<\/p>\n
Only a few short weeks to go now\u2026 the agony of expectation, the excitement, the joy and the disappointment\u2026 I can\u2019t wait\u2026 No, I\u2019m not talking about Father Christmas and what he might put in my stocking. I\u2019m talking about who will be Strictly Dancing Queen and King for Christmas and who\u2019ll be crowned as Exalted X Factor winner? Yes, we might have global starvation, riots, civil strife and catastrophic floods and England might even win the Ashes, but it seems more likely that people would rather watch Matt singing on Saturdays dressed in his new skimpy vest. So, let\u2019s forget about important things like the Prime Minister\u2019s speech or Afghanistan, and concentrate instead upon Ann Widdedombe\u2019s Latin Mambo. Is your company going bust or are you losing your job? Don\u2019t worry because Strictly will lighten the gloom. Hurry, hurry \u2013 only another 10 X Factor days till Christmas.<\/p>\n
Really? Is this Reality TV? No, it\u2019s a total escape from Reality \u2013 not something linked to it. But it doesn\u2019t make any difference what I think, because the whole nation has been captured by Simon Cowell. I feel as if I\u2019m living in a sci-fi horror movie. You know the one\u2026 I\u2019m the only human being left alive after Saturday night when the rest of the country has become zombified \u2013 all of them comatose, wide-eyed and unconscious in front of their tellies.<\/p>\n
I think I now understand the secret plan. It\u2019s to make us all forget the real world and become smiling yes-people. No pain, no more problems, no economic gloom \u2013 just smile and let Louis Walsh wash over you. Life\u2019s a bewitching game show \u2013 all organised at a very high level since both ITV and BBC have been told to co-ordinate their schedules. No longer do both channels fight each other\u2019s ratings like they normally do. Instead, they\u2019ve joined forces to transmit a double blast in successive minutes… it\u2019s unstoppable \u2013 Strictly followed immediately by X Factor. The energy generated by 30 million people clicking their remotes at the same time to change channels surely generates enough power to illuminate the many thousands of Christmas garden light displays throughout the Marshwood Vale area. Earth may be about to be struck by an enormous asteroid, but luckily there\u2019s no panic as everyone\u2019s much too busy watching TV. And if they did look up into the night sky, they\u2019d probably think the rapidly approaching interplanetary object was a TV promotion for Cheryl Cole. Either that or it\u2019s a Laser powered Christmas hairpiece to publicise Bruce Forsyth.<\/p>\n
By all meanings of the word, it\u2019s a phenomenon. The huge success of both programmes (and the major boost in publicity to those brave enough to take part) has not gone unnoticed in Westminster. For no other reason would Vince Cable have apparently agreed to star on Strictly Come Dancing this Christmas! So is this to be the pattern of the promised electoral reform? Will our elections now be judged on the candidates\u2019 singing skills or their ability to walk a tightrope? Perhaps electoral losers will be voted off stage one by one amid tears and screams from crowds of teenage fans. I can see Euro elections similar to the Eurovision song contest \u2013 all decided by panels of international \u2018experts\u2019 and massed phone-in votes with a strong anti-UK bias. In which case, the next President of the European parliament is likely to be an overweight blonde singing group from Oslo. This might even be an improvement. It would certainly generate considerably more public interest than a normal Euro turnout and transform a rather dull democratic process into a top rated TV show. With this in mind, our Prime Minister has been spotted practicing his air guitar technique for the next Conservative Party Conference while Mr Miliband is doing a crash course in fire eating and stage juggling. President Obama should by now be practicing his Cha Cha Cha routine for the 2012 US nomination. He may need to improve his Salsa.<\/p>\n
Nearer to home, I gather that Lyme Regis Town Council will in future be judged not on the members\u2019 political abilities but on their flower arrangement skills. Will Labour hold onto Exeter in the forthcoming Morris Dancing election? Will the Lib Dems still retain Yeovil if the candidates are to be judged on their rap and hip-hop dance techniques? Can Oliver Letwin hang onto West Dorset if he can\u2019t dance the Charleston? The answers to all of these questions are veiled in a future haze of showbiz glitz and flashing light bulbs and have nothing to do with reality. But Simon Cowell will probably own every UK TV channel by then, so they\u2019ll all have to ask his permission before they take part. And you think I\u2019m joking\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Only a few short weeks to go now\u2026 the agony of expectation, the excitement, the joy and the disappointment\u2026 I can\u2019t wait\u2026 No, I\u2019m not talking about Father Christmas and what he might put in my stocking. I\u2019m talking about who will be Strictly Dancing Queen and King for Christmas and who\u2019ll be crowned as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-laterally-speaking","tag-humphrey-walwyn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}