She has NEVER been a professional dancer. She has NEVER been paid to dance.

I don't begrudge Abbey the trophy - she captured the public vote and deserves her success but she WAS NOT a novice.

You're believing what you want to believe.

I wanted Abbey to win right up until last night but Natalie blew everyone out of the water and it was a travesty she didn't win imo!!
She was so gracious in defeat, I really warmed to her.

Give it a rest or provide evidence that Natalie has, at any point in her life, been paid to dance. i.e. danced professionally.

Either that or stop peddling fiction. The backlash against her was created by such figments of the imagination.

Ah another attack from a Natalie fan. Quelle surprise!

As I said to one of your comrades last week. Well then, she shouldn't have put it on her CV, should she? Are you suggesting I shouldn't believe Natalie's CV, but instead should believe all her fans who are aggressive and rude to me on this forum?

She didn't - she put highly skilled not professional.

She trained at the Italia Conti for 3 years and her training included, amongst other disciplines, Latin American - but NO BALLROOM.

Now go and dig out evidence that she danced professionally.
Last edited by Ignazio : 22-12-2013 at 09:32

Absolutely. I think at the time we all thought it was just a mixture of sloppy judging and outright favouritism that so many of the contestants (with the notable exceptions of Sophie and Ashley) were getting ridiculously overmarked. I think it's now much more apparent why that was done - it was, along with her own deliberate underperformance, to try to mask the genuine and massive gulf in ability between the contestants.

If not for that, I wonder how often Natalie would have been top of the scoreboard AND in the dance-off? Might well have broken the dance-offs survived record!

I sincerely hope you are not calling me a liar. Telling people to get over it shows a lack of respect and is not acceptable by this forum.

At least she made it through to the final three having been in the dance off last week and been written off as the first to go home so it must have been a boost to her confidence to know that the public loved her more than DS favourite Sophie last night. I think Artem's choreography was a bit precious and this emphasised how Natalie, technically, was more advanced than the others to begin with and consequently she appeared to plateau rather than clearly improve. Of course, she did improve but less noticeably than Abbey. She also appeared to hold back a bit and I suspect this might have made her more difficult to embrace for some people. I think see did well to be the runner up. I never expected her to win but I'm glad I got to see three dances from her in the final. She did herself proud.

And I've never been paid to be an engineer - I became a programmer and systems analyst - but since I have a degree in engineering it would be utterly wrong to say I'm not a professional engineer.

You can split pedantic hairs as much as you like over whether she has "worked as a dancer" or been "paid as a dancer", but the simple and now even more obvious fact is that she has been trained as a dancer such that she is in a different league to the others in terms of the dancing "tools" she has available to her when she's prepared to use them.

I can admire her dancing abilities and absolutely don't blame her for taking the opportunity the BBC offered and making the most of it. But I do blame the BBC (who of course don't give a fig because controversy and good dances both put proverbial "bums on seats" so expect them to do it again... )

No one has denied Natalie's training; not Natalie nor her supporters.

She is not a professional dancer - nor are you a professional engineer: you are a qualified engineer.

That is not splitting hairs, that is not pedantry - it is fact.

According to the certificate on my wall I am a "Web Development Certified Professional" even though I've never done any web development for a living.

I wouldn't call myself a professional Web Developer, it just means I reached an appropriate standard to pass the appropriate exam on the day.

I suppose it's like having a driving licence doesn't necessarily mean you are a good driver, you just passed the test on the day.

No it's not. Perhaps the use of "engineer" is possibly the worst example to use.
In terms of "engineer" the only people entitled to class themselves as "Professional Engineers" are those who are corporate members of a relevant professional body. e.g. IMechE, IET, etc, etc. The term is a title, not a job.

In the wider world the term "professional" has come to mean someone who has expertise and is paid for that expertise. This means that the guy who services your car may call himself an engineer, be a qualified mechanic by training and will certainly be paid, however he is not actually a "Professional Engineer".

If someone has previous training, expertise and has been paid to dance (in some capacity) then they can fairly be classed as "professional".

I am being pedantic and am being careful to differentiate between "Professional" and "professional".

I guess Natalie went into the competition with eyes wide open knowing that she would receive flak as a result of her previous dancing experience. Compared to DVO she got off lightly. Throughout this series she had showcased her talents with grace. I'm sure producers in the West End and elsewhere can't wait to get their hands on her so it's a win for Natalie!

It certainly is, and in fact I think that she has come out of it better by being a runner up, notice just how many are now saying that she should have won.

The important thing to remember is that Natalie behaved with totally grace and dignity throughout the series, and for her many fans in here she IS a winner.

Sorry, but it's the example I am! And indeed I am MIET. But I have never been paid to be a structural engineer, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer or any of the other things I "trained" in. Yet if I were in some hypothetical contest involving engineering I would have a massive and unfair advantage over someone who didn't have that background.

