Take Me Out: Series 4, Episode 4 by Tim Ward

You don’t have to go looking for love when it’s where you come from.

ITV’s Saturday night starter rolls on every Saturday. The prawn crackers to X-Factor’s Peking duck main course. So, what were Saturday’s specials? Did the guys think our Flirty Thirty were sweet? Or did the boys leave them sour? How long will I keep up the shit takeaway analogy? Who knows.

The Girls

Noelle is our new girl from Cork and Paddy used the ‘corker’ joke immediately, so I’m bereft of inspiration. Tall Zoiey has represented Great Britain in international beauty pageants – and just when you thought Team GB had used up all our national pride eh? Zoiey has been travelling the globe trying to be prettier than other girls from around the globe and baffling judges with her vowel-greedy name.

The Boys

Gentleman number one was Geordie Shore spare-part Ed from Warwickshire, whose deep-plunging neckline turned off a few of the girls. However, Thoipia was a big fan of the “way his shoulders connect to his neck”. Based on previous weeks, it seems as long as you don’t look like a Picasso painting, you’ve got a chance with her. Lois thought Ed would make a lovely postage stamp. Honestly, she’s phoning in these lines these days. Ed lives with his parents IN HIS MASSIVE HOUSE WITH LAND which turns off a few girls, as does driving into town in his Porsche like a preening tossbag. Nonetheless, Ed scraped through to bag himself a date with lovely-sparkly-shorted Lucy!

Our second chappy was Robin from my hometown of Stoke-on-Trent! Every girl must surely have kept their lights on for not only the accent (a sort of Manc-Midlands hybrid) but for the prospect of visits to the jewel of the North (Midlands)? He kept 22 lights going into his video, but unfortunately works in telesales and his plea of “don’t judge me, girls” didn’t wash and a fair chunk of lights went out. But wait, Robin is in a band! Oh yes! Which are similar in style to The Beatles. Cue scene of Robin singing “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”, which I suppose could be described as similar to The Beatles. Twelve lights were left before the inevitable singing in the final round. Rob’s performance was, er, well, a bit shit but the lad from the Potteries managed to cling onto two lights – Leah and Jamilah’s – and chose Jamilah (whose mouth genuinely frightens me)! Nice one yoof.

Boy three was Steve Mitchell-in-a-hall-of-mirrors Wes from Bristol. Wesley kept 24 lights, but not Piri’s as she had a pet called Wes, who died. So, er, nice one Wes – thanks for bringing that up, yeah? Wes is a professional cage-fighter and I, for one, thought he was a thoroughly nice man. Really top, top man. He was just great. The girls aren’t a big fan of Wes’ job of professionally beating the fuck out of people though and he only had a handful of lights left before his final round. His mate Nigel reveals that Wes has A FUCKING GOLDEN EAGLE AS A PET. The sheer awesomeness is too much for of the girls and it was a blackout for Wesley.

Our final fella was Fisher Price-man-born-real Sam from Huddersfield, which excites Olivia from Halifax and the West Yorkshire flirtometer, or flir’t'o’me’t'r as they call it up there, was cranked up to, er, 10. It measures up to 10, apparently. Sam is an electrician, good, but his hobby is planking, which is so 2011 and also shit and, of course, not really a hobby. Sam had a decent amount of lights left, including Natalie who “has two boys”, which I think is a slang term. Sam dicked around baking like the Generational Game on smack, but got himself a date with Natalie by default, and frankly he has got to be delighted with that. As will the directors who will probably make the decision to have a bikini date AND dinner next week.

The Dates

Jessica Simpson-sort Jordan and bit-like Lee-Ryan Ryan’s date was first up and the budding love birds went paragliding which meant Ryan got a great look at Jordan in her bikini. And you have to admire the production team’s commitment to getting these shots in week-in week-out, meaning we get a good look too. At dinner Ryan turns on the charm, but there’s a lack of spark from Jordan’s point of few. Next!

Chad and Claire go Segwaying. Er, Segway-driving? Riding? No, driving, isn’t it? Fuck, I missed most of the date. At dinner, they discuss Nando’s and Claire having the audacity to have a full-time university course over working part-time in a shop. This was a total waste of time.

Yinka and Jo’s date saw them head off for some go-karting where Jo absolutely battered him. At dinner they talked. Well, Jo talked. A bit. Yinka just kind of sat there. Another waste of time.

Jonny and Ruby were our final daters from last week, and it rested on them to ensure that the whole show doesn’t become a farce. Condom and Curry go snorkelling (bikini shot, tick) before a dinner where Ruby just couldn’t take a compliment, which put Jonny off a little bit and no second date was planned. Screw this.

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