are about that? Can you? But if that's too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Strictly Come Dancing betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

OK, OK, the Christmas number one is going to be that weird Scottish X Factor boy and his horrible Mariah Carey song – but let's forget about that.

Because for the first part of this week we'll be looking at the Christmas number one betting odds not including Sobby X Factor Cry-Boy. With him and his ratty hair and funny teeth out of the way, the Christmas number one betting odds market is wide open – wide open to all the other crummy ballads and shit-awful novelty records that are released at this time of year. And, really, isn't that what Christmas is all about? Isn't it?

Here are the Christmas number one betting odds for Soulja Boy, Alesha Dixon and Sugababes…

Soulja Boy, Crank That

You know how every single music channel seems to be on a constant loop of 'top 50 Christmas hits' shows at the moment? Well imagine if, in 20 years' time, one of these shows reminds you that the Christmas number one in 2007 was a novelty dance song about masturbation where the only comprehensible words spoken are 'Superman' and 'ohhhh!' You'd feel pretty shit, wouldn't you, especially when the children started crying and asking you why you let it happen? That's why you mustn't let Crank That by Soulja Boy anywhere near the Christmas number one spot. It's inevitable that in 20 years the children will be crying about you let sodding Leon from X Factor be the Christmas number one, but we can deal with that when we need to. Current Christmas number one betting odds – 12/1

Alesha Dixon, Let's Go Dancing

We're almost completely certain that Let's Go Dancing by Alesha Dixon won't be Christmas number one, for the simple reason that it doesn't even pissing exist. It could have existed – there was talk of Alesha recording a song set to the Strictly Come Dancing theme-song at one point, but she didn't do it. So don't bet on this one please. There is a version of Let's Go Dancing on iTunes at the moment, but that's been recorded by Dan McGrath and Josh Phillips and is unutterably dreadful, so we're not going to let it count, even if it does. Seriously, imagine someone going "Oooh baby salsa rumba dancing baby baby" over the Strictly Come Dancing opening titles just to annoy you. Let's Go Dancing is even worse than that. Current Christmas number one betting odds – 10/1

Sugababes, Change

In the distant pre-X Factor past, a group like Sugababes would have been frontrunners to become Christmas number one with a song like Change. It ticks just about every box that you could ask for in a Christmas number one – it's slow, it's ferociously important-sounding like it should be on a commercial for an airline or a government-subsidised documentary about racism, it's about your boyfriend either dumping you or dying in a horrible accident and it's got a video featuring some of the most preposterous eyelashes we ever did see. Two main reasons why Change by Sugababes won't be Christmas number one: 1) it's not an old Mariah Carey song performed by a red-eyed Scottish boy and 2) we've listened to it three or four times in a row now, and we still can't remember how it goes. Current Christmas number one betting odds – 10/1

Tomorrow - Christmas number one betting odds for Malcolm Middleton, Leona Lewis and Katie Melua & Eva Cassidy. But if that's too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Christmas number one betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

It’s the semi-final of Strictly Come Dancing tomorrow, which is exciting for more reasons that we could possibly ever count – although admittedly that would be more impressive if we could count any higher than two.

Nevertheless, Matt Di Angelo, Gethin Jones and Alesha Dixon will all slug it out tomorrow night to secure a place in that most prestigious of events, the Strictly Come Dancing final. It’s a spectacular affair and no mistake – the star-studded Strictly Come Dancing audience will contain four former EastEnders cast-members instead of the usual three, Bruce Forsyth will roll out the one original joke he’s been saving up all year and Arlene Phillips will only screech tortuously long alliterative sentences that begin with the letter Q, just to keep it special.

