Anton and Erin Puttin' on the Ritz: best thing ever?

I think that title gives you an idea of where this post is going..! But then, to be honest, it's got Anton in it. I think that's a bit of a mega give away straight off the bat really.

So I've seen Puttin' on the Ritz twice now - a Saturday night in Dublin and a Sunday matinee at the Sage in Gateshead. Little author's note first: should you ever get the chance to visit either of these places, do. Dublin is an amazing city. Amazing. Grown up, laid back, fun with some cracking bars, restaurants and shops. I loved it and fully intend to go back as soon as I have an excuse to. It's even better if you're a politics geek and visit during an (STV) election campaign! And the Sage is a fabulous venue. Very funky and modern with great acoustics in the actual hall. Again, I fully intend to go back. But I digress.

Puttin' on the Ritz is a completely wonderful show. Completely and utterly wonderful. If you've seen Anton and Erin's first two tours (yes, I have, obviously) you will love it. For my money, it's by far the best of three for a couple of reasons. Honestly, the biggest of these reasons is probably the inclusion of the genius Lance Ellington (of whom more soon) on vocals. He is just amazing and if his voice doesn't blow you away then, frankly, you need to have a long hard look at your life! I also think it's a better show than the previous two as it's more brazenly about entertainment rather than just dancing. There is more Anton and Erin banter, or perhaps more accurately more Anton banter whilst Erin tries to get a word in edgeways (which is fine by me - she gets the gorgeous dresses so it's only fair Anton gets something!), and more - and better quality - old school variety song and dance numbers.

This is the point at which I suppose you expect me to pick a favourite number. Well I can't. There are too many. And I'm not going to do a number by number rundown either, because as I've said re: Strictly review writing I find those immensely tedious. What I will do is a bit of a highlight real.

I literally can't pick a favourite dance number. It's impossible. There are a series of ridiculously fast and perfectly pulled off quicksteps all of which I adored. There's also a brilliant charleston and a fabulous ballroom tango. Those are my favourites, but I have described about 70% of the show there to be fair. You can't make me choose between them. It'd be like Sophie's Choice! (Author's note: who are you calling over dramatic?!) I feel like this paragraph should be much longer, but there's not much more to say other than the dancing is universally superb. It just is. For the Dublin show we were front row, eye-to-stage, and I think I spotted one mistake all night. Which is pretty damn incredible when you think about it. It's Anton and Erin dancing self-choreographed ballroom. What more do you need to know?

Both Anton and Erin sing this year. Now when it comes to singing I'm a picky bitch having had lessons and taken exams for the best part of eight years. That said, they both have a good stab at it although Anton is a lot better than Erin - he's done this before (last tour and, of course, the epic Me and My Shadow with Brucie a couple of Strictlys ago), she hasn't and you can tell. That's not to say she's bad, by the way. She isn't. I love her number - Me and My Baby from Chicago - it's great fun and super-high energy.

Anton has two songs this year, one of which is a duet with Lance (which is exceptionally brave, there's no way in hell you'd see me duetting with someone that good!) and one on his own - All I Need is the Girl. The solo one is the best. I'm not sure if you're aware of the lyrics of this song? It features much talk of 'my tweed suit and my striped tie.' Spot the costume opportunity. I can't honestly claim to have ever been sexually attracted to a man in a three piece tweed suit, until now. Seriously. Tweed? It's not right - it should not be possible to look that hot in tweed. It's only right that the tailor of said suit gets a credit in the programme! I'm just going to bask in the memory for a while, excuse me.

...

Mm. Right. Sorry about that. What can I say? It's a fucking amazing suit.

I could go on about how great this show is for a very *very* long time. It really is superb. I don't know if there are still tickets available for any of the remaining dates - there shouldn't be, frankly - but if there are you must go. You will not regret it.

So, to answer my own question, is Anton and Erin Puttin' on the Ritz the best thing ever? Honestly? Right now I'm struggling to think of anything better. Go. And. See. It.

