It was all part of the plan for Len to go off on one.

The heel leads were there when Patrick danced it the first time. Didn't bother Len so much then.

It was just a bit of a sop for Ash and Ola and their supporters - the job had already been done.

I thought Ash danced a bit better than before but Patrick was about the same.

It was dependent on how you assessed the difficulty of the dancing each of them did and how well they did it. I can see ways to justify choosing either one of them.

I agree. I would have picked Patrick because I think the rumba's a much "harder" dance to make look good as it's tedious, bland and boring and serves no purpose whatsoever (sorry can you tell I seriously dislike it ) whereas a salsa can easily be made all shiny and exciting to watch.

You're probably right about Louis, I didn't watch most of that series.

But I don't think Tom was as bad as Darren/Chris. HOWEVER I think there are three "levels" of winner if you like - Alesha/Jill/Kara/etc - best or as good as rival. Then Tom where Rachel was def better, then Chris/Darren.

If Sophie or Abbey won, I would put them at Tom's level. I personally don't think, at this stage, they are as technically good as Kara, Alesha, Jill, Harry or Chelsee were at the same respective stage in the competition (ie Quarter finals).

If Susanna or Patrick won, they would be more at Darren/Chris level

You see, I find it hard to judge this series because of the unfair marking. However, I'd say that Abbey/Sophie are at the sort of level Matt and Pamela were in series 8, noticeably behind the best dancer, but not a million miles behind, so can make a good fist of it! (I think the series 8 final was the most competitive and the most fun to watch IMO!)

But, on that comparison, I don't think Natalie is as good as Kara! Especially being partnered with Artem, I remember a lot of Kara's routines, and love them dearly- but Natalies, hmmm. You only have to look at her lines in her AS and her VW to see how good a dancer she is technically, but something hasn't clicked like it did with Kara. Maybe it's the choreography (I go back to looking at Artem!) but it lacks soul for me. It's like there's something missing that should make me more excited than it presently does.

I think he knows strictly is not the show it was, and that they are marking dances differently to a few years ago, they would not have gotten away with half the lifts, out of hold, ect back in the day, Len knows this but has to tow the party line, I think this is partly what makes him grumpy. If they steer to far away from tradition I think Len could call it a day.

Yeah I get what you mean with Natalie/Kara. I think it depends on the dance-I think Natalie looked better in the Swingathon than Kara in Jive/Swingathon (although difficult to tell with the constantly shifting camera) but agree with you otherwise - I think Kara was better in ballroom, top line was better too, no?

I would say Natalie is probably technically better than Harry/Chelsee/Mark though

It will be interesting to see what Karen makes of it on Tuesday, especially as she does not always tow the party line. I would also like to hear her comments on the swingathon.

Oh Natalie has the whoopings over anyone from series 9! I think most of them stopped trying half way through because Harry could have won doing the Hokey Cokey with his fan base- Chelsee came close but clearly nerves crippled her in the final! I think Mark could get quite close to Natalie- he certainly took an awful lot longer to develop but by the final he was very strong indeed! His Freestyle I think rivals Tom and Camilla's.

Kara didn't really do a Jive because of Artem's injury, it was more of a swing dance, so Natalie definitely had sharper kicks and flicks, but you wonder how much of that was lacking on Kara's part. Certainly Jill Halfpenny is usually considered the Gold Standard for dancing in this competition, and Kara is definitely the nearest anyone's come to being that good since! I certainly don't see anyone this series matching her.

Agree, I would - hesitantly -say Kara was better than Jill in ballroom (I'm not sure if I'm being unfair on Jill because series 2 was so long ago!). I was definitely wowed by Kara's ballroom more. Jill was queen of latin though!

Undoubtedly- her Paso Doble often falls away because of the Jive, but that too was excellent!

I definitely think Kara's ballroom was very natural- I'm thinking in particular her 2 Tangos and Waltzes.
However, I have still not forgiven Craig for giving their Rumba a 9 for a lift THAT WASN'T THERE!! <grumblegrumblesadface>


I definitely think they're the top 2, but I think you only have to see Jill when she came back for the Christmas Special in series 6 that she could ballroom with the best of them! (Rachel Stevens, Kelly Brook and Alesha Dixon all fell by the wayside, and none of them were exactly slouches in ballroom!)

Jill came back for the 2008 Christmas Special and danced an American Smooth She also scored the same points from the judges as Rachel, Alesha and Kelly, all of them getting 39 points, Craig gave her the 9. It was a fabulous routine though and she deserved the audience vote to win the competition that year.
She won the 2004 Christmas Special (with the Jive) as well, her and Darren Gough are the only two SCD competitors to have three Strictly trophies and husband and wife team Darren Bennett and Lilia Kopylova both won two Christmas Specials with her and Darren Gough.

Absolutely! On Saturday night he raved about Patricks dance. In the results show Patrick gave the same god-awful performance and suddenly Len spotted the heel leads. Len showed what a nasty git lies under his cheeky cockney veneer.

Yes, I noticed that too. I interpreted it as "oh no, he's danced that much better - this decision isn't going to be as straightforward as I was expecting".

Hopefully Len is on ITT this week to explain himself (perhaps today, instead of Craig who is in panto).

It's a shame that Len has been inclined to ignore technique this series in favour of the performance. He's suddenly remembered what he's there for. Darcy needs replacing by someone like Karen Hardy. Craig has integrity and Bruno is purely there for entertainment but the marking has been skewed away from ballroom dancing this series.

I agree with your opinion of the rumba, for the male celebrity it's a total waste of time. But should the judges be "making allowances"..surely they should just mark the dance they've seen in front of them ?
Patrick basically used his acting skills, while standing still for much of the time. He certainly made the best use of his abilities to bring something to the performance, but it's still supposed to be about the dancing.

So do I. I kept waiting for the Paso to actually start, but no she just wafted around.

Patrick should have gone. Oh and I like Patrick.

I do think Len was feeling unwell which partly explains why he seemed grumpy. If you look at the image just after Ashley's dance he looks like he has a severe headache. http://livelaughlovetv.com/wp-conten...ncing-2013.jpg

Also at the end of the show, as Ashley and Ola were doing their last dance you can see Darcey giving Len a hug. I can only presume that's a "well done for getting through the show" hug unless anyone knows anything else.

I thought that the pained look Len had at the end was to do with Ashley having just mucked up the final lift - things had been going brilliantly up to that point.

The same thing applies to the salsa though, putting in fancy crowd pleasing lifts to distract from the fact there wasn't a whole lot of salsa content and Ashley's hip action was seriously lacking.

Whereas I hated their Charleston and loved their rumba last night - in fact it was possibly my favourite male rumba i've seen, and only his AS was better. Subjective innit? Im voting for Patrick & Anya to win, mainly due to Anya being my new fave pro with her choreo.

Karen is careful not to upset Len, he has a lot of sway on the show. Often she'll say 'I know what Len means', or 'This is what Len is getting at' when explaining away one of his illogical utterances. She did say 'Where were the 10s?' for Sophie's and Brendan's dance last week, but it's very rare.

That's how I took it. It looked like a "you ballsed that up, now what do I say to justify keeping you in?" look.

It was a difficult choice I think the judges just got it right and Len just threw a tantrum because his view did not prevail.

If Len had not called Ashley out of the swingathon so ludicrously early they may have escaped the dance off - so he is partly to blame for the situation

Of course Len's casting vote hasn't come in this series much:

The three other judges agreeing means Len only gets to answer "Did you agree?" and there's only this time and one other (can't remember who it was) when he was in a minonrity of one.

When it's a two: one split with the other judges, Len's vote wins the day and that has hardly happened this series.