Who’ll win Strictly Come Dancing? Here’s the final part of this week’s Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – for Alesha Dixon – with help from Paddy Power…

Alesha Dixon – Alesha’s Strictly Come Dancing pedigree is there for everyone to see, because she’s now officially received more maximum scores than anyone else in the history of the show, with the exception of Tess Daly, who routinely gets awarded maximum scores from viewers for wearing unsuitable frocks made out of bits of old duvet. But anyway, Alesha Dixon is now so far ahead of the pack that she’s started to try and sabotage her own routines for fun, like during her Viennese Waltz to Memory where she decided to tie a bunch of snotty hankies to her sleeve just to see if anyone would bother taking points off her. They didn’t, obviously, with the Strictly Come Dancing judges so blown away that they started making inappropriate testicle jokes about it: “If you don’t get four tens for that, I’ll go home and pickle me walnuts!” SCORE – 38

And Alesha’s self-sabotage didn’t end there, because she then decided to perform her Strictly Come Dancing Paso Doble to a weird little piece of grubby fairground ghost-train music. But not even that could stop her living the drama of the dance, as her crazy bulging eyes and ferocious snarls proved only too well. “You felt it so much, but I would have liked the stamp to be stronger,” said the Strictly Come Dancing judges. Alesha Dixon, then – a wonderful dancer, but a pretty nightmarish-looking girlfriend. SCORE – 36; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 10/11

Next week – Strictly Come Dancing final betting odds! But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Strictly Come Dancing betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

If it’s Friday, it means that Strictly Come Dancing is almost here – and that means we’re so excited that we literally just crapped our pants. Literally.

With so few dancers left on Strictly Come Dancing, tomorrow’s show is the most important yet – to fill the yawning gap smashed into the Saturday teatime TV schedules for Strictly Come Dancing, the remaining contestants will have to perform 47 dances each, including one group dance that involves spinning around on your nose for half an hour. Are the dancers up to it? We’ll have to wait and see.

But in the meantime, who’ll win Strictly Come Dancing? Here are the Strictly Come Dancing betting odds for Alesha Dixon, with help from Paddy Power…

Alesha Dixon – Alesha Dixon is so obviously going to win Strictly Come Dancing that they may as well just do the decent thing and hand Alesha the trophy now, since at least that way Bruce Forsyth gets to have an extra-long hibernation this year and we won’t have to look at Tess Daly so much. Because Alesha Dixon is now so far ahead of the Strictly Come Dancing pack that she’ll get a billion points no matter what she does. For instance, Saturday’s Tango to Jealousy was almost uncomfortably violent, like watching a sequinny remake of Nil By Mouth. It was dramatic, snarling and furiously angry, and the Strictly Come Dancing judges knew it: “I can only see headlines: The Tantalising Tango Temptress Triumphs!” said one of them, not realising that newspapers probably have better things to do than make weak alliterative puns about one woman’s ability to dance for 80 seconds. SCORE – 38.

OK, maybe we were over-exaggerating just now – Alesha Dixon doesn’t get a billion points for everything she does. Her Rumba to Reach Out (I’ll Be There), although flawless-looking to the naked eye, narked off the Strictly Come Dancing judges beyond belief, who told her that “I only want perfection from you, and for me that wasn’t – you have a lazy leg.” And the judges then doled out the harshest punishment possible – they gave Alesha Dixon a score that was only marginally better than everyone else’s. SCORE – 36; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 1/3

Next week - X Factor betting again. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Strictly Come Dancing betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

By rights, after all this time the only dancers left of Strictly Come Dancing should be the cream of the crop, the cat’s pyjamas, the bee’s knees, the mutt’s nuts, the monkey’s junk.

And, not accounting for a couple of mediocrities, that’s true. And then there’s Kenny Logan – the single most entertaining thing about Strictly Come Dancing. While Bruce Forsyth mangles his jokes, Tess Daly contorts her mouth into all kinds of crazy shapes and Alesha Dixon – ugh – dances well, Kenny Logan has taken the mantle of Strictly Come Dancing underdog. The man can’t dance – he refuses to dance – and just wants to stomp around independently of any music that happens to be playing, doing his best to force laserbeams to shoot out of his eyes. In short, Kenny Logan deserves to win Strictly Come Dancing. He won’t of course; he’s useless.

