Wednesday 10 June 2009

Come Prancing

'Do you think any of these men actually have sex?'

'What with women?'

'With anyone?' I ask.

My daughter looks at the motley collection of middle aged, white men pirouetting with tiny little Skipper-sized women on the dance floor and shakes her head.

'Unlikely.'

There's a tall guy with dyed black hair swept back in an Elvis quiff who always wears a white sweat band on his wrist and little powder white dance shoes. He looks like a child pornographer, but that might just be because of the Gary Glitter resemblance. He also tucks his tank top into his jeans.

Who dances salsa in a tank top?

Yup, that'd be Gary.

Then there's the blonde muscled chap with pirate ear-rings in both ears and a whisper of hair on his chin that looks might be a goatee if it ever grew up, so a sort of kid beard, or a bad Brazilian. He always wears a tight black t-shirt stretched over his gut, also tucked into his jeans. I glance around. I'm sensing a theme here.

The Arriva bus driver, who dances with an overbite and a supercilious smirk on his face, somewhat like Leonard Rossiter in those old Campari Ads, and sometimes comes dancing in his bus uniform, is also wearing a t-shirt, tucked into his jeans. A grey one.

English chappie with the brylcreem parting, yep another t-shirt. Tucked. Brown. It's all a bit Nazi Party, come to think of it. Other BNP chap with the skin head and the stickie out ears. Definitely militaristic.

So why on earth are they all salsa dancing? And then there's the women. Some of them are just as strange. Particularly the one in the ball gown with the corsage pinned to the front trying to do double spins in sling backs, and the other wearing a jump suit with flat breasts like Spaniel's ears on view as far as her diaphram. Wonderbra, girl - Wonderbra.

These and other questions I will attempt to answer after I've danced with Smelly French Man whose BO is so bad it actually makes you gag, and who exudes a pungent mix of garlic, beer and sweat every time he lifts his arm. Which is every step.

When my daughter and I get into the car to come home the first thing we do each week is get out the hand sanitiser.

'Remind me, why are we doing this, again?' I ask as I pull out into the traffic.