Time for Colleen to do a Sargeant

THERE are some people you just love to hate. Take Zannah. When I was 15 I’d have paid someone to take her as far away as possible.

Even her name — short for Suzannah — was about a million times cooler than Gerry, short for Geraldine.

She was 5ft 7, I was 5ft 4 (I’m 5ft 3ins now, at this rate I’ll be too short to go on any rides in Alton Towers by the time I’m 80). She had legs up to her armpits, mine stopped at my knees.

She was blonde, I was mousy. She could play the piano and the violin, I could only manage the record player. She got straight As, I got curly Cs.

She went out with the coolest boy in the 6th form, I got Chris Davidson. Though actually, Chris was all right — if you didn’t mind acne.

Her dad let her stay out till 11pm, mine wanted me in at 8 — and that was with an extension for the weekly youth club disco.

But worst of all, Zannah was nice. Really, really nice. Which meant you couldn’t hate her. Much.

A bit like Ray Quinn then, the golden boy of “Dancing On Ice”. He sings — runner-up to Leona Lewis in “X Factor” — he’s a champion dancer, he skates like a pro, he’s handsome, he’s cute, he’s always smiling.

And he’s winning.

The others must hate him. The programme has turned into a one-horse race with the rest of the nags lagging miles behind.

But has he got it all his own way? The final will tell us in a couple of weeks when I seriously expect some sort of skate off between the Mighty Quinn and, it seems, everyone’s favourite jelly, Colleen Nolan.

She’s going to fall flat on her smug face when little Ray whizzes around doing Russian jump splits and no doubt a handful of choctaw turns, toe-loop jumps, death spirals and a spreadeagle for good measure.

Colleen, on the other hand, is going to manage three strokes and a snowplough (or three forward steps and a stop for the uninitiated). That’s if she manages to stay upright.

She’s going to look exactly what she is: a 42-year-old trying to hang on to her ‘celebrity’ status by her fingernails. She can’t skate and she should have been voted off before Todd Carty. At least he faced up to the fact he was useless and played it as a joke.

Not so Ms Nolan who would have us believe she, and only she, is finding this show hard. Whatever induced her to take part, heaven only knows. But now the time has come for her to take her bow and do a John Sargeant. Walk.