So who will win Strictly Come Dancing this year? Here are the Strictly Come Dancing betting odds for Kenny Logan, Matt Di Angelo and Alesha Dixon, with help from Paddy Power…

Kenny Logan – We’re coming to learn to be disappointed whenever Kenny Logan wears sleeves on his Strictly Come Dancing costume, because it means that he probably won’t try to smash up the stage by angrily stamping his feet like usual. And, as expected, that’s precisely what Kenny didn’t do on Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing. During his American Smooth to How Sweet It Is, we even thought we saw Kenny smile for a moment, although hopefully we were wrong and it was a wonky growl instead. But then, just when we thought that the old Kenny we know and love had disappeared, Kenny stopped all the smooth, in-time twirling and lifted his partner over his head. Could he? Would he? Sadly, no, Kenny didn’t roar “HULK SMAAASH!” and bodyslam her into a wall – turns out it was just a Dancing On Ice-style fancy lift. It broke our heart to see it, but the Strictly Come Dancing judges liked it, the idiots. “It’s overwhelming, the step you’ve taken,” one said. Morons. SCORE – 30; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 50/1

Matt Di Angelo – As previous instalments of Strictly Come Dancing have shown, Matt Di Angelo is not against acting like a preening bell-end if it means he’ll increase his chance of winning the show. But on Saturday Matt seemed to hit the ceiling of his twattiness-threshold, complaining that his Salsa to Vehicle made him look like a tit. And we can’t imagine what he was talking about – there’s nothing tittish about dressing up in a sparkly black skin-tight shirt slashed open to the belly button, spazzing around like toddler doing an impression of a worm-infested tyrannosaurus rex, thrashing his shoulder about like an amputee trying to swim away from a shark and then actually kicking a woman in the face. Oh, no, wait – all of those things are pretty tittish. But what do we know, because the Strictly Come Dancing judges loved it so much they even briefly pretended to not be ten thousand years old, spurting out nonsense like “You’re bringing sexy back,” and “You’re turning into the Spice Boy of the competition!” SCORE: 38 – Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 9/2

Alesha Dixon – It’s getting ever so slightly dull to say, but Alesha Dixon is quite good at dancing. Whatever dance she’s asked to do, Alesha Dixon comes out and does very well. And not even doing a Cha Cha Cha to Crazy In Love, something that – had Willie Thorne attempted it – would have been all over YouTube in videos called things like ‘Look at this baldy wanker’, could mess Alesha up. It was sexy, it was perfectly synchronised to the music, it was so energetic that we suspect not even the loneliest old man in the country could masturbate to it properly – and it got a ridiculously high score for it in the process. “This is a two horse competition at the moment, and you are one of the horses,” the Strictly Come Dancing judges told her, which seems a little unkind – a Shetland pony at best, yes, but not a horse. A Shetland pony with a lovely mane. Oh, lovely Shetland ponies. SCORE – 39; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 2/5

Next week – X Factor betting odds again. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Strictly Come Dancing betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

It’s a weird thought, that Strictly Come Dancing will happen tomorrow without Kate Garraway plonking around like a woman without any knees – it’s almost like the Strictly Come Dancing judges are winning.

We can’t let this happen. It’s a little-known fact that when a bad dancer is voted off Strictly Come Dancing, a fairy dies. And is that what you want? Is it? Dead fairies all over the place? No, of course not. That’s why it’s imperative that you keep Kenny Logan in Strictly Come Dancing tomorrow. Yes, the judges will all go bright purple if he isn’t voted out and, yes, he’s very obviously useless at dancing. But Kenny Logan represents the underdog in all of us, and to vote him out would be to succumb to the bullies, to the bosses, to everyone who’s ever held you back in life. Plus he dances like an idiot and it’s funny.

