Come dancing ? Dead to me

For some strange reason I have found myself drawn to the current series of Come Dancing on BBC1. This is particularly strange when you consider that I don't dance. Never have. Never will. But it seems quite good entertainment. You get to laugh at Bruce Forsyth - not because he is funny but just seeing how he manages to make a hash of every link. Tess his assistant is easy on the eye. There are some very attractive contestants - for both me and Mrs Davie to ogle. And finally there are the judges who you can imagine have been created especially for the show. The old doddery fool who has an eye for the talent, the two camp ones who bicker constantly and the female with the acerbic wit and botox lips. All good so far. Where the show falls down is with its elimination procedure. The judges give a score to each celebrity after they have danced. But then it is left to the great British public to vote by phone or text for who they liked the best. The two celebs with the lowest votes have to dance off and then the judges choose who stays. Where this plan fails is that the viewing public who watch this programme are clearly thick. For 4 weeks in a row they have voted to keep plucky Kate Garraway. Plucky ? Yes plucky because she hurt her ankle at the beginning of week 1 but has bravely continued. Well bravely continued or realised that this could be a nice little earner and give her numerous magazine front covers. I have nothing against this woman but she has limped around the dance floor like an injured elephant and been possibly the worst dancer I have ever seen (and I have seen Curiosity Killed the Cat live in concert). Yet each week they wheel out some ITV colleague to stress how brave she is and how if she gets another week she might be able to pull together a series of coherent movements that may just may vaguely resemble a dance movement. So vote for Kate. And people do. And a as a result the ones who are competent are put up for elimination. And as a result the celeb who was one of the best 3 has now been evicted. And as a result of that Gabby Logan and her lovely legs are out. Here endeth the sermon and also my interest in this sham of a programme. I knew there was a reason I was not interested in dancing.

Shame on you, Peep Show makers

Here I am. Apologies to my many fans for keeping silent for so long, but here finally is my verdict on the recent E4 comedy sketch show, Dogface. This was billed as a "comedy show that combines fast-paced sketches with stylish 'dog-based' animation from the makers of Peep Show."

It was actually a lazy show repeating the same unfunny situations over and over again within each and every episode, interspersed with dog-based animation where pub conversations were played over pictures of dogs playing pool and that.

I've complained about Little Britain before, but at least they show a particular sketch only once per episode. I watched one and a half episodes of Dogface. In the one and a half episodes I watched there were six "sketches" which involved a man (Super Hans out of Peep Show) talking to his friend about man-love. There were six "sketches" which involved a man (Super Hans out of Peep Show) and his wife (or partner) on holiday with the man's parents where the wife (or partner) says something fairly harmless to his mother, he tells his wife to shut up (rudely), the wife then repeats to the man what she just said to his mother, he tells his wife to shut up (rudely), embarrassed silence followed by the man saying something to his mother similar to the thing his wife had said. There were six sketches involving an unhappy weather lady (played by the woman who was in the episode of Peep Show where Mark pretends to be a University student, and who is now in the Peter Serafinowicz show) where the weather forecast degenerates into a rant about a broken relationship.

So what I'm saying is that they're showing these sketches four times per episode. So within a series of six episodes they would have shown these three sketches twenty-four times each. How can they live with themselves? A sketch that in Fry and Laurie's day would have lasted one minute is now stretched to get half an hour (after adverts).

And the sketches weren't funny anyway. Repeating them doesn't help. The sketches that my friends and I wrote when we were drunk fifteen years ago are more deserving of a comedy series than the rubbish on Dogface (although I think most of the sketches would probably have been a little offensive to certain religious groups).

Anyway, Peter Serafinowicz's show is much better. While there are repeated themes in the sketches, they are sufficiently different to meet with my approval. It's not the funniest sketch show ever made, but Serafinowicz is an excellent performer, and he does the best Alan Alda impression I've ever seen. I applaud him. If I had a special Mickey's Prize, this week's would go to Peter Serafinowicz.

Should I now go into what I watched last night?

• The Sopranos - Yes, it's good and it was the penultimate episode so lots of interesting things happened. I like the Sopranos.
• Some other stuff - I think I'll stop this what I watched last night thing. It's not really doing anything, and if all I watched was the news and a film, it doesn't really make for interesting reading.

I note that Armstrong and Miller return to our screens on Friday in a BBC One sketch show. They were prone to repeating themes in their sketches during their Channel Four days, but they didn't rely on catch phrases and repetition, and it was before Little Britain spoilt it for everyone else. I await their show with cautious optimism.

The Dragons are back

Hurrah - Dragon's Den is back on BBC2. Boo - they have dropped Richard the nice Aussie bloke presumably as he was likable and polite to investors and had an investing strategy whereby he actually was putting money into businesses. I mean how was poor Duncan supposed to compete with that.

There are new title scenes in a fetching red and the Dragons have all got nice new hair cuts and Duncan has been told to wear a tie. Presumably because new Dragon James has a hairy chest and is sure as hell going to show it off. Given that poor old Theo Paphitis dare not spend any more of his children's inheritance on such extravagant items as ties, someone had to wear one. And they have let Peter Jones continue. Presumably he begged them for a second chance after Tycoon flopped in the summer. Anyway a couple of them made investments but perhaps the most remarkable thing was what happened to Peter's hair during the hour. It started long and floppy but by 9.30pm it was short and appeared to have been tinted a lovely shade of blond. But by 9.55 the fringe was back. Watch the next episode and you will no doubt see him grow a beard in the first 30 minutes only to return to his baby faced shiny look by the end of the hour.

Don't sing on TV

I am enjoying the Restaurant. It is almost as good as the Apprentice. I would love to know how the BBC keep finding an endless supply of complete incompetents to star in these shows. The programme itself is a good idea and I have to say that the twins, (I think they are called are Laura and Jess) are surely going to win it and deservedly show. They are bright, attractive and differ from the rest of the contestants in that they appear to use common sense when making a decision. They are in the final 3 against the Scottish bloke who is actually a decent cook and seems a decent guy and his mrs (more of whom later), and also Jeremy and his mrs (who keeps crying at the merest hint of a problem. Knives are dirty - turn on the waterworks. Dropped a bread bun on the floor - breakdown in a flood of tears whilst the hapless Jeremy looks seemingly paralysed. They really should go next but I think this week's episode may have sealed the fate of the Scottish guy and his wife. The task they were set was to delight there customers. They decided that the natural way to do this would be to sing to their customers as they waited for their apple crumbles to be heated up in the microwave. An unusual decision to make especially given that the wife was clearly tone deaf. She absolutely murdered flower of Scotland and looked like she was pushing a number of diners close to the edge of suicide. But they survived if only because the Ghanian couple they were up against decided to delight their customers by giving them a strawberry after they had finished their meal. Where did they get such an off the wall idea from ?