I am so excited to see who will represent us. However I hope it is not any of the couples I like as no one in Europe will vote for them.

Snap!

I would make an exception for Chris and Nicole though as I think Chris' Paso would be a genius entry... he could have a flag as his cape and that would be the national element

OH YEAH!! That is a brilliant idea. They should totally do that.

Saw the Irish selection of the couple a while back, they were absolutely woeful. Embarrassing again this year, just like last year.

I knew the the Irish "celeb" for a very brief time a very long time ago!!

I must say that I hope Nicole doesn't take part, there is a credibility issue with this type of program, and no matter how good our couple are I doubt the voting will reflect it

I know two of the pro dancers in the competition, they were practicing in the studio I go to with the "celebs". Have to say, however bad they were on the late late, they had drastically improved from the first time I saw them practicing.

I thought Brendan And Camilla were really outstanding last year.

They were! and they were good sports about it too as I remember

...but that is why I don't think that anyone who is any good at all should represent us again I wouldn't be sorry to see us represented by the Krankies tbh!

I'd rather we did a jokey routine, at least that way no-one will be bothered if/when we don't get votes!

It's weird we don't know who will be representing us yet, I think almost all other countries have either announced their representatives or are in the middle of a televised selection. The BBC must know who will be doing it by now, I wonder why they're keeping quiet?

They probably can't find anyone to do it after last year! Although I did hear a rumour somewhere or other that Brendan was doing it again, but if he's also doing SCD that doesn't seem to make sense.

I never heard anything more about the show Brendan was going to do to find an amateur dance partner to enter a pro-am competition. Pity it hasn't been on already, that would have made a good entry.

I can't see many of our pros wanting to do it, but with the rules saying it has to be a professional plus a non-professional who is well-known in another area... that basically leaves Strictly couples. In theory another pro could take on training a new celeb, but that would be a lot of work for a competition we're very unlikely to do well in anyway.

Brendan and Kelly would be good, not sure Kelly would go for it but if she did we'd have a fab entry.

Someone said earlier in this thread about seeing a pic of Kelly Brook in dance gear.

There is an article in one of last weeks magazines about her and she is apparently releasing a fitness vid with Flavia.

Now she may be doing Eurovision (and I'd be delighted if t'were the case) but I rather suspect that any sightings of Kelly with SCD dancers or in dance gear, will be related to the dance vid.

Official site has been launched at http://www.eurovisiondance.tv/

Basicly, there are no news which were not known before through ESCKaz.

The jury involvement has been confirmed. Jury weight will be around 20% of the total, and it will be announced before the televoting lines will be opened. So, that's a change compared to last year, when lines were open from the very beginning of the show.

There is controversy surrounding the Azerbaijani couple, as both are professional dancers. No information on official site about British couple, and even no information about Irish couple which was the first to be selected.

I don't get why they're allowing the Azerbaijan couple compete if they're both professionals?

I'm glad they are having a jury, at least that means if we do a decent routine we won't have to worry about getting nul points anyway!

The couples are all supposed to be one professional, one celebrity.

Well, Dzhafarov and Sazhina are three times national champions dancing together for 4 years, and having other professional parners before (Sazhina used to dance for Slovenia and Dzhafarov for Russia before 2004). Among other achievements of the couple are sucesses in international events in US (winners of Desert Classic 2008, Holiday Classic 2008, US Open 2007 in Latin), Russia (winners of Moscow Star in Latin), Georgia (winners of Caucasian Open 2006), The Netherlands (winners and laureats of Dutch Open 2004-2007), US (winners and laureats of UK Open 2004-2007, 6th at Blackpool Rising Star), Singapore, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg and others. In IDSF rating the couple is ranked 184th in the world. So

If anyone plans to go, tickets just went on sale, priced 10-15 GBP.

http://www.secctickets.com/gateway.aspx?E=N&QL=S9993|P12295|VLL3|GShowDatesCombo.aspx

They're selling the tickets? Didn't they have trouble filling it last year when it was free?

Not that I want to go, Glasgow would be a bit of a trek for me!

Well, I believe that the trouble mainly came as many people booked free tickets, but hadn't used them.
The venue in Glasgow is having around 3000 seats this time. They were clever not to book the other hall with 12000 seats, which is mentioned on official site.

Oh I see... I guess it makes sense to sell them then.

Tickets are very cheap and can be found at www.secctickets.com !!!!

I think that Alesha Dixon and Matt Cuttler should represent the UK in EDC 2008 as they did win the last series of Strictly Come Dancing!!!!

Last year when I went to the rehearsal, they ended up blacking out SO many rows of seats..if people couldn't get to London..I'm not that hopeful for Glasgow, considering in London it was free, and this isn't!

I wonder why they chose Glasgow? If it had been in London and if the UK dancer is someone from SCD I would have applied for tickets but can't get to Glasgow. Last year we went to the dress rehearsal on Friday night which wasn't full but then it was only the dress rehearsal - except that they filmed Enrique Iglesias on the Friday so we were able to see ourselves when we watched it on Saturday! The audience looked pretty full on the Saturday - were there some blocked off seats then too?

I somehow doubt they will sell that many tickets.

Does anyone else like me think that the fact that there has been no announcment as to who is representing us (UK) in this show is that the BBC are obviously having a lot of trouble persuading a pro (and a celeb) to do it????????

I would have thought that any pro wouldnt want to touch this with the proverbial bargepole... unless there are other reasons to doing it other than just dancing!...

sv

Lilia Podkopayeva! Really glad about this - loved her routines that are on Youtube (even if some are... a little odd!). She was really good, and has an international reputation. Could potentially do very well...