Who’s going to win Strictly Come Dancing this year? Here are the Strictly Come Dancing betting odds for Gethin Jones, John Barnes, Alesha Dixon and Matt Di Angelo, with betting odds from Paddy Power…

Gethin Jones – All through Strictly Come Dancing Gethin Jones has had problems expressing passion; although he’s roughly as passionate as a box of three-week-old sawdust, his partner and the Strictly Come Dancing judges all want him to be able to break hymens on sight. Could he manage this with his Rumba to Lost on Saturday’s show? Nope – even though he had an untied bowtie around his neck, all Gethin could manage was a small amount of forehead-touching. That’s a slight improvement on last week’s wink, so there’s still hope for Gethin yet – maybe in about a million years he’ll actually be ready for full sex. The Strictly Come Dancing judges were disappointed too, and marked the dance like a bunch of pensioners who’d misplaced their viagra, telling Gethin that “That was well executed, everything was there, but it lacked the lady killer instinct.” So that’s what Gethin needs to do – murder more ladies. SCORE – 31; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 6/1

John Barnes – Give John Barnes some latin rhythms to dance to and he’ll jolt about like someone’s replaced his lower spine with an electric whisk, but make him do a ballroom dance and he’s rubbish. On Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing, John Barnes did a ballroom dance – a Tango to Dance With Me – so you can probably guess how it went. Apparently the secret to the Tango is all about performance, and anyone who remembers John Barnes’ 1990 advert for Lucozade Sport knows that performance isn’t his strong suit. This was amply reinforced during his routine, where John was concentrating so hard on stopping his hip from spazzing out that all trace of personality was beaten to the ground. The Strictly Come Dancing judges were equally unimpressed, saying “I felt nothing when you did this dance.” Poor lambs. SCORE – 28; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 40/1

Alesha Dixon – It’s getting harder and harder to remember that Alesha Dixon was once in a vaguely urbanish girlgroup who released an album that – we think – was all about how much they liked deviant sexual practises involving tongues and anuses, because on Strictly Come Dancing Alesha Dixon is near-perfect week after week after week. On Saturday, Alesha’s Waltz to A Time For Us was typically flawless and she managed to nail it both technically and emotionally, getting an impossibly high score and leaving the Strictly Come Dancing judges almost speechless: “Floaty, fluid, flawless – I was carried away and I forgot where I was” they said. Alesha Dixon is far and away the favourite to walk off with the Strictly Come Dancing title this year, and that’s the way it’ll stay unless she decides to revisit her arse-tonguing past onstage in the coming weeks. SCORE – 38; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 8/15

Matt Di Angelo – Having barely survived the Strictly Come Dancing dance-off in the previous show, Matt Di Angelo knew he had it all to play for on Saturday’s show, which is why he chose to do an eye-meltingly complicated Quickstep to Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby. Leaping about like a gazelle having its hooves shot at by a grizzled old cowboy, Matt somehow overcame the impossible and managed to pull off the whole routine without getting his legs caught around his neck and choking himself to death. And because he didn’t end up kicking himself in the eye, Matt was justly rewarded by the Strictly Come Dancing judges, who told him that “That was the most difficult and complex choreography we’ve ever seen on show.” More than that, being in a dance-off also forced Matt to add some humility to the routine, which is why, for the first time, we didn’t want to slap him in his silly little face during the dance. We know. We’re sorry. SCORE – 34; Current Strictly Come Dancing – 5/1

Next week – X Factor betting odds. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Strictly Come Dancing betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

This season of Strictly Come Dancing is turning up all kinds of surprises, as Saturday’s shock elimination of Penny Lancaster proved only too well.

So far that’s two potential winners gone in Penny Lancaster and Gabby Logan, while Kate Garraway and Kenny Logan – a spam-footed embarrassment and a graceless thumping monster – are still in the running. Despite what the Strictly Come Dancing judges say, this is absolutely the right way to go. With anything luck, if this keeps happening, Kate Garraway will be crowned as the Strictly Come Dancing champion by Christmas. And that means a) anyone who took advantage of Kate Garraway’s long betting odds will be richer than they could ever imagine and b) Bruno Tonioli‘s face will explode.

