“This is dumb” grumbled the celebrity chef

as he attempted a clumsy bald-headed plié,

and, mugging shamelessly for the cameras,

he announced he had never danced before.

“It’s mad, I’ve never danced before” he revealed,

rubbing his head proudly to a waxen sheen

with his sweaty, torn cuff; he liked it rough,

as his publicist had briefed him he should.

“My wife thinks I must be gay!”                                silence,

cut to a sequence of trialled pink sequinned shirts,

a nonsensical statement left to hang in the edit

like a homophobic fart in the prime-time lift.

Then cheers as he and his partner hit the dance floor,

hands on bums, pumping their hips with fixed grins,

stiff, like over-sexualised animatronic mannequins

lurching along painfully to Tom Jones’ “Sex Bomb.”

One judge liked it, he always does, flirting in his verdict,

one judge hated it, he always does, flinging verbal excrement,

one judge wasn’t sure, she never is, she liked his swinging hips

the last judge was too busy flogging frozen food (like he always is).