It seems to me that Natalie's supporters can't have it both ways. Either she is the best dancer by a country mile - as they and we say - or she isn't. And if she is, it seems to me ridiculous to claim that this is not because she has had a correspondingly far greater degree of training.

She wasn't just better, she was in a different class. Other celebs were just learning routines, she was "putting dances together" with the result that they were that much more fluid and well, professional-looking. To try to sidetrack such arguments with nitpicking about the use of the word "professional" does rather seem to be missing the essential point.

I trawled round yesterday pre-show & found 5 polls (without loaded headlines as per the Metro one).

Results were Abbey clearly in front of Sophie who was only just in front of Natalie & Susanna who were pretty much neck & neck.

So the only real surprise was Sophie going out first.

Absolutely. Perhaps the thing I hate most about this forum - aside from silly threads with SUPERFLUOUS CAPITAL LETTERS - is those who get personal and hateful about people they've never met. Who assume all emotions must be acting; who assume an appearance of confidence must be arrogance; that joy must be smugness; that an appearance of harmony between partners must mean they loathe each other or are getting involved with each other (both conclusions sometimes being drawn from the same interview!); that fundamentally that some of these people are nasty pieces of work.

I don't doubt that many of these celebs do have a self-centered streak and a driving will to succeed, if necessary at the expense of others. They wouldn't be where they were if they didn't. But that doesn't mean that's all there is to them and that that drives absolutely everything they say and do.

Most of the celeb dancers have behaved impeccably, many under severe provocation from the judges. Natalie is no exception. We may quibble with whether she should have been in the contest, but it is unfortunate that this so often descends into undeserved personal attacks.

No has denied Natalie's training - certainly not Natalie, though her superiority didn't always filter through to the judges who placed Abbey on top of the leaderboard (either jointly or individually) 6 times in the first 12 weeks before finally lifting the trophy.

However I agree that Natalie was head and shoulders above everyone else and yes her training made a contribution to her performances; no should be sufficiently naive to deny that. However that does not alter the fact that she is not a professional.

Taking your own analogy of an engineering contest - you would indeed have a huge advantage but that in itself would not make you a professional when it's clear you are no such thing.

No one is missing the point: Natalie has been trained to a higher degree than a beginner - you have also been educated to a higher degree than non engineers; but neither of you are professionals and no number of protestations of hair splitting and pedantry can change that. You can make accusations about sidetracking and nitpicking but you cannot alter the definition of professional.

So stick to facts - many of which will support some of your argument.

If you read my last post carefully I think you'll find I was posting in support of you (particularly as a fellow MIET). I was merely trying to point out to the person who disagreed with your post about you not being a professional engineer, that the title "Professional Engineer" has an exact status and meaning, whereas the term "professional" can, an does, mean something different.

In your case, although you may be working in a non-engineering sphere, you are still a "Professional" Engineer", by dint of training and qualification. It is merely that the term "engineer" has become a widely mis-used term these days that, when prefixed with the word "professional, can make it an easily mis-understood example by the general public.

In Natalie's case she can still be viewed as a "professional" by reason of her training, even if not by recent employment, and thus does have a clear advantage over those who have received little or no training in dance.

Well said. Last night the public voted for the perceived journey of Abbey. The popularity of Susanna and the Dancing of Natalie.

Yes I believe she is a professional Actress, that and musical theatre are what she studied at stage school.

I know the main focus of discussion here is whether she is a ringer or not but I really think that one of the things that may have cost her votes is the lack of personal background story in the VTs. I always wondered "Where is her family?", given the producers are always dragging nans, mums, babywarz, etc. Only a handful of friends showed up in the VTs and this was in the last two or three weeks, prior to that we hadn't seen anything from her personal/family life.

It may be her choice or her family's choice but I do believe it cost her votes because it failed to give something which the public would empathise with, contrary to "Next Door Me Nerves Airhead Abbey" storyline. Natalie seems to be a very private person and my opinion is sustained by this article of Pamela Stephenson in the Guardian today where she says that Natalie usually sent her outfits back to wardrobe to be redone for being too revealing. (Well, the article says more about Dr. Pammy than Natalie, I suppose, lol)

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...enson-connolly

From her Agent's CV.

MUSIC AND DANCE
* = Highly Skilled Cabaret Dancing*, Contralto*, Jazz Dancing*, Latin American*, Tap*

Either she's putting a gloss on her CV (not a good thing to do as you will eventually be found out), or she's telling the truth. After watching her dance I am inclined to believe she is telling the truth. In that case she had no place in SCD, and for that I blame the BBC.

She did have a place in Strictly - it was 3rd (probably).

I was not considered a fully qualified Chartered Accountant until I'd completed 3 years practical experience. This could be achieved either after or during study. I believe the same applies to all professional qualifications so anyone who has not worked and gained practical experience in the field of their original education is not even qualified much less professional.