Who’s going to win Strictly Come Dancing? Here are the Strictly Come Dancing betting odds for Kenny Logan, John Barnes, Kelly Brook and Alesha Dixon, with help from Paddy Power…

Kenny Logan - Maybe our expectations of Kenny Logan are too high, but in our entire lives we haven’t experienced disappointment on a scale that we experienced watching Kenny doing a Viennese Waltz to Flower Of Scotland on Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing. We were expecting all the things we’ve come to love from Kenny Logan’s dancing – borderline-obscene outfits, a fire-eyed look of fury, an impressive refusal to even attempt to dance to the music and an unsettling impersonation of a rapist committing a hate crime – but set to bagpipe music. And while the rehearsals looked promising – with Kenny Logan becoming so furious that he started battering his own face at one point – the actual Strictly Come Dancing routine itself was a let-down. Kenny was smooth, Kenny was graceful, Kenny – frankly – did a decent job. The Strictly Come Dancing judges even went as far as to tell Kenny that “You came out and you dominated that floor. No question, your best dance so far.” We feel sick. SCORE – 26; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 80/1

John Barnes – OK, we’ll admit that we were wrong. It wasn’t John Barnes’ shrinking frame that was stopping him from doing well at Strictly Come Dancing – it was the fact that he was being made to do dances that didn’t allow him to flail his hips around like a professional hula-hooper with post traumatic stress disorder. Because on Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing, John Barnes got to dance the Salsa to an unstoppably generic piece of music, and it was easily his most convincing routine of Strictly Come Dancing so far. Throwing his hips around like someone was prodding him in the arse with a cattle brand, John Barnes looked the happiest we’ve seen him since New Order let him do the World In Motion rap instead of Tony Adams, and it showed – the buoyant mood even rubbed off on the Strictly Come Dancing judges who declared that “I was bathing in the ocean of that cuban motion!” Again, we’re not really sure what this means. SCORE – 36; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 18/1

Kelly Brook – By getting picked up more than she was supposed to and waggling a cape around, Kelly Brook’s Strictly Come Dancing journey so far has been tinged with the sort of controversy that only a professional dancing judge could bother giving a shit about, but on Saturday’s show Kelly Brook had the chance that she was a dancer first and a controversy magnet second. And a rubbish actress third. Dancing the Viennese Waltz to Delilah, Kelly Brook really entered into the spirit of the song by repeatedly spurning the sexual advances of Brendan Cole – something that she probably managed to learn how to do by repeatedly spurning the sexual advances of Brendan Cole week after week in real life. And the routine was such a success that, for the first time in weeks, the Strictly Come Dancing judges didn’t just gargle and splutter like outraged pensioners afterwards, either, saying that “beauty and the beast have danced back into the fairytale.” We don’t know what fairytale they were talking about, but it’s probably a shit one. About dancing. SCORE – 36; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 3/1

Alesha Dixon – That’s it. We give in. There’s literally no dance that Alesha Dixon can’t do, aside from the dance that expresses forgiveness to her husband for boning Javine behind her back. Admittedly dancing a Salsa to a Michael Jackson song is closer than usual to her day job – shouting the word “Flava” over and over again while pulling her ‘street’ face, but she still managed to do it extraordinarily well, keeping perfectly in time with her partner and even grinding her bottom on his genitals convincingly, even though he looks a bit like an effeminate blonde Dracula mannequin. And the Strictly Come Dancing judges were so overwhelmed by Alesha’s dancing that they started hurling insults at her under the illusion that they were compliments. “You’ve got more hips than Cuba all put together. Hot hot hot!” is an insult, right? SCORE – 35; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 10/11

Next week: X Factor betting odds again. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Strictly Come Dancing betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

Tomorrow’s Strictly Come Dancing will be the toughest instalment yet, because the lesser Strictly Come Dancing competitors are falling by the wayside fast, leaving just eight dancers to pretend they stand a chance against Alesha anyway.

Apparently the Strictly Come Dancing dances being danced tomorrow are the Viennese Waltz and the Samba, with one competitor dancing to an Alicia Keys song, another dancing to a Michael Jackson song and someone dancing to Flower Of Scotland. That last one had better be Kenny Logan, because we get the feeling that our entire lives have been leading up to the moment that we get to see a graceless hulk angrily thwump around a stage scaring the young to the sound of sodding bagpipes.

