Michele Hewitson: Vote with his right feet

What is it with these Act MPs? On Sunday night, all two of them were on the telly: Rodney in spangles and Heather Roy in camo gear. Private Roy's stint in the Territorials was on Sunday but, like Rodney in Dancing with the Stars, it was more of the reality TV that the Act party has become.

The inclusion of Rodney, the man with two right feet, in Dancing with the Stars seemed an act of madness. It was an Act of madness, but it was also a stroke of mad genius.

I seem to remember saying nothing would get me to watch another series featuring that fondue set that is Jason and Candy.

But then along came Rodney. I didn't want to watch Rodney. Actually, I didn't quite watch Rodney. I sat, in stunned silence, peeking through my hands at Rodney. I sat through what felt like years of this rubbish, waiting until the votes were counted, to be told that Rodney had made it through again.

Was this democracy? Well, down with it.

There have been no moments of pure telly horror like this since The Office.

Like David Brent, Rodney has become entertainer first, politician second. That little hopeful face as he waited for the judges to tell him how crap he was is like Brent's as he tells a joke - one that will inevitably offend everybody.

That crestfallen spaniel look he got when the scores came in is Brent's in the rare moments when he let himself realise nobody really liked him.

There was Rodney, poor deluded Rodney, perking himself up by announcing that he was dancing. You ended up feeling sorry for him. Almost. But not as sorry as you felt for yourself for having watched the thing. Thank God it's over.

I really couldn't take any more. This stuff is too black to be funny. And thank God there are only two Act MPs.

But you have to hand it to him, he will go down as one of the great deluded telly characters.

Another of the great Walter Mitty characters of our time is Norris who, like Rodney, has been providing us with a telly treat lately. And we have been in sore need of one.

Waiting for Corrie to get good again has been like waiting for Godot - or at the very least for a nice hot cuppa. The Shelly/Charlie and her black eye storyline went on for so long I felt like giving whoever had come up with a shiner worthy of treatment from one of Fred Elliot's prime steaks.

And, by the way, the Fred and Ashley look-alike, sound-alike rival butchers are inspired. Mad, but inspired - which has rather turned out to be the theme of my TV viewing lately. Perhaps Rodney could write a novel. Which is what Norris has been up to. It's delusions, again, which always provides some classically dotty Corrie moments.

Because, of course, Rita has got hold of the thing and, of course, she has to read it to Emily. In Norris' novel is a menage a trois involving the hero Norrise, and a shy lady called Emilia and a brassy one called Reba.

So, of course, Norris will approach the ladies at the Rovers and say "Do you mind if I join you - and make a threesome?"

Emily: "Would you say a writer writes best when writing from experience - or living out their fantasies on the page?

Norris: "Oh yes, my novel is very much based on wish fulfilment."

I don't know, and I don't want to know, what particular fantasies Rodney and Private Roy have been living out on our telly screens. I'm just very, very glad that Rodney has gone.

Another week of watching him put on what he thought was a smouldering, sexy dance look and I'd have been sending you, Rodney, a bill for the therapy.