SLEB Safari can’t remember who said it, Melania or Michelle, but from an early age our parents impress on us the values that you work hard for what you want in life – and no-one works harder than the professional dancers in Strictly Come Dancing.
Take Anton du Beke. Year after year he’s partnered with lumps of stone and year after year he does his best to manoeuvre them around the dancefloor without looking like he’s moving furniture.
It’ll be a few more weeks before we find who has signed up for a weekly fake tan and shimmy but in the meantime rumours are swirling about the celebrity line-up.
Sleb Safari has its own wish list – Idris Elba, since he’s not going to get to be James Bond, and Anneka Rice. That lady loves a challenge. She could arrive by helicopter every week wearing a luminescent shell suit and talk someone in the audience into making her a dress.
Judge Craig Revel Horwood has already put it out there that he wants Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford to take part.
“Wouldn’t it be great to have a husband and wife team on the show? It would be fantastic. But they’d be very competitive – the arguments at home,” was how Craig put it.
Eamonn’s still getting over double hip replacement surgery. Sleb Safari’s not sure he could samba in the way Ola needs him to samba.
Lesley Joseph from Birds of a Feather is a hot favourite. The American singer Anastacia is said to have already signed up. She performed on the show last year so might have left her CV on Len’s desk.
Former Downton star Michelle Dockery is rumoured to be on the Strictly producers’ wish list, along with Louise Redknapp, Michaela Strachan from Springwatch and Will Young.
Top tip: if Will gets voted off his exit music should be his own song Leave Right Now.
Reality TV personality Charlotte Crosby is so desperate to be on the show she’s encouraged her fans to set up a petition.
Debbie McGee has said she’d like to take part in memory of her late husband Paul Daniels who competed in 2010.
EastEnders’ actress Tameka Empson has laid her cards on the table too.
"If Strictly Come Dancing came knocking, I’d be like, ‘hello!’. I would be dancing all day every day. Bring it on!”
The best rumour of all is that Bucks Fizz superstar Cheryl Baker has been asked to take part but apparently she’s still making her mind up…
The Jump Returns
AFTER Olympian Beth Tweddle broke her back while taking part in bonkers Channel 4 celebrity winter sports show The Jump Sleb Safari was convinced it would be cancelled.
And yet, despite the catalogue of injuries suffered by contestants, The Jump is coming back for a fourth series next year.
Channel 4 says there's been a “thorough review of safety procedures” following series three in which four contestants were hospitalised.
The Jump reminds Sleb Safari of Big Brother. The first series was brilliant and baffling and after that you wonder why anyone would want to take part, knowing what they know.
And yet…
Prince: a legend among men
WE already knew Prince was cooler than cool but Bourne co-stars Julia Stiles and Matt Damon have reinforced that with an anecdote about the time they met him after a concert.
Julia sets the scene: “After The Bourne Ultimatum came out, there was a premiere in London. Prince actually came to it, then got tickets for the cast to come see him [perform]. We were summoned into a room to meet him [after the show]. Matt said, ‘So you live in Minnesota? I hear you live in Minnesota’.”
To which Prince replied: “I live inside my own heart, Matt Damon.”
Priceless.
North West thinks everything is about her, because she's three
Breaking, yet not shocking, news from the Kardashian West household where three-year-old North is struggling to accept the fact her baby brother gets his parents' attention.
"We talk about North being a big sister all the time. Right now, because she's three, it's time to talk a lot about sharing. And North is great at sharing. She's still getting the concept of having a brother, though... She still wants things to be all about her, because she's three!"
Like mother like daughter, Sleb Safari would mutter unkindly.
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