...aaand I'm back.

Yeah alright I know. It's been a while. Again. I suck. No excuses - other than my innate and often extreme laziness. I'll try harder, honest. Indeed, get ready for a veritable flurry of posts over the next few days!

To be fair, I have been busy. And I have also been dumped, unceremoniously and without explanation, after five (mofoing) years. Count 'em. I have.

It's a weird thing being dumped, especially from a non-exclusive relationship. A lot of people seemed to be surprised that I was so upset, the attitude being 'hey he was sleeping with someone else anyway - why care?' Well, as I've explained here before, just because your relationship is non-exclusive doesn't mean you don't love the person. And I did. Deeply. It had been five (mofoing) years after all, you tend to grow fond of someone in that amount of time.

The manner of the dumping was in equal parts shit and bizarre. I say shit as it was disingenuous and over the phone. Not quite post-it note, but still. Bizarre because... it just was. Here, I'll sketch you a timeline of how it went:

(Backstory: after massive row last year we split, he begs for forgiveness, I relent, we're back together)


Sunday: I return from Dublin having seen Anton and Erin Puttin' on the Ritz (of which more later) on a massive downer 'cos the show was so awesome and now it's over.


Monday: Hitherto Strictly generally and Anton specifically hating Bloke phones to say he's got us tickets for POTR in Gateshead the following Sunday (day before Valentine's) as a surprise gift. Surprised? I'm speechless! Huge deal for him to agree to this, HUGE. Much excitement.


Tuesday/Wednesday: Mostly, I'm happy dancing about going to see POTR again.


Thursday: Bloke phones first thing in the morning as I'm sitting down to work. Says he's been thinking about our relationship for months now, and dumps me with no particular explanation of what he's been thinking. After all it was him that so desperately wanted to get back together. Once again, I'm speechless. He goes on to explain that I'm going to POTR alone - he only ever bought one ticket as a way to force himself to finally dump me. I hang up, furious, and spend the day being alternately hurt, angry and crying.


Friday: I'm angry. All day. Bloke starts trying to get in contact, eventually sending me a stream of DMs on Twitter which don't really say much.


Saturday: After a good night's sleep, some trashy TV (Hustle and WWE Smackdown, since you asked) and some serious retail therapy I feel much better and tweet that I do. DMs continue, mostly along the lines of 'You shouldn't be ok, did our relationship mean so little to you?' I don't (and won't) dignify this bollocks with a response. 


Sunday: I go and see POTR alone. I go in feeling horribly tragic. I come out smiling. Life goes on.

See? Bizarre! The POTR ticket thing is just truly odd. I suspect the intention was not to make me feel better, but it did. Muchly. Thus the ultimate conclusion from all of this: Anton and Erin tickets are cheaper than therapy and ultimately as effective! Trufax.

Golden Globes: pick of the gowns

So it's awards season in Hollywood. I love awards season for two reasons: the men in tuxes (especially George Clooney and Colin Firth - om nom nom) and the girls in amazing couture gowns. 

In terms of the boys, this year is clearly going to be all about Colin Firth. He is looking eye wateringly gorgeous, and is also seemingly going to win everything he's nominated for. About damn time, I say.

What about the girls? Well in terms of the actual awards it appears the smart money is on Natalie Portman. But I have only limited interest in that. The only award I'm really interested is who walks away as best dressed. So who took first blood at this weekend's Golden Globes?

For me, it was all about Mila Kunis in gorgeous emerald Vera Wang. Everything about this dress is completely stunning. The colour, the cut, the attention to detail in the ruffled texture. I adore it. It's hard to believe the stonkingly beautiful Mila was most famous for being the voice of Meg in Family Guy up until very recently! She's been on a fashion roll recently too - I can't wait to see what she pulls out of her closet for the rest of the season.

