The judges were defending him saying its a hard song - yet its ALW and the judges that choose the songs! they clearly expected him not to provide a vocally terrible performance when they gave him that song! no point saying afterwards, oh well, you messed it up, but it was hard.

I'm yet to meet someone that uses without it coming off as condescending.

It wasn't a vocally terrible performance. All of the panel said that despite the off bits, it was quite good - and most of all it was meant to show vunerability, and did.

As for being too hard...perhaps it was, just because Andrew chooses the songs doesn't mean that they're always going to be right, just as I've said that he's not necessarily going to make the right choices of who to save all of the time either.

But just because he can make mistakes doesn't mean anyone can prove that he has in any particular instance other than out of subjective judgement...at the end of the day, the only things that will prove anything are the critical reception of Joseph and - more importantly - the public reception.

The only vunerability it showed me was his vocal vunerability - and it WAS terrible IMO - painful infact - and this isn't the first time ben has "made a mistake" and given a terrrible substandard performance, infact he has done that with every ballad he has attempted to sing.

Well, I definitely don't think the panel would agree with your assessment...I guess we'll have to wait and see whether a majority of voters agree with your feelings overall (i.e. based on more than last night, when obviously fewest voted for him).

Worst perfomance of the night for me though was Close Every Door to Me.

The panels comments i very rarely think are relevent - they get no say over who stays and goes. and as ben got the least votes, i guess alot of people agreed that his performance was terrible. he has also been bottom other times. and although close every door wasn't great - it wasn't painfully out of tune.

the viewers are clueless if they can't see what ALW is up too.

There are a lot of puzzles connected with this show. Seamus was accused of being arrogant and not a team player. In last night's programme ALW said he was looking for arrogance from the participants and somebody who could stand alone and hold an audience without support from others!!!!!!!!!!

Does he really know what he does want? Personally I think Seamus was the best of the bunch and could have done a really good job of Joseph.

As for Ben - well words fail me. I don't think even ALW would be stupid enough to give him the part.

If you knew anything at all about psychology, or even about people at all, you would know that you can. Or are you one of these rare and special folk who do not form an opinion of anyone within 7 seconds of meeting them? We all do it, it's fairly accurate, and it's a strong survival mechanism.

ALW may deliberately try to hide his thoughts until the end and it's clear why he would want to do that, but it's now not very difficult to work out what he's thinking, sometimes by the way he sits during a performance.

Having said that, if Ben's deliberately hiding his true, noble and humble self in favour or portraying an arrogant footballing type, then he's doing quite a good job and maybe he is a cracking actor after all. However, it is not at all clear why he would want to do that!

well said pammi

Another fine example of Cleo's 'love for Ben' posts

I had a friend over this afternoon - a lee fan we sat and watched all the shows (sad or what!!) She commented that there is no arrogance there just a young kid putting on a brave face. As some one else has commented if he was really arrogant the panel would not have redressed the stupid comment (remember this is an 18yr old kid) of the previous week. nor would Zoe be so keen on him!! Even Ken said you know i HAD a problem with your arrogant side - did he still say I still have? Nope he didn't..

Cleo i can understand that you think Ben is rotten at ballads but at least in some of your posts you have acknowledged he can dance and act but I would appreciate if you left out the character assassination. You have no firm evidence and would appreciate if you just put in my opinion in each of your posts!!!

The thing with ALW is that he seems to be choosing people to stay that he sees as the best potential Josephs - this is clearly his main criteria. The problem is that he's now left with 3 people who would either probably or possible be ideal in a few years' time, but just aren't quite ready for the demands of the role yet. That's why his decisions seem strange - most of us would probably keep the person who would do a better job now, even if they're not such an obvious Joseph. Hence we've lost people like Daniel, who would undoubtedly give a professional performance night after night, but still have several who don't seem to have anything like that sort of consistency yet.

I agree, but as an aside, if you really mean consistency, Keith's got it in spades - he's really thick!

... now running off to hide from people chasing me with Tesco's bags full of mouldy stripey value produce.......

I have been banging on about this too. I would love to know if Lee really is as far ahead of everybody else in the phone vote as you would assume from looking on here. If he is the rest is academic.

