UP Strictly Come Dancing

The world is full, is it not, of amazing things? Coral reefs. Harvest moons. Women in Santa outfits giving away promotional shots of mint-flavoured Baileys at Victoria station. But perhaps most amazing is the brouhaha surrounding Strictly Come Dancing. For those who have come in late, the former BBC chief political correspondent John Sergeant has mustered huge public support, despite dancing like a declawed circus bear hopping around on a hot tray. The judges have been vexed by his “comedy dancing”, and engendered such a climate of disapproval that Sergeant resigned from the show. The media fallout has been massive. It made every front page. Even The Times ran it over pages 4 and 5, and we usually do serious stuff, like wars, and Obama.

But all this will be as nothing if promises made earlier in the week come to pass. Lord Mandelson has hurled his hat in the ring, saying that he would “like to be invited” on to the next series. When a disbelieving presenter double-checked what he had said, Mandelson replied, “I'm not backtracking - have you ever seen me dance?” which sounds like a throw-down. This man is wild to dance. He cannot be stopped. He is like that lady welder in Flashdance. But this will cause trouble - for Vince Cable, the Lib Dems' Treasury spokesman, has decided to turn this into a DANCE WAR. Having danced with the Strictly Come Dancing champion Alesha Dixon in a one-off show earlier this year, Cable has declared: “If Peter Mandelson wants to represent Labour , I'm happy to take him on.” This means that the Tories must field a paso doble contestant or face looking like a square bunch of bug-eyed Bettys. At least, that is CW's understanding of modern politics. Currently, SCD is the most important show on Earth. It's all so enliveningly unlikely.

UP Jean-Claude Van Damme

CW considers a vital part of its remit to be sharing amazing quotes from celebrity interviews that you might otherwise have missed - to the palpable detriment of your future life. Here, then, is Jean-Claude Van Damme - the action-movie star once known as the “Muscles from Brussels”, talking about his latest project to Newsweek: “I really opened myself up. I peeled back the skin of the fruit, cut the pulp and then took that very hard seed. In this film I cut that hard seed, and inside that seed was a kind of liquid cream substance of the man I am.”

CW thinks he means he “did some acting”.

UP Brian Paddick

The former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met has entered the Australian jungle on this year's I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! While most comment has centred on Paddick's buffness - well displayed during his naked shower under a waterfall - CW has noticed an even more pressing agenda: his eyes. Surely these are the most clear, blue eyes in all the world? They are as lapis lazuli lasers, burning into a mesmerised nation. They are like syrup of summer sky. Or two azure enamels, jealously guarded by kung-fu monks. Now that Paul Newman is no more, it might just be that these are the bluest eyes in the world. It would be good to have a chart of such things, for reference.

UP Take That

According to The Sun, a track by Take That, How Did It Come To This? is about the troubled back-combing pioneer Amy Winehouse. “Have you turned on your TV/Have you seen reality?” the band sings - curious, given that Winehouse could turn on the TV during Star Trek, assume that that was reality and become distressed about tracking down magic love-flowers on Omicron Ceti III. This news has prompted CW's weakly (aha!) Pun Meltdown! Take Crack. Could It Be Tragic? Relight My Briar (Full Of Heroin). Back For Hood (To Put Over My Gigantic Hair.)

DOWN Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa

Poor Sheikh Abdulla bin, etc, etc. He's the second son of the king of Bahrain - but Sheikh Abdulla bin, etc, etc, does not, in his deepest heart, really want to be just that. What he seems to really want to do is play MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, MAAAAAAN - which is why he appears to have hooked up with the troubled superstar Michael Jackson, paid off some of his bills, and then co-wrote a We Are The World-style charity single with him. Alas, there is now a row over who should have done what and when. This is why the prince is suing him for £4.7 million. The single is now due to get its first - and probably only - play in the courtroom, in front of an audience of lawyers. Poor Sheikh Abdulla bin, etc, etc. All he wanted to do was rock.

DOWN Kate Silverton

The news reader Kate Silverton has had an unfortunate week. While filming Big Cat Live in Kenya, Silverton “fell down an elephant hole”. CW was initially thrown by this. It did not know elephants burrowed. Is that where they lay their eggs? Having to resort to a Google-search, CW eventually learnt that an “elephant hole” isn't a sexual phenomenon - it is merely a well, dug by elephants in the dry season. Oh. This doesn't exonerate Silverton from suspicions of perverseness. She woke one day to find, “a hippopotamus munching away on my veranda”. Sounds far too “modern” for CW's liking.

UP Andrew Lloyd Webber

One of the oddest aspects of fame is that one never knows whose heart you will touch. This week, we learnt that Andrew Lloyd Webber - co-ordinating the UK's next Eurovision entry - has been assured of at least one vote. The Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has promised that he will phone in and vote for the UK. His list of hobbies now runs: “Shooting tigers, invading Georgia, - and doing my bit to encourage putative heirs to the throne of Bucks Fizz!” There can beno doubt any more - he's the scariest man in the whole world.

UP Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson

Lindsay Lohan, a young actress whose CV reads: 2005 - Herbie Fully Loaded; 2008 - full-time hot lesbian, has been over in London, UK, England this week with her girlfriend, the DJ Sam Ronson. According to tabloid estimates, the couple earned £25,000 in one week's worth of DJ sets and personal appearances - not least, £10,000 for one evening at Faces nightclub, Gants Hill, Essex. Isn't it odd how human beings are the same, beneath the skin? Ten thousand is the sum you would have to pay CW to go to Faces nightclub in Essex for the evening, too.

UP Suri Cruise

Suri Cruise, two-year-old offspring of Tom Cruise and a woman, has been voted the most “influential” A-List toddler in Forbes magazine - beating Brooklyn Beckham and Shiloh Pitt. Obviously, the concept is troubling. The main people she would be “influencing” - other toddlers - are unlikely to read of her elevated status. And should she be influencing adults, what could she be influencing us to do, other than wear patent Mary-Jane shoes, and have a little nap in the afternoon?

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