Honourable mentions to some others too. As ever the big boys of bespoke - Armani Prive and Atelier Versace - had great nights. In team Armani, we have Anne Hathaway in gorgeous, backless, bronze sequins and Megan Fox in subtle sparkles. Team Versace is represented by a jaw droppingly hot January Jones in gravity defying red fringing and Angelina Jolie rocking the emerald trend in floor length, long sleeved sequins. I also loved Scarlett Johansen in beautiful, delicate Elie Saab and Olivia Wilde looking like a princess in Marchesa. 

I'm loving the trends emerging from the globes - SEQUINS! EMERALD! LONG SLEEVES! FRINGING! BARELY THERE MAKE UP! - and seriously hope they continue through awards season. There's one way to find out I suppose...

The best Strictly routine ever

Yes alright I know. It's been a while. But I've been busy. Well, I say 'busy'. I mean 'on trains'. Lots of trains to lots of regional conferences on lots of Saturdays. The upshot of which is that I've not had a great deal of free time that I've not already allocated to sleeping. So apologies for that. I'll try harder.

Anyway, I've been a bit out of the loop Strictly-wise. As I say I've been travelling a lot, usually on Saturday evenings so I've fallen out of step with the series overall. I have, of course, been keeping up to date with developments from Team Annton though. And my haven't there been developments.

Firstly, I'd like us all to spend a moment thinking about the majesty of the gold sequin trousers. I mean really. They were a thing, weren't they? Love or hate - and I don't feel I need to tell you which camp I'm in! - you can't deny that there are very very few men who would have the cajones to even try them on, let alone actually get away with them. The photo, by the way, is a newspaper clipping that's now gracing our fridge door.

Anyway, sartorial amazingness aside - and I can't help but feel that this series has been a cracker for La Du Beke in that regard both in terms of costumes and the lessons in how men should dress he's been giving on It Takes Two - I suppose I should mention dancing at some point. I'm glad to see Anton and Erin have returned to regular pro dance slots now. And they've been good ones, none of this dubious 'unleashed' nonsense.

But the main thing I wanted to draw your attention to is the brilliance of the Titanic themed rumba routine from last week. I'm not going to mince my words: it's my favourite Strictly routine ever. I may take some heat for this from the 'it's a dance contest' crowd but I believe my general disdain for that crowd is well known, so I don't care. In terms of pure entertainment value - which is what the show is about of course - you can't match it. From the manic shout of 'ICEBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERG' at the beginning, through the slightly perturbed look as the Widdy embrace is locked in, to the foghorn sound effect at the end the whole routine is just genius. Serious kudos to Anton for this. The man is proving to be a comedy genius, which isn't a surprise to anyone who's seen him on tour. Can you really imagine any of the other pros doing something that's so blatantly just a bit of fun? I could go on at length about this I love it so much. So here it is for your viewing pleasure, but mostly mine.



You can thank me later.

My dream Strictly line up

I've literally been writing this post for weeks. Well not literally, my typing is bad but it's not that bad. But I've been thinking about it, making notes about it, for weeks. What can I say? I spend a lot of time on trains. And I'm quite fabulously geeky about Strictly stuff. I'm sure you'd not noticed that.

I've finally been prompted to sit down and physically write it by a discussion on Twitter about exactly this issue started by the lovely people at Our Warner (them of the Strictly experience mini breaks that I will one day go on). They've blogged about it on their site too - and we share some celeb choices. 

So below you'll find my dream line up of celebs and which pros they'd be paired with. I've brought back one of my favourite pros too. Now I should say, before the pedantry army start, I've taken very little account of practical considerations like height. It's a dream, don't rain on my hot and well dressed parade. Oh, and it surely goes without saying that part of any dream Strictly line up is removing Alesha and bringing back Arlene. It certainly is in mine. Anyway, onwards...

Rupert Everett and Aliona Vilani - I adore Rupert Everett, and his particular brand of fabulously uncensored slightly camp antics would be perfect for Strictly. I've put him with Aliona because they would look achingly good together. Just imagine their tango...

