Holly Valance: I take three baths a day!

Holly Valance: I take three baths a day!
Holly Valance: I take three baths a day!

Holly Valance has admitted that if she's not at rehearsals for Strictly Come Dancing then she's most likely to be found in the bath. The former Neighbours star said that the baths were a perfect antidote to being left battered and bruised by her training. "You do something every day," she said. "I've broken out in bruises, I've had a back spasm around my ribs for weeks now, which is just highly dull and driving me nuts because it just pinches in the middle of walking down the street. "But everyone's got something - we're bruised and scuffed and things are going on everywhere "I do probably two or three hot baths a day," she added. "I just have to soak and soak and stretch. If I get home on time or if I have a break, I just generally go and sit in one, and it's just heaven. It's the first thing I do when I get home." Holly added that she could not yet contemplate the possibility of winning the coveted Glitterball trophy in the final, which takes place at the Blackpool Ballroom on December 17. "I can't think that far ahead. I keep it a week at a time because it's not up to me, I can only do the hours, then it's up to the people at home," she said. However she added that the atmosphere was not as competitive among the remaining couples as it might appear. "We're all going for each other," she said. We're really supportive, it's a nice way to be. To get too competitive would be exhausting and it's hard enough as it is. It's nice having the camaraderie when we get to set."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.