Sergeant's Non-Serious Saturdays

John Sergeant stomped around the floor on Strictly Come Dancing like a soldier marching to a tone-deaf band of sporting rejects, none of whom was blessed with much in the way of hand-eye coordination.

He was verbally charming, but physically ponderous, his dead pan expression opposite Kristina Rihanoff seeming to say: if no-one's allowed to see me straining to keep up, maybe they won't notice how awful I am.

That's a little unkind, but as half the country seems to think he's suffered a terrible injustice, I suspect it's something I may get away with; someone has to offer an opposing view.

There were times, for example, when his after-dance comments were a whisker away from being misjudged; he was rather cheeky to suggest that the judges re-acquaint themselves with the rules, particularly the bit about viewers owning 50 percent of the votes.

It was a witty, two-fingered salute, and, as such, chimed with the British desire to puncture pomposity.

At the same time, however, it also appeared to imply that the quality of the dancing was less important than who the audience took a fancy to.

And, for a time, it was. When the judges were rude to him one week, it was clear he was going to stay.

But then Cherie Lunghi went, and, for some of us, it wasn't funny anymore.

While he wasn't the only one with two left feet, it didn't matter so much.

Cherie, though, had shown, in contrast to many of the older contestants in previous series, that someone in their fifties could dance as well as a rival twenty or thirty years younger.

While John gave us pleasure through his humour and personality, Cherie was captivating on the dance floor.

Ultimately, it's not pure entertainment; not about getting laughs for their own sake. It's about people who don't dance regularly, trying to reach a reasonable standard.

In some cases, they attain an excellent standard, and that's why John had to withdraw. Without the entertainment element, the show would be boring. Equally, however, without the dance competition, it would be pointless.

John admitted that had he won, it would have been a joke too far.

But just how fantastic a time must he have had?

The former political correspondent went up to Oxford in 1964.

He can't ever have imagined that more than 40 years later, he'd have been fox-trotting in front of 10 million viewers with a dance partner who looks a bit like 60s icon Marilyn Monroe.

He may have been called the dancing pig, but was more like the cat that got the cream.