STRICTLY Come Dancing – the BBC show which pairs professional dancers with slebs while asking the former to exercise the patience of saints and the latter to exercise like professional dancers – has punked us all this year by inviting Daniel O’Donnell to join the fun.
Daniel, crooner, heart-throb for the over fifties and all-round nice guy, says his wife persuaded him to accept the Strictly offer. It’s always good to have a scapegoat Daniel, wise move.
Joining him in wearing diamanté-rich pink Lycra are the likes of Kellie Bright, Georgia May Foote, Ainsley Harriot and Peter Andre.
Sleb Safari expects the wardrobe department will already have begun stocking up on baby oil for Peter Andre. That waxed chest is going to require a shocking amount of oil and probably two dedicated Strictly personnel to keep it Rhumba ready.
Daniel on the other hand, he’ll need nothing more than a cup of tea, slice of boiled cake and a freshly ironed checked shirt to carry him through.
“I can dance but don't ask me to be in a certain place at a certain time so this is going to be very challenging for me,” he said after being revealed as contestant number eight.
Sleb Safari hopes he’s only referring to his feet and not the fact he’s terminally late for everything because they will start the shows without him.
“I'll be very hard to tie down so God help whoever gets me.”
Again, Sleb Safari worries that Daniel’s people have briefed him about the wrong show.
He added: “It's exciting and I think it's quite an honour to be asked because there's so many people who could be asked to do it and here I am and I'm looking forward to it.
“I mean I never really would've met Peter Andre and Ainsley Harriott. I just think that even though you're doing what you're doing, you might never run into these people so it's nice for me to get to meet other people like that.”
Of all the people to single out Daniel chooses Peter and Ainsley. Adorable.
On to more urgent matters, who will Daniel bring to cheer him on from the A-list section of the audience other than his lovely wife Majella? Can we expect Dana? Rose-Marie? Brendan Shine? We can but cross our fingers and sit tight until opening night.
Sleb Safari would like it if, after Ainsley Harriot’s first dance, the camera panned to the family and friends section and there on the front row was Percy Pepper.
Bookies have Daniel as a 50/1 rank outsider but that’s nonsense, he’s going to be brilliant.
A Donegal man is going to lift the Glitterball trophy this year, Sleb Safari can feel it.
Rod Stewart's unusual parenting style
SLEB Safari has never professed to understand the ways of those living in global postcode SS1 (Sleb Safari 1, for the uninitiated) but it is definitely floundering out of its depth with a story involving Rod Stewart and his daughter, Kimberley.
In yet another exclusive with Kimberley Hello! Magazine gets her talking about her famous dad.
“My dad was always our friend,” Kimberley began. So far, so good, Sleb Safari thinks we can all agree.
“But he was still a dad that would teach us lessons.”
Uh-oh.
“If one of our dogs pooped on his nice carpets he’d put the poop on our pillow at night. But we always wanted to tell him things.”
Sleb Safari would bet you did Kimberley. Sleb Safari imagines you had plenty you wanted to tell Rod when he did things like that; starting with ‘I want to live with my mum, you demented distributer of dog poo’.
The Voice goes further downhill
OUTRAGED, if you care to know, is how Sleb Safari feels about the firing of Tom Jones from The Voice.
Tom was the only good thing about a show that is going downhill faster than a kid on rollerskates.
Tom tweeted that he’d been told his services were no longer required.
“Shocked and disappointed about The Voice UK. I was TOLD yesterday. No idea, no conversation, no warning.”
Come on, that’s no way to treat Tom Jones.
Pierce Brosnan suffers for his art
AND so to Pierce Brosnan, one of the many, many terrible singers in Mamma Mia! who helped make the film the joyous, fun-fest that it is, who wants you to know that he was not trying to bring a hunting knife on to an aeroplane for anything other than artistic reasons.
The actor was stopped by security as he tried to board a plane in Vermont earlier this month due to the presence of a knife in his hand luggage.
He was asked about it at a premiere and told Extra: “It wasn’t ten inches long. I'm a painter - I'm an artist, so I had my pencils. The knife just went into the bag - you want to keep your pencils sharpened.”
Absolutely Pierce, Sleb Safari is with you on this, one’s pencil must be as sharp as a tack at all times.
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