Michelle Obama and Anton Du Beke - This makes me swoon. A lot. Seriously, how good would this be? Thinking about how graceful their ballroom would be gives me goosebumps. And how cool would it be seeing Barack in the audience?! Anton might even finally win. Stranger things have happened!

Hayley Williams (Paramore) and Artem Chigvintsev - I wanted someone with serious attitude to dance with Artem and I can think of few people with more attitude than Paramore's Hayley. She would clearly have serious musicality too. Their fiery paso would be one to watch.

Victoria Coren and Brendan Cole - Victoria Coren is one of my idols. I love her. Watching her and Brendan working together would be amazing, she would definitely be in charge. How good she'd be at dancing remains to be seen but she'd be hilarious regardless. And it would make a lot of my straight male friends very happy indeed...

Judi Dench and Darren Bennett - How cute would this be? Darren is the only one of the 'axed' pros I really miss and Judi Dench is a bona fide national treasure. Given her background in musical theatre I reckon she's got some moves too.

Peter Mandleson and Erin Boag - Ok, so this might be a bit of a Marmite choice. But I love The Dark Lord. He's a complete legend, and the best in the world at what he does. He had dancing lessons as a youngster and has said he wants to do Strictly. So let's see him in action. I'd love to see how he reacted to Erin being in charge too!

Gino D'Acampo and Flavia Cacace - Again with the cuteness. I can imagine the lovely Gino absolutely owning the Latin dances. Ballroom not so much. His hyper back and forth with the judges (especially Bruno) would be worth the license fee alone.

Miranda Hart and James Jordan - As a pairing I think these two would be hilarious. And even if they weren't Miranda on her own would be. She's also an obsessive Strictly fan so would work really hard. I would love to see their charleston. It would have the potential to be even funnier than Ann and Anton's. If that is indeed possible.

Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) and Jared Murillo - I was toying with the idea of giving Jared some kind of kinky Mrs Robinson-esque figure but just couldn't do it. I loved how cute he and Tina were this year and he and Bonnie would offer more of the same. Plus I'm borderline obsessed with her amazing hair.

Jose Mourinho and Katya Virshilas - One word: hot. Frankly having Anton and Jose in one place at the same time is amazing enough on its own. Having them dancing... Wow. The image of Jose doing a properly hot and dirty paso with Katya is beyond gorgeous. And she's proved she can deal with sportsmen with huge egos this series so I'm sure she could cope with The Special One.

John Morrison (WWE) and Kristina Rihanoff - Anton, Jose and JoMo in one room? I'm spoiling myself. JoMo is astonishingly attractive and can move his body in ways which I still can't believe are even physically possible. Their Latin would be beyond hot and their show dance would just be AMAZE, as the kids are saying. I think JoMo would be the pioneer of the topless quickstep on Strictly. And I approve of this.

Tim Gunn (Project Runway) and Natalie Lowe - I appreciate this is a bit obscure for anyone who hasn't watched Sky 1 during the day recently/isn't American. Tim is an unashamedly camp fashionista with an eye for a trend and a collection of sharp suits that would make Anton green with envy. I reckon he has moves based on no evidence whatsoever. He would absolutely rock his costumes though (he'd probably make some of them himself) and be able to offer the other contestants tips on good dressing and etiquette. 

David Beckham and Ola Jordan - Becks would have moves. He is gorgeous. He is well dressed. What's not to like? I reckon he'd be especially good at the ballroom too, which works for me. He might miss his wife though...

Victoria Beckham and Robin Windsor - ...so she's in too. Perhaps controversially, I love Victoria. Mostly because her fashion line is unexpectedly completely brilliant. I'd want her to design her own costumes. She has a background in theatre (waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day) so would be pretty good I think. Plus her and Robin would look yummy together. 

Kim Catrall and Vincent Simone - I've included this match up purely because I do love watching people flirt outrageously. Kim would look amazing on the dancefloor and can you imagine the smile on Vincent's face when he was dancing with her?

