Nobody has gone home who ever had the remotest chance of winning & the only one who was a genuine loss was Deborah & she wasn't up against Mark in the dance off.

For goodness sake it's not that big a deal & hardly Marks fault.

My wife is not a Strictly fan, and she came in the room as Ben was dancing, and said she thought he was as bad as Tony Jacklin.

(Actually she said "the old golfer bloke who went out first", but I knew what she meant.)

He was just stomping about at one point.

No shirt = Kristina was seriously worried about the dance !!

IMHO, Mark was convinced it was his last dance so just went out and enjoyed it.

Right decision for the right reasons.

Mark listened to the criticisms and, as he did in his rumba, addressed them in his dance-off. He got better.

Ben's dance-off was riddled with errors. Len said two, but I noticed four which probably means there were twice that! He got much worse.

And Mark started a tad ahead anyway, so the decision has to be correct.

The biggest shame is that in the judges' overmarking and undercriticising of Ben, and Christina's eternal muscle-pole-with-bare-arms/chest-and-distraction-dancing choreography they effectively denied him any real hope of getting better, which I'm sure he could have done. Great going, guys...

What as opposed to Mark's arm waving and walking, or spoof 'dance moves'. Wow those shoulder rolls... sooo funny ... except not.

I've been saying there is no dancing from Mark for weeks now. He should have gone before Ben, before Fiona, before Rachel, before Deborah even, but he and Dave clung on limpet like (in terms of hanging on... i'm not comparing them in any other way to a limpet) way past the point at which they were even remotely entertaining.

That rumba was the stuff of nightmares

Lisa and Mark are not comparable; Lisa was always high scoring so her lack of popularity was very obvious whereas Mark has a high mountain to climb having such low scores and sharing the votes with the better scoring celebs.

Not his dancing then?

As above, I don't think that's clear at all.

You may be right, you know:

Related Trivia - To date, all the eliminees bar Tony Jacklin made their debut on the 2nd night (Saturday) and there's only Patrick and Abbey left out of the 9

As said we are not talking Austin Healey here. He was a nice realistic guy and looked relieved to go. So would I be if I had to live with Kristina's desperation and delusion that he has been undermarked through the series when the reverse is true. I am very tired of Kristina's choreo which revolves around the bloke being a pole and will not miss her at all. Michael Vaughan was about the same standard but Natalie got a couple of very decent dances out of him and I think she would have got Ben to do better than he did, rather than rely on distraction techniques.

I must say the standard of teaching hasn't been great.

Kristina let Ben get away with doing nowt.
Iveta isn't fixing Mark.
Aljaz isn't fixing Abbey.
Ola isn't fixing Ashley.
Brendan isn't .......

Well, I could go on. I'm not saying I don't think there have been good dances but I think they should all have shown more improvement and you have to place that at the door of the pros.

I love Iveta and I really like Aljaz but come ON!

Yes, I agree. Ben seems like a lovely person but it seems to be that Christina's tactic was to teach the bare minimum and then use his looks to get through rather than actually challenging him and seeing what he was capable of. I blame Christina and am not sorry to see her go.

I feel sorry for Mark. He looked slightly horrified that he was saved, and looked in a lot of pain coming down the steps towards the end.

Mark did looked a bit embarrassed and shocked that he stayed, but I am delighted. I love Mark and Iveta and was getting really bored of Ben.

Kristina not happy at all, been tweeting all weekend, saying unfair marks and favouritism.

Kristina is so up herself

Kristina has no dignity, decorum or sense of reality, as evidenced by her on ITT saying Ben has been under marked.

I have to contrast her with Erin who after Austin had every right to be aggrieved, but didn't go on a public rampage against the judges or anyone else that I know of.

I think the only one who went a bit before her time was Deborah, I would have evicted Fiona before her in terms of improvement. Everybody else, I think has gone in a reasonable eviction order so far.

Am I right in thinking that when giving a verdict on two blokes in the dance-off

1) Big Arms = good. Should be kept in.
2) Big Stomach = bad. Should be chucked out?

Ben says in the paper this morning that Mark has wanted to go for the last couple of weeks cause hes been in alot of pain with his knees. You have to admire the man for not giving up but I do worry that he might do himself some damage.

Its not his fault that the judges keep saving him so I get cross when posters are nasty about him.

I really don't think it matters in the overall scheme of things but I can't help thinking that Mark is struggling and would have been happy to go.

I did think that it was cruel to have given him the jive at all since he is extremely unlikely to make the final and so would not have needed to do all the dances.

No he couldn't be that's not because he's a worse dancer it's because he's less fit than Ben. Both men have their pros and cons - Mark's more expressive than Ben but his level of fitness is much lower and he has problems with his knees. Ben is at the peak of physically fitness but he doesn't have any performance skills and doesn't really seem to have much of a sense of rhythm - he's managed to pull the wool over the judges eyes because he can do some very impressive lifting but how bad he was when he wasn't doing lifts was really obvious - his footwork was as heavy as lead.

In a sense Fiona, Ben and Mark are kinda of all around the same level and if Mark goes next (as his presence in three dance off would seem to suggest is a strong possiblity) then they've all gone out about the right time. I think all three of the celebs knew/know that (they all seem like nice people with no delusions about their abilities) they're behind the rest of the field and when he does go Mark's exist will be as gracious as Fiona's and Ben's were.

This is just walking around in a robotic motion, is it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=crv-0jHOcX4

Mark has rhythm, timing, charactarisation and an ability to just do the routine without looking like he's constantly thinking about what to do next or counting time.

He has way more ability than Ben and the judges made the right decision.

Yes. If the dances were swooped they would have said that was a great Foxtrot & rubbish Charleston

Fiona's was worse if you want to go down that route - God could you be any more bitter?! - Rachel did a shockingly bad paso - Deborah an awful jive - I would have liked to have seen more of Deborah and I think she along with Rachel deserved to outlast Dave but to be honest - barring him most of the people mentioned are about the same standard - maybe Rachel was a tad better on the ballroom side. Entertainment wise it's a personal choice. I rather like Mark but when the evitable happens and he leaves next week then I won't be sorry to see him go.

unfair marks? I dont follow her on twitter so have no idea what she has been tweeting but 27 is not a bad score at all

Pretty much this, except I'd go a bit further and say that Mark was the better dancer of the two. I like Ben - he's handsome and affable, and seems like a nice bloke, but for such a big guy Mark is very light on his feet.

The same Kristina who knocked out improving dancers when she was with John Sargent

Kristina sounds a bad loser.

Mark is more entertaining to watch and made less mistakes. Thats what happens. I'm pleased Iveta is around for another week

Come on folks. They were both rubbish "dancers". Both nice fellows and good sports - as are all this year's contestants. But both of them are still hopeless on a dance floor.