I thought Craig's comment was rather unfortunate. He could have just meant to say she'd done very well in the circumstances but his choice of words made it come across as rather a snide comment.

I don't think for one moment there is anything fake or suspicious about Laila's injury or her reaction to it. It may or may not be the case that her level of pain is no more than other celebrities have had to cope with throughout the series, but that doesn't mean her ability to handle it is the same. She may also have never had an injury like that ever before and that makes a difference too.

I rather liked the dance, just as I saw the potential last week, but it was clearly under rehearsed.

I think Laila has the potential to be the best dancer of all the celebrities, at least in ballroom, but not within the timescales of the show, and not without greater determination to succeed.
Last edited by grunson : 22-11-2009 at 16:50

What a fantastic post - exactly the way I feel about it all

I don't know - I remember her moaning in the training vts way before her injury, and her cha cha was lame. Even the judges thought she really wasn't pulling her weight there. The impression she gave then was that she didn't like it so she couldn't really be bothered to try very hard.

Her Paso was decent, but she lost it a bit in the middle. She never has really pulled it off, and to me it feels like she just isn't interested in really trying or something.

I've felt like this for a while, but kept giving her the benefit of the doubt.

I felt a bit sorry for her with her injury, but felt she milked it a bit. The problem, perhaps, is that she didn't get it together before the injury, now the injury etc. and I've stopped believing she's ever going to do anything really, for whatever reason.

Her dance was okay, but not brilliant, she was a bit behind time and didn't have the artistry, could be the injury, but that might not be the whole story.

I find it hard to care much, to be honest.

"slucky" is a lovely word but I meant 'lucky'.

I still maintain Anton needs to be firmer with her, he allows her to get away with too much and it always appears she's very much in charge. Maybe she needs Natalie Lowe to be her instructor for a week see how she does with that.

You do get the feeling she could be very good if not excellent at ballroom and of all the female celebs she knows how to sell a latin dance mood wise it's just the dancing part that doesn't quite follow.

There again I love her and I'd sit and watch her stand still for 90 seconds and still think it was great. Unfortunately for Laila there is only one of me and my phonebill has a limit!!

I do love Laila but wonder if she's really earned her place in this competition. She couldn't be bothered to do a jive (though she looked fantastic), has kind of flubbed her way through most of the Latin dances, gave a barely there performance last week because of her ankle and was kind of dragged around on the floor by Anton this week.

I do like her but it's just like an actress to say, "I'll just have to pull it out of the bag!" But there's nothing in the bag when technique is involved.

She's been fun but I feel there are more deserving competitors.

And what evidence do you have for this assertion apart from occasional snippets of her dancing?

She is an ok dancer but I do wish she would stop the moaning all the time, All the celebs started off exactly the same, with virtually no dancing ability, but none of them moan on about how hard they are finding certain dances quite like Laila does. She reminds me of a spoilt child, if she does not like a certain dance then she isn't going to do it without moaning on about how she just isn't getting it, but she will somehow pull it out of the bag. She should stop moaning and put in the hours like the rest of them.

I think what happened last night is, that Laila had a bad training week due to her injury. That's why her performance suffered. It's quite simple actually. I don't think the judges are trying to put them through (Ricky G, and I love him, wasn't as good).

I had sprained ankles before, and most people will agree that it can be very painful. She did dance last week, and she danced this week (regardless of the fact that she had little time to train). However, instead of actually recommending her for it, she gets a hard time. Beats me why, and thy are not my favourite couple.

The dance was dreadful ,and although I don't dislike Laila, I really don't think she deserves to be there.

Ellie

He does it every week - where you been

It's not an assertion it's an opinion. There's a difference.

I'm no Laila fan and think she's been largely overrated from week 1, but I think there might be a couple of points in defence of her attitude - the first being that it can't be much fun trying to keep your end up in a competition when you've got an ankle that's killing you. The fact she got an even vaguely credible waltz together on six hours' training is pretty good IMO.

The second thing is that now I think about it, she seems to have been the celeb who's had the smallest amount of constructive criticism from the judges. With the Latin they've spent most of their time being rude to Anton rather than helpful to Laila, and with the ballroom she's got away with an awful lot because they spend so much time commenting on how beautiful she is. She's got nothing to work on, so we shouldn't be surprised if she's not improving - particularly as I don't think improvement, as others have said, is top of Anton's priority list.