The best ever is still Laila Rouass and her emergency taxi dash to A&E holding a packet of frozen peas to her ankle over her Ugg boot. That will take some beating

Doctor visits are bad enough, but people even post pics of themselves posing with their Dentist. Can't imagine the reaction of mine if I leapt up from the chair, looking like something Buffy took pity on and refused to stake and wanted to take a photo. Don't think it would do much for their advertising, put it that way!

I wouldn't want sympathy votes Brian, honestly I wouldn't.

But, I respect your opinion is different to mine and, as you rightly say, this is fairly old and heavily trodden ground!

Oh that was brilliant! And the voice "can't ... quite .. talk .." - errr, really? I thought the problem was with your ankle?

Get to it! STAT!

I was a strong supporter of Giovanni and Georgia last year. Voted for them and everything. But I can't get my head around why anyone who noticed their relationship would care about it, or give any attention to the reasons for it failing.

I'm not being anti-romance. Fictional lives in film or books are genuinely fascinating. But with real people, it feels intrusive.

Basically, it seems a shame to spoil someone's fresh experience on SCD with a load of weary baggage.

The problem is with these programmes and their desire for injury porn, they do tend to over egg the pudding slightly. Veterans of RTV are hardened to reports of sinusitis (a bit of a sniffle) or tonsillitis (a bit of a tickly throat) or bronchitis (a bit of a cough) - and tend to downgrade anything involving 'itis' to 'a bit of a' and nod knowingly when the afflicted person manages to battle through the medical odds

Time for a thread singalong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0MK7qz13bU

No - I can honestly say I wouldn't want sympathy votes either, and I phrased my post very specifically to indicate that I wasn't talking about anyone wanting sympathy votes.

I was phrasing it to say that you would want to give some explanation to people as to why you might not be as 'good' as in previous weeks, instead of having the general public saying - 'oh, they're not as good as I expected them to be - why not?' - nothing at all to do with getting votes.

I wonder what they'd make of someone actually dying?

"A bit lifeless"?

Fair dos! < extends hand of friendship (again) >

The bizarre thing was that when they had someone with a genuine disability, Steve Backshall with his ankle permanently fused, neither the judges, the show makers nor bloody Ola herself gave a moment's concession to his hobbling difficulties with the jive

And just marked him down for not being able to point his foot properly

That's where he went wrong, he should have hurt his ankle one week, had it fused on the show and come back to dance the next

I think there would also be an outcry (well, there still was a lot of whinging) about why they switched from an intense, lift-heavy AT to a comparatively less challenging Cha Cha if they hadn't made it clear that something threw them off course.

In the same way that some people are unaware of a romance, despite the information being widely available - you can't expect them to pick up on any impediments to training through anything other than in-your-face explanations

Takes hand of friendship (again) - I have a feeling we could be repeating this a few times more! Though perhaps the new series will bring a new era of unity!

Or stubbed his toe on the other foot for the sympathy

Winner

I really don't know why it's so hard to see that for some people Strictly is just upto Christmas, not 4 life

I call my mate 'Viewer Zero' because, to me she is exactly who the Powers that Be pitch the show at. She watches, she uses her free votes, she catches ITT but when the Christmas Special is done, so is she. She doesn't rewatch dances or get involved on line or know that much about any of the celebs or pros after the series. Dances she remembers without prompting from last year are Helen's VW, Jay's jive and one with the Dr Who box, Kellie's Charleston and VW and the one at the end when Anton went OTT and bonkers.

Lou, I would like to put any previous quarrels behind too. So, I apologise for any poor conduct towards you.

It does seem like we're behind the same team this year - which should be conducive to avoiding confrontation.

Enjoy the series

Yes you're absolutely right, there would've been an even bigger outcry than there already was if there had been no explanation!

And yes your second point is very true!

Yes, fair enough, Aggs

ETA - it was a poor example really. I mean more the people who are unbelievably unobservant, and need clear explanations. I'm sure your friend does not fall into that category.

Ola certainly choreographed around Steve's injury.

Steve had trekked for a week with a 35kg pack to climb Mount Asgard in a continuous 22 hour climb before Strictly and made the decision to be on Strictly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCSzwnUczcw
Ola and James are known for their dance on through injury attitudes, so I wouldn't be surprised if Ola left it to Steve to decide when enough was enough.
Steve doesn't like giving up. Maybe he underestimated how tough Strictly could be.
The choreography for the Jive was certainly reduced because of his injury.

Hey thanks Nina, that's really nice of you and yes it will be excellent to share the same views and agree on something this series x

"The cold never bothered me anyway . . . "

Oh, I don't know

Sometimes, I can't believe the stuff she can't remember - but then she looks at me with pity for some of the stuff I do.

I think sometimes that being on boards like these give a false impression of how much the general audience knows/remembers/cares. Once you realise that we are actually the oddbods, not them it's so much easier