Jamie Ross: Don’t feel like dancing

Following 23 years of failed relationships and terrible decisions, I settled down to watch Britain’s Got Talent by myself last night.

I don’t really like Simon Cowell’s television programmes but, like all people who write on the internet, I am forever cursed to devote my entire existence to seeking out things which are likely to annoy me so I can manufacture a strong opinion about them and explain it to you in roughly 500 words.

For those of you who haven’t seen Britain’s Got Talent, just imagine every person you’ve ever avoided on a stage doing things you’d never pay to see surrounded by so many gaudy Union Jacks that the entire event looks like it’s being held inside the pocket of a racist clown.

Amongst the usual proliferation of singers, dogs and women who Simon Cowell can pretend to find sexually attractive, I found one type of act uniquely dull; the dance acts. As I sat here alone thinking that, glumly flicking pistachio nuts into my sad mouth as I overheard revelry on the street outside, I decided it was about time people knew how much I disapproved of talent and other people having fun. As such, here are my top five least favourite things about dancing.

Street Dance: Street dance was famously invented by Simon Cowell when he realised that he could harvest the souls of young men and women even if they couldn’t sing. The groups are usually comprised of a dozen or so youngsters who took up dancing to “stay out of trouble”; a statement which I always find in equal parts admirable and menacing. Each wearing a uniform which they’ll spend their adult lives destroying all evidence of, they run about and smile and do forward rolls to the latest pop music records whilst I sit on my chair visibly ageing until pieces of me just quietly dissolve into the atmosphere.

Artistic Dance: “But Jamie” you might be whining at your screen at this point, “Isn’t someone of your age simply too old to appreciate youth culture and more inclined to enjoy more sophisticated forms of dance such as ballet and ballroom?” Well, you are partially correct – I am indeed both suspicious and bitterly jealous of every single person on Earth who is younger than me. However, with your ballet comment, you are laughably off the mark.

Let me put it this way. A person is a big sack of guts. A magic sack of guts with a face drawn on it, perhaps, but a big sack of guts all the same. Even the most talented ballerina in the world is just a collection of meat shuddering around to a noise. Would you be so moved if I stuffed a Tesco bag full of poultry and jiggled it about to The Nutcracker? Because it’s more or less the same thing.

Ceilidh: There are many redeeming features of Scottish culture, none moreso than the cavalier attitudes towards swearing and the unproven theory of cholesterol. Ceilidhing is one thing, however, that I cannot abide outside the context of laughing at an American attempting to pronounce it for the first time. This could stem back to school where, so slow was I to pick a female due to an ultimately unfounded fear of girl disease, I would almost always end up dancing with a man called John Stewart via process of elimination. It could also be because, so arachnoid are my legs, that a kilt makes the lower half of my body look like two pieces of old wool sellotaped to a tea towel. It is more likely, however, that ceilidhing is just an entirely rubbish concept and my opinion on it has nothing to do with a reoccurring nightmare I certainly do not have about my old PE teacher calling me Janie.

The assumption that you have to dance to have a good time: It might be important to stress now that I am not a gifted dancer. This is troublesome as every event – from an Olympic opening ceremony to a grim evening in the Union – features dancing, albeit of a varying quality. I fear the prospect of clubs or, in St Andrews, pubs with the chairs tucked in and the lights turned slightly further down than they are during the day. I’ve spent several hours of my life secreted inside toilet cubicles for the full duration of the Macarena. I pre-emptively reject all marriage proposals to eliminate the prospect of a first dance. So, I must ask, why do you force me to dance? No good can come of it.

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