Last Friday and Saturday night Strictly Come Dancing returned to our screens for a brand new series and I think my verdict is…..STILL IN LOVE WITH IT BUT NOT AS MUCH AS I ONCE WAS! Now granted, as I write this blog I need to openly declare that I am in a bit of a grumpy mood today regarding the rugby last night e.g England threw away a massive game against Wales and lost. Only after tweeting five angry tweets about it this morning could I then start to feel my anger finally start to dissipate somewhat. Anyway back to Strictly.  Yes, I enjoyed bits of it but then again other parts irritated me like they never have done so before!

I guess like when the new series The Great British Bake Off recently started, one of my first views of this new series of Strictly is that it all just felt a bit samey to me last night. Samey in a perfectly enjoyable entertaining way, but at the same time this ‘sameness’ irked me after the long marathon watch.   The intro-VT clips started to wear me down after awhile. Watching how they trained in the week is interesting(the Kirsty Gallagher footage for example), but whoever writes the jokes in them DEFINITELY  needs a new joke book.  I think the corniest being Peter Andre having a ‘hip-hop gangster…OFF’ with his professional partner Janet Manrara.

I think the judges are good bunch and sooooooooooo much better than that other lot over on X-Factor who all have massively inflated egos, however even Len and his witticisms started to get on my goat last night.  It was when he said something like, “hold me upside down and smack my bottom”…..not just randomly I should add, I mean when he was giving his critique to a performance.  His infamous “pickle my walnuts” line from previous series really made me laugh. This new line with the over-the-top hysterical reaction from the studio audience, it just made me frown and groan rather than making me laugh.

I am not sexist AT ALL but I am also still not sure that having two female presenters works that well either. I like Tess when she just does the straight presenting stuff but she is too comedy as what I am to origami. i.e. hopeless. Claudia Winkleman will say something to make me smirk, then the next minute irritate me by trying too hard to be funny. I still believe they should have had say a Graham Norton, Vernon Kay, or even a naturally witty Paul O’Grady presenting it alongside Tess instead. Oh and when Tess overly fusses it absolutely does my head in. I refer here to her Mothering that hairy guy from The Wanted. Gee wiz, if you had closed your eyes you would have thought she was talking to a toddler not a grown man!

I know I am moaning but I still enjoyed watching it.  I initially thought Kirsty Gallagher would rub me up the wrong way much like MS BIGHEAD(aka Gabby Logan) did some years back.  Gabby also a TV sports presenter, took it too way too seriously and then when she did not do that well in a routine, would then say how good she was….’not bad for a mother with two kids’ Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Kirsty was a lot more vulnerable and sensitive than I thought she would be. She is gorgeous but without seemingly having that big of an ego.  I even found it quite moving that to help calm her nerves, her Mum had been regularly popping into training to help reassure her and calm her down a bit. I was surprised she did not ace-it last night but her nerves unfortunately got the better of her. I just hope she does brilliant next weekend and stays in the show for awhile(I do fear not many women will vote for her though).

The couple I  have warmed too the most though is ex-ITN newsreader Katie Derham and her pro partner Anton Du Beke. Like all men my age I guess, I have always had this massive crush on Katie Derham.  She just oozes class, intelligence and tonnes of sex appeal in my view.  The banter between them is funny to watch and it looks like they have known each other for years. Anton is renowned for getting partners that are rubbish dancers, Kate Garraway and Judy Murray being two famous examples.  This time however in Katie, he finally has a celebrity partner that ‘CAN DANCE’. I thought she was brilliant doing the jive in her first dance and I would love to see her and Anton win the show this year.

I somewhat unexpectedly found the beautiful Helen George a rather ditzy and amusing character on the show,  and I also found Jeremy Vine enjoyable to watch too. I love my boxing and so like Anthony Ogogo but I do not get him being allowed to do the show already carrying an injury before the dance training had even begun. I know it sounds ridiculous but as I watched him dance,  all my attention was focused on was on how little he was moving his bad arm rather than watching the overall dance.  He has a sore shoulder after having a shoulder op some weeks ago. Apart from Bambi with the beard(the guy from The Wanted), the only other contestant that irritated me a bit was  FORMER MR ICELAND himself…Peter Andre.  We are only one week in and already he has won one award in my opinion. He is the new unofficial STRICTLY ‘VERBAL DIARRHOEA’ CHAMPION.  He is not as irritating to watch yet as Mark Wright was from last year but he definitely has the potential to be so. He does not seem a bad bloke really overall I guess. He is just already taking it miles too seriously and when he opens his mouth he just talks absolute gibberish.

As the show ended I had enjoyed watching it but at the same time it just felt like we had all been here before. You know when you love listening to a new piece of music but you play it that many times that in the end you end up growing a bit tired of it? Well, this is how I feel a bit about Strictly right now.   I AM STRICTLY STILL IN LOVE WITH IT….JUST NOT AS MUCH AS I ONCE WAS!