Entry for December 10, 2006

I had a rather pleasantly unproductive evening last night. I should have been writing, but instead I had a beer while watching Strictly Come Dancing and the boxing.
It occurred to me that the reason that Strictly Come Dancing is such a success is that it is such a mad mix of British institutions. The other week when I was watching, they wheeled on Madness to do a number whilst one of the professional couples sashayed across the highly polished floor in a blur of sequins. There was Suggs, as dependable as he was when I was at the first year disco listening to House of Fun and enviously watching all the big boys of second year in their burgundy stay pressed and Fred Perrys. Even now I feel a faint surge of regret that I didn't have the bottle to join in the mad fist-pumping conga around the assembly hall.
You might ask what the hell Madness were doing on a Saturday night playing on a show about ballroom dancing, but the point is, it looked entirely right. There was something of the air of an end-of-the pier show about it; faded glamour and the faint whiff of whelks.
And there we have it. How could Strictly Come Dancing fail to be a hit - Madness, Come Dancing, the mad British cult of celebrity and - to crown it all - Bruce Forsyth. It seems to hit nearly every button in our collective memory about what's good and right and pure about a Saturday night in front of the telly.