Well you plainly don't know psychology or science or philosophy if you're going to decide that you can know either what a person's like or be sure of what they're thinking.

You can try and pick things up, but you don't know anything.

Anyone who thinks they can really judge a book by it's cover...I don'tt ahve kind things to say about that attitude, as it's usually awful.


Oh dear.

i think you didn't understand the post you were replying to correctly

Everyone on here is basing their posts on their opinions! i watch the same show everyone else does, and base my posts on what i thik of the show and its contestants, i personally think ben comes across as arrogant, you don't, but as we are both simply viewers of a tv show, its down to how we view what we see.

He ain't heavy he's my brother is a ballad. I can't believe you don't remember that one. Who was it he was in the sing off with

Bridge over troubled water is another ballad. I am not saying he did fanatstic with that but he did out sing Chris C and was not flat.

I agree *all by myself* was painful but all of the guys have had a least one awful song. Yes, even Daniel (the best singer of them all) sang flat on a couple of occasions

they were small amounts in the sing off's - i am talking about his solo performances.

I have just clicked who you are........Lewis's mum

Do you post anything else but Ben can't sing, Ben is arrogant. Oh and you still haven't responded to my video link of Ben singing Nessum Dorma after you said he can only sing upbeat Oh and he sang *You raise me up * at his school xmas carol concert and apparently was very good

sorry - i am posting regarding the show - i haven't watched any school concert clips or other clips - not for any of the contestants, they are all on the show, and by judging my opinion based on their performances on the show i feel that is fair. do you post anything other than "ben can sing"

You obviously do not read my posts I have never posted that Ben can sing. I admitted *all by myself was dire* I have always said his vocals are weak. My main bugbear with you is that you are like a dog chewing a bone but you will obviously not be proved wrong. You said Ben can only do upbeat, I sent you a link to prove otherwise which you refuse to look at. You did not say he can only sing upbeat on the show.

Oh by the way the school clip is from the prestigious Italia Conti school so not your average school show and he is singing the great classical number Nessum Dorma. Not brilliantly I admit but he is not singing flat and it proves my point that he can sing other than upbeat

I think i shall now bow out gracefully

Why do you think that your opinion is so right it should prove others wrong!? i don't agree that ben can sing slow songs - sorry, but i don't, others have also agreed with this opinion of view - you clearly do as you are always defending him and are quite often on the ben fan thread. thats up to you, but i think his vocals are very weak - simple.

If you just said that, then no one could argue with you. No one would say "I think something different, so you should too", they'd just say "I think something different, isn't it interesting how two people can watch the same programme and come to entirely different conclusions" and you could have an interesting discussion about the psychology of it all.
But you always state your opinions with such force and in such a condescending manner that it's often hard to see you as much more than a fundamentalist Ben hater when discussions come to him.

You dismiss him as arrogant on the flimsiest bits of evidence (he puts on a brave face when he's being criticised and is quite happy when he does something well, I also think it's a bit silly to categorise someone doing a fist pumping thing as arrogant when they are simultaneously sobbing, but that's another matter) and often don't say "Ben is vocally weak" which even as a Ben fan I will say that when compared with the others in the competition he most certainly is, but say "Ben can't sing ballads" or something similar, and when evidence is called upon to prove the opposite you say it didn't happen in the right place or time.
I mean, I don't think Keith can dance well, but if he came up to me in the street tomorrow and danced fantastically in front of me I wouldn't say "but it wasn't on the actual show", I'd say "all right, I misjudged". If Ben came and serenaded you in the street, and did it nicely, would you be willing to budge your opinion a tiny bit, or would it just be the wrong venue, no matter if he sang beautifully or not?

I'm sorry to have gone on a lot, but I really feel that there are interesting discussions to be had, and whether it's due to your posts that can sometimes be perceived as slightly aggressive or patronising, or due to other posters being quick to defend, it doesn't matter; but every discussion seems to just descend into a childish argument. Which is a shame, as I do respect yours and everybody else's opinion.

again - that is your opinion, you don't know that "he puts a brave face on" - for all you know, it could be arrogance. so why is your opinion right and mine isn't?

It isn't. You're right, it could well be arrogance. But neither of us know him personally (do we?), I was just saying how I saw it. Which is all anyone here is doing.