danieldwilliam | On Strictly Come Dancing - 2014

Pretty decent shows over the weekend. The opening number on the Saturday night was perhaps the best opening to any Strictly Come Dancing show ever. The combination of Tess and Claudia seems to be working okay so far. I remain to be convinced that Tess has the necessary gravitas (1) to keep the judges under control and balance the judges, audience and contestants.

One thing I’m going to be watching is how much Craig, Bruno and to a lesser extent Darcey play up to an exaggerated version of themselves. How grumpy can Craig be? How mad as a box of mad frogs out of their heads on LSD and being carried on the back of Salvador Dali’s bicycle can Bruno be?

Now, the dancing.

Lovely waltz from Mmmh Frankie. A clear and deserved lead. Decent performances from Flack Jacket Caroline and That’s Your Lott. My draw in the office sweeper looks okay for the time being. Perhaps the surprise dance of the night was Can’t See the Wood’s Tango. A bit stompy but very dramatic. I also enjoyed Dangerous Steve’s Tango. Good pro tips from Craig on how to manage his muscular arms. Dangerous Steve may be a good outside bet.

I was surprised by how well Reality Hammond did. I was not expecting her to perform so well. I thought she flagged a little at the end of her routine. I wonder if we’ll see a virtuous circle of improving physical fitness leading to improved performance leading to staying in and getting fitter.

The usual caveats about this only being one poll, you have to look at the trend, and individual constituencies enjoy differential incumbency factors only being one week, you have to look at the trend and different couples suit different dances.

At the bottom end of the leaderboard Pudding Loving Gregg, Unfortunately Named Tim, Hey Jude, Not Jennifer Grey and bringing up the rear Scott Mills in the AfternooOOOoon. No surprises there. Time to see who the public favour. Anyone in the bottom five gets put out in the dance off by anyone not in the bottom five at the moment. Will a week and another dance be enough to shift the scores.

With the exception of the surprisingly good tango from Can’t See the Woods the general trend of predictions look okay. I might be tempted to swap out Thom “Dripping” Evans from the Semi-Final list and put Can’t See the Woods in but I think Evans will have the public vote behind him.

Which leads me to Bookies’ Corner.

This year I’m recording the William Hill straight win odds for each contestant each week.

The favourite before the dancing was Pixie Lott at 3/1. She’s now fallen back a little 4/1 with Mmmh Frankie the new favourite at 3/1 from 9/2. She’s the big mover. Going the other way Thom Evans moves out from 4/1 to 6/1. At 16/1 I think I’d fancy Dangerous Backshall. I’m going to run a shadow “investment” portfolio and see if I can come out ahead. (2)

I’ll mainly be watching to see if the odds move in unexpected ways which might indicate that voting information is leaking out.

(1) You Want Me To Grab Its What? ROU (Murderer Class)

(2) Or if not ahead at least only behind the Baby Faced Assassin.