George Takei and Martina Navratilova hope to conquer the outback in "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!"

I will cringe for the first week, but then some vile magnetic force will drag me into it. They will spend the first three days being nicey-nicey and then cracks will begin to appear as they get hungry. When they get hungry some get funny, some turn into monsters and inevitably there will be crappy TV on the other channels at 9pm and I won't be able to help myself. Dear God save me, I am so weak.

The casting is good this year. Carly Zucker and Nicola McLean have passed me by entirely, but generally the models they put on tend to be mindless bimbos or women who shock you with personal depths that should be measured by something far more important than their bra sizes. Esther Rantzen is a TV institution in her 60s or 70s. Bright woman who is increasigly eccentric and used to host the top-rated TV programme (That's Life) back in the 1970s. She has a reputation for being a control freak, but age has tempered her into a national treasure. Dani Behr was one of the original sexpot TV presenters on a cutting edge youth TV show called The Word back in the 1990s. She was the sex symbol for drunken-lad-back-from-the-pub-at-11pm for her generation who sensibly admired her cleavage far more than her intellect. But then having gone through a high-profile romance with a Manchester United footballer (Ryan Giggs - aka The Shaved Chimp) she ended up moving to Australia with her new, non-Manchester United footballer husband. Presumably this is her attempt to revitalise a TV presenting career. British TV hasn't suffered any discernable drop in quality without her, and let's face it, having two kids really sags the boobs. 

Robert Kilroy-Silk - an ex-Labour MP turned chatshow host turned leader of a very right-wing political party. Has skin like an old, dyed crocodile skin handbag. Apart from his likely pompous windbaggery, the main attraction will be seeing if it's possible for the Australian sun to tan his skin to an even more unlikely shade of orange. Simon Webbe is one of the eye-candy placings. A decent singer who has always come across as a decent man in his interviews. He was the boyband member most likely to succeed as a solo artist (he has a good voice), but obviously he hasn't succeeded so needs this as a fillip to his career. The other eye candy is being provided by Joe Swales, an ex EastEnder actor. He's also passed me by and I have zero idea about him. But clearly he wasn't booked for pantomime this Christmas. As a very general rule, appearing on I'm A Celebrity... does nothing for an acting career. Webbe and Swales will be in there because the producers want them to get semi-naked and have a fling with a model. This has worked in past series of the show, so why change a winning formula?

Brian Paddick is a dark horse. Obviously he's a very brave and strong-minded man (you don't get to be the most senior out police officer in the UK without having brass balls) but he's also controversial. He advocated making smoking and possession of pot less of a crime when he was in the Metropolitan Police and the right-wing tabloids will be out to get him (not least because he managed to win a libel case against them in the past). When he was running for Mayor of London he made some thoroughly sensible points about how to govern the city, and in any other year - had he not been facing two other big personalities - he might well have fought the race to a close finish. However, he can be cringeworthy, too. If he starts telling stories about how Elton John kissed him on the lips (as he did in the mayoral election), I will probably die a little and then spend a fortune voting him off.  Being gay is cool. Being thoughtful about drugs is cool. Tongue action with Elton John? Oh bury me now! (apologies to David Furnish, obviously)

Martina - starting off as a front-runner to win. She's competitive and she gets the British sense of humour. Obviously, she grew up eating disgusting communist food in Czechoslovakia, so facing the 'Bush Tucker Trials' in which she will be expected to eat witchitee grubs, kangaroo bollocks and snake lips shouldn't be too much of a stretch. OK, the bollocks thing might be new, but she seems like a game lass. George Takei is an unknown quantity to most of the British audience. He'll benefit from being foreign (American) and exotic (of Japanese extraction) and involved with Star Trek (which is OK, but let's face it, it's no Doctor Who). Generally, the I'm a Celebrity... audience like Americans so long as they don't whine too much (or whine massively with a lot of bitching thrown in - viz Janice Dickinson) and take the indignities heaped on them with good humour or really bad, but funny, humour.

Two factors decide who wins, if you look at past shows: 1) entertaining the audience in the boring down times when nothing much is going on; and 2) being prepared to eat some really disgusting stuff without throwing up. OK, I know most of you American readers will think: "British? Eating crap? No Problem". But look, I've eaten a grease bomb from Whitecastle's and I'd rather suck down the left testicle of a wolf spider than have that experience again, so yah boo, sucks to you!

 Anyway, these are the runners and riders. Someone please pluck out my eyes before I actually want to know what happens to them.

That's Joe Swash, not Swales, who's the actor from EastEnders. Apologies to anyone I misled. Either way, he's not going to be Prince Charming, Buttons, Baron Hardup, Dick Whittington, Puss-in-Boots or even Peter Pan in pantomime this year. Christmas theatre for children will be a sorrier this place this year.