There you go. I'm now salivating slightly at the thought of so much hot - and so many well cut suits - on one dancefloor. Anyone at the BBC care to oblige me? Thought not. 

Strictly Week 6: in which my gears get grinded

You may have noticed that I've stopped doing weekly Strictly reviews. The reason for this is two-fold: 1) I'm so busy with work at the weekends that I'm not even watching (all of) the show some weeks, 2) I don't really enjoy writing the detailed reviews, they take forever and according to my statporn comparatively few people actually read them. So they're gone. For now at least. I'll probably change my mind. I do that.

But that doesn't mean I've stopped blogging about Strictly. Hell no! And this week, I'm annoyed. There are several reasons for this. The biggie (which perhaps you can guess) I'll come to in a bit, but there are a few other things that are grinding my gears.

Now this is a tiny thing that most people won't care about, but I am a music geek and I do. Brendan and Michelle (who I thought was much better this week than she's been, and was dancing something other than the Time Warp) purported to be dancing a waltz. Well, they weren't. The song was in 4/4, a waltz is in 3/4. That angered me. But as I said, I guess most of you won't care about that so I'll move on.

The thing that really wound me up this week was the judges. I mean really. What even?! When they weren't being rude and insulting and generally acting like children with each other, they were being rude and insulting and giving ridiculously inconsistent marks to the contestants. If we're supposed to take their opinions and scores in any way seriously perhaps they might want to have a look at what they're actually saying. Of course, that's not really why they're there but still.

So we come to the thing that's winding me up big time this week: Widdygate. Perhaps it won't surprise you to learn that I adored Ann and Anton's charleston this week. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much at something on TV, though I rather suspect it was when I saw their salsa. It was a couple of minutes of genuine entertainment, what Saturday night TV is all about.

But, as I've said before, some people take Strictly far too seriously. These people think Ann is ruining a dancing competition and should quit the show if she's not eliminated. And then Jimi Mistry got eliminated from the show and these people went into overdrive. Now I'm not saying for a moment that I think Jimi should have gone - he clearly shouldn't - but the fact he did is not Ann's fault. Nor is it anyone else's on the show. Jimi went because people didn't vote for him. Why should other people be at fault because people did vote for them?

At this point I'm going to shut up. I find this debate completely infuriating. To define Strictly as a dancing competition is to completely misunderstand it. If the BBC wanted a flagship Saturday night dancing competition then they'd have brought back Come Dancing in its original form. If it was only about the dancing then why have celebrities in it at all? I genuinely don't understand how people can't see this and it drives me mad.

You see, I'm getting ranty and overexcited. It's not good for me. So I'm going to defer to other people.

Brendan Cole was in the bottom two - again - on Saturday night. Does he think Ann is devaluing the show and should quit? Of course he doesn't. Here's what he tweeted last night:

"Ann & Anton deserve their place in the show! The public are keeping them in & the papers need to stop the nonsense! Not fair to them! As contestants on SCD, it's our job to inspire the audience to vote for us! If we fail to do so, we run the risk of going home! If others succeed then their place is very much valid on the show! We can't blame the couple that get the vote over us, only ourselves!"

Apart from an overuse of exclamation marks, the man speaks the sense. Or rather, the sense! As does The Telegraph's Michael Deacon, writing on his blog yesterday:

"If anybody thinks the continued presence of a leaden-footed rhythm-phobe like Widdecombe “devalues” the show as a “dance competition”, they should seek urgent psychiatric assistance. Strictly Come Dancing can’t be devalued as a dance competition, because it has no value as a dance competition. Never has had, and was never meant to have. If this were a serious dance competition, why would there be celebrities competing at all? 

My own view, innocent though it may seem, is that if the BBC had intended Strictly to be a serious dancing competition, they would have ensured that all the competitors were professional dancers. By instead hiring celebrities, I would argue, the BBC sent out a reasonably clear signal that the programme is intended to be light entertainment.