Who’s going to win Strictly Come Dancing? Here are the Strictly Come Dancing betting odds for Alesha Dixon, Kate Garraway, Matt Di Angelo and Penny Lancaster, with betting odds from Paddy Power…

Alesha Dixon - Alesha Dixon is turning out to be the Leona Lewis of Strictly Come Dancing – week after week she turns in performances so dazzling that her near-perfection starts to get boring after a while. For Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing, Alesha needed to do a Foxtrot to Heaven – something she was dreading because she said she’s not very romantic. However, after her Nans came to visit with cream cakes and – confusingly – outfits they seemed to have stolen from the Dad’s Army wardrobe department, everything was sorted out and Alesha managed to bash out the highest-scoring Strictly Come Dancing routine of the night, and the Strictly Come Dancing judges told her that it was “Full of grace, I’m enchanted.” So Alesha is a potential Strictly Come Dancing winner, but a smidge of personality would be nice – maybe tomorrow she can charge about like a rapist like Kenny Logan does. SCORE – 36; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 6/5

Kate Garraway – By rights Kate Garraway should have been public enemy number one after the public voted to keep her in Strictly Come Dancing at the cost of the technically superior Gabby Logan, but everyone knows you can’t be public enemy number one when an army of middle-aged men open lust after your cleavage, so the whole controversy was neatly brushed under the carpet by the time Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing rolled around. And just to make matters worse, Kate Garraway’s Foxtrot to I Could Write A Book wasn’t offensively terrible either. True, the reason it wasn’t terrible is because Kate Garraway had appeared to sellotape herself to her partner so he could just haul her around the stage as gracefully as he possibly could without her ever having to break free and nause things up, but it worked – the Strictly Come Dancing judges said the routine had: “beautiful pivots, I never expected what I just saw.” It confused us too, and we’re just hoping normality is returned next week when Kate Garraway jolts about like a broken robot likes she usually does. SCORE – 26; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 100/1

Matt Di Angelo – Matt Di Angelo, the cockiest little upstart since Little Lord Fauntleroy, gained the highest score in the previous Strictly Come Dancing. We suspected this meant that he’d totally overshoot for Saturday’s show and try a routine so complicated that his legs would snap off and he’d gore his own stomach with his shins. And we were sort of right – Matt Di Angelo’s Paso Doble to Smooth Criminal was so fiddly that it seemed to be put together with the sole intention of making the crowd go “Woooooo!” every three or four seconds. Thanks to the song choice, Matt Di Angelo was only a bottle of Jesus Juice and a bowl of giraffe blood away from a full-on Michael Jackson impersonation. And the Strictly Come Dancing judges agreed with us too, telling Matt that “It wasn’t a Paso in my mind.” But the criticism is good, as is anything that makes Matt Di Angelo less insufferable. SCORE – 31; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 3/1

Penny Lancaster - Having narrowly missed elimination from Strictly Come Dancing two weeks ago, Penny Lancaster knew she had to win the public over with her Foxtrot to This Can’t Be Love. And, since the public proved that it doesn’t like the sight of Penny Lancaster with her hair down waggling her bum about, for Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing she wore her hair up and kept her arse mercifully covered, too. And it worked, too – even though we thought the whole thing was duller than a trip to a digestive biscuit factory, the Strictly Come Dancing judges gave Penny her biggest ever score, telling her that she danced “like Champagne,” whatever the balls that means. Still, we can’t imagine that it’s endeared her to the public any more than usual, though, the leggy git. SCORE – 36; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 12/1

Next week – X Factor betting odds! But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Strictly Come Dancing betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

You may have heard the fuss by now – Gabby Logan was eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday, and everyone reacted like a dinosaur had barged into the studio, eaten both their parents then pooed them out into a hat.

Why did Gabby Logan get the shove from Strictly Come Dancing? After all, she was one of the frontrunners to win Strictly Come Dancing from the outset and had consistently shown that she was capable of near-superhuman determination. In fact, that was probably the reason itself – Gabby Logan was so determined to smash her opposition into dust that she came off a bit like a joyless blonde Terminator. Gabby may have thought she was smiling during her Strictly Come Dancing samba on Saturday, but it was actually a snarl, and not even a very sexy one at that.

