Strictly between you and me

I know I can't have always wanted to visit the Strictly Come Dancing set because the show's only been running for a few years. But it feels like I have because I've wanted it that much.

I came close once: Angela got to go to a live show and I drove her and Lesley, a friend, to London, spent the evening kicking my heels, giving a lift to some tourists who'd come to the wrong hotel, crashed my car, wrote it off, got a hire car and drove Angela and Lesley home again.

Angela and I have different emotions about that night.

But today, it was going to happen. I was booked to go to Studio 1, BBC Television Centre for the first of two days filming the Radio Times photo shoot with all the dancers and their celebrity partners.

You'll see who got who on Saturday night when the launch show is aired but it was recorded yesterday evening. (And you're wondering, or at least I've always wondered, but no, nobody knows who they're getting before the launch show.)

Last night, Studio 1 had the full ballroom set. Tess's area. The judges' table. The band pit.

This morning, nothing remained. Not a sequin, not a speck of glitter.

Instead, this huge studio was divided into four or five areas. I don't know what each one was but Radio Times had one and there was a big green-screen portion where the title sequence was being filmed. That sequence we get very familiar with each year that shows the contestants and their professional partner swirling amid glitterballtastic sparkles.

I watched Rory Bremner and [redacted] film theirs. Was tickled by Anton's stream of beaming good humour with [redacted].

And Strictly is all about fantasy, isn't it? You think about what it would be like to take part. Allow me one little fantasy. Which goes thisaway:

I watched Katya and [redacted] filming their spot and she kept watching me. I'd pass her in the studio and she'd look me over. I know it was suspicion and that anyway I had a chocolate biscuit stain on my shirt, but you could believe that she fancied me.

Okay, you couldn't. But I could.

Okay, I can't either.

I'm using the new Google Blogger app on my iPhone: this button here is either Delete And Don't Make a Fool of Yourself William or it's Publish.