If people insist on voting for Widdecombe to remain, they presumably think that watching her after all these weeks is still funny. They may be deluded, but not quite as deluded as those who think those voters’ actions are harming the programme’s reputation."

I don't usually agree with The Telegraph, but this had me jumping up and down shouting 'YES! EXACTLY!' at my laptop when I read it this morning. And I'm not a jumping up and down sort of person. I'm usually quite anti-jumping in fact.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go and oil my grindy gears. Probably by looking at photos of Anton. Probably topless. Om. Nom. Nom.

 

On-off non-exclusive romance?

This blog post represents something very rare: outside of a drinking game related situation, me talking about my private life. It's not something I do often. I don't think it's any of anyone else's business but mine. Besides, as you'll see, it's kind of complicated...

So why now? Mostly you can blame Stephen Fry. His ill judged comments - however misquoted - about how women don't enjoy sex and only do it to somehow trap men into a relationship made me quite indescribably annoyed. They were so ignorant and so spectacularly wrong it was almost physically painful. Not quite as painful as reading Yasmin Alabi Brown's response, which compared Fry to a wife beater, in today's i though. My disdain for YHB aside, Fry's comments did get me thinking about the nature of relationships and sex for women today.

The other thing that's inspired this post happened to me in W H Smith today. I was buying a Christmas card for The Bloke. One of those needlessly soppy World's Best Boyfriend things, you know the type. Whilst paying I was making small talk with the cashier, as you do. She asked me how long we'd been together, how we met etc etc. The conversation was amiable, to the extent that these things ever are, until I mentioned one detail about my relationship with The Bloke which killed the conversation completely. It's a detail that isn't important to us in any way but seemingly the rest of the world thinks it's amazing.

You see, we're not an exclusive couple. We've been together for five years, on and off, having been introduced by a mutual friend after an eyes across a crowded conference bar moment at Lib Dem spring conference when I was still at Uni. We've been an item ever since and, mostly, very happily so. So why does the fact that we both see other people sometimes matter?

Frankly, it doesn't. Not to us. I know he loves me and I love him. We have our ups and downs, as anyone who follows me on Twitter will have seen recently, like any other couple. But the stuff we argue about is the same stuff everyone else argues about - him not answering his phone, the amount I spend on clothes, how little we see each other.

We don't do jealousy. I know he's sleeping with another woman but it doesn't bother me. I leave my Facebook relationship status as single but it doesn't bother him. Why? Because when we're together it's all about us. He treats me like a princess and, though I say it myself, I'm one of the best girlfriends ever! We're one of those irritatingly couple-y couples, unashamedly so. He's the most loving person I could hope to be with but for reasons of geography and employment I can't be with him as much as I want to be. That's hard on both of us, so we don't begrudge each other getting close to other people. Amongst those who know what we're like as a couple we're renowned for being an extremely happy, adult and functional couple. Because that's what we are.

Maybe you think that's disgusting (although what right do you have to judge me?) or
representative of a lack of self confidence/respect from one or both us (it isn't). I really don't care. At the end of the day we're very happy exactly as we are.

There's one other reason, I think, why we are so contented at the moment. Both of us know that we're not going to last forever. I should explain that there's a significant age gap between me and The Bloke. When it comes to the whole marriage and kids thing he's been there, done that, got the t shirt and doesn't want to go back. I've never been there, and I do want to go. We both know that eventually I'll meet the person that I'll spend the rest of my life with and that will be that. I think this realism is incredibly healthy. We know we ultimately want different things in life and are facing up to it rather than trying to bury the fact and pretend it's not going to cause problems down the line. The Bloke and I will split up, but when we do it will be on good terms and I'm sure we'll remain close friends.

In the meantime my on-off non-exclusive romance makes me very happy indeed. And when Anton finally turns up at my door to sweep me off my feet, I'll be able to welcome him with open arms without a twinge of guilt. Why are you laughing?! Hey, a girl can dream!