It's yesterday once more

I love a good bit of glitzy light entertainment. It's so odd how it died in about 1981 and then took decades to recover. Like the Mini, Doctor Who and rampant global recession the return of this kind of cheesy Summertime Special type nonsense harks back to a comforting pre-home computer age where incongruous celebrities dance like it's the heyday of Morecambe and Wise.

Very odd that people are always saying Brucie's past it. He's over twice Tess Daly's age, but has twice her talent. Her attempts to be funny are truly shocking, like watching someone defecate on screen. Brucie has always been rather bumbling, it's been part of his stage persona since his Palladium days. But when he does great old-school jokes, like the hoary old complicated explanation of cricket, or calling Anton his love child, it brings back lovely memories of ham-fisted attempts at throwing pots or country dancing on the Generation Game.

Alesha, rather less ineffectual this week, gave quite an eye-opening insight into the celebrities' state pre-dancing: 'their hearts will be beating...' One would hope so. It is the very least we could expect. Natalie Cassidy was, as I'd hoped, was utterly gorgeous. 'If Vincent falls in love with me then that's something we'll have to face at the time', she said, before plunging into a particularly vampish tango by the end of which, never mind shouting at the telly, I was positively whooping.

The duffsters were queueing up to stumble round the dance floor like James Caan in Misery, not least terrible, bland Richard Dunwoody and the odious Phil Tufnell, who will more than likely win the show. 'People most remember me for being married to Ronnie Wood' said Jo Wood. I don't. In fact, I have absolutely no idea who she is. I can barely remember the names of the Rolling Stones, so far removed are they from my life, let alone their ex-wives. I also had no idea who Ricky Whittle was, though I suspect I may remember now. Laila is tremendous fun, camply competitive and utterly beautiful all togged up like a lovely Spanish lady. Anton even got to dance with his celebrity partner for once, rather than hauling them about like a Henry hoover into hard to reach corners. And he's so old-school, surely to be revealed as a BBC experiment locked in the Blue Peter time capsule in the Italian Sunken Garden since 1976 while teaching the Brotherhood of Man their winning dance for Save All Your Kisses For Me. Ask him about tamagotchis, Thatcher or Britpop and the poor bewildered mite will have no idea.