Lopez Blogs

Although, I've been following it avidly each week, I haven't really written much - or even tweeted too much - about this current series of Dancing On Ice. It's not that it's vastly different from previous series - it has the usual collection of slightly better than on your average "reality" show celebrities doing their best to stay upright on the ice. And though this season lacked a faded reality popstar (previously we'd had Ray Quinn, Gareth Gates, Jessica Liberty X and Suzanne Shaw), there was always quite nice Mikey from Boyzone. What's been more memorable than the skating this year (up until now - see below) has been a higher totty factor of bums and guns. Now, gayspy has fallen in love with Danny Young, but he's not really my type. I'm quite happy with the pert bottomed Fred Palascak or the cheeky winks of Daniel Whiston (in vid below). I'm lured in by the charm of Gary Lucy and the geeky awkwardness of Keiron Richardson. And frankly, there's been some decent skating but nothing that has made me sit up and go "oooooo" at the screen as I have in recent series...

But oh. my. gosh. Hayley Tamaddon (from Emmerdale - think a less glamourous, not cancelled Falcon Crest, americans) whizzed onto the ice for an electrifying performance set to the infernally catchy J'Ai Ho where every move was carefully thought out and executed beautifully. From the start of the clip above, you can see how absolutely focused Hayley is, but then there is this glorious moment where she gets the required element (a two axel minimum spin) at 45 seconds and allows herself a big smile - never has a leap of joy fitted so wonderfully into the routine. As it's live and Darren & I sit watching it with a hot chocolate, there's this certain frisson (love LOVE that word) of excitement and nerves as you will her to do brilliantly (as you know she can) but it's juxtaposed with the element of nerves when you have a RuPaul moment thinking "don't f**k it up!" I'm rooting for a Hayley-Gary finale showdown, but with this show and the voting, who the heck knows?!

Back tomorrow with a brilliant new artist you will absolutely adore :)