Slightly different this week – we’re running Strictly Come Dancing betting odds for the next elimination, so here’s part one – for Alesha Dixon, Dominic Littlewood, Kate Garraway, John Barnes and Kenny Logan – with betting odds from Paddy Power…

Alesha Dixon – As part of Britain’s foremost urban R&B two-step garage girlband Misteeq, Alesha Dixon didn’t really get the chance to be elegant very often. She got the chance to bark like a Tourettes-afflicted dog getting attacked with tasers, yes, but nothing that suggested she could do anything particularly classy. However, Strictly Come Dancing is showing that there’s far more to Alesha than just standing round looking a bit street some of the time, and her American Smooth to Top Hat White Tie And Tails had the Strictly Come Dancing judges all agog at her ability to turn all the way around. “Amazing control through the spins, you’ve really got that nailed.” SCORE – 33; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 50/1

Dominic Littlewood – Something we hate more than anything is when people we meet refuse to give us any cruel gossip about the people we write about. That happened last week with Dominic Littlewood, who is apparently ‘lovely’ according to a woman we met. But if Dominic Littlewood is so lovely, then why do we want to punch things when we see him on Strictly Come Dancing? His routine to Straighten Up And Fly Right on Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing was full of the same old cheeky chappy moments that everything else he ever does is full of, including a bewildering Dancing On Ice-style lift performed with all the panache of a scampish schoolboy who’s been caught chewing in class. But the Strictly Come Dancing judges seem to be lapping it all up, telling Dominic “if anyone had told me there’d be anything smooth about you, I’d say they were lying, but this girl has polished you like a diamond!” SCORE – 26; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 6/1

Kate Garraway – Kate Garraway will be the first to admit that she isn’t too hot at the dancing, although she says that’s because she hurt her leg a while ago. That might not be strictly true, because the further Kate Garraway gets into Strictly Come Dancing the more we’re convinced that she’s just a terrible dancer. For instance, Kate’s samba to Dancing Queen on Saturday literally consisted of Kate standing still and her partner pushing her into different positions occasionally. The Strictly Come Dancing judges weren’t buying it either: “More like a dancing quail than a dancing queen” they told her. However, despite clearly being the worst contestant on the show, we’d imagine that Kate Garraway will still go some way on Strictly Come Dancing because she gets to waggle her boobs around, something that she sadly doesn’t do too often on GMTV. SCORE – 16; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 2/1

John Barnes – Last week we noted that all of John Barnes’ dancing ability comes from his massive gut, and that the more weight he loses the worse he gets at dancing. That was the case again on Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing, when he hobbled like a builder throughout his American Smooth to Stay With Me. It was something that the Strictly Come Dancing judges picked up on, and they told John: “You messed it up big time. You lost your footing, then your posture went, then your personality went.” And it’s obvious that if John Barnes keeps losing weight then he’ll only keep deteriorating. Someone get that man a vanload of KFC and a cake the size of a donkey’s head. Fast! SCORE  – 22; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds -  7/1

Kenny Logan – Kenny Logan is without question the only reason to watch Strictly Come Dancing, because we’re not even sure what he does qualifies as dancing – it’s a sort of angry flailing that we’re almost positive is illegal in some countries. So we were thrilled to see that his samba to Mujer Latina was not a disappointment; in fact it was like watching the inner workings of a fever-stricken rapist’s mind, full of alarming hip thrusts, furious stomping and, at one point, a perfect impersonation of those inflatable waving men you sometimes see outside second-hand car dealerships. Although it left us giddy from giggling, the Strictly Come Dancing judges told him that “It looked drunk to me… You have the grace of a vacuum cleaner! It was bad.” SCORE – 18; Current Strictly Come Dancing betting odds – 2/1

Tomorrow: Strictly Come Dancing betting odds for Kelly Brook, Gethin Jones, Letitia Dean, Penny Lancaster and Matt Di Angelo. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Strictly Come Dancing betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.