There's an excellent article in the Guardian's second section, which all the "judge knockers" should read.

Link to the article is on Greytop's thread.

QUOTE=Servalan;20272902]

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/d...230949,00.html

... with this extraordinary paragraph:

This year, the main journey has been taken by Gethin Jones, the wholesome Blue Peter presenter. After he enlisted an acting coach to inject some sexiness into his dancing, he moved like a new man. In the semi-final last weekend, however, he was eliminated as Di Angelo earned four 10s from the judges and, in the "dance off", was voted through by the judges. Are the two best dancers in the final? "No. Probably not," says Len. The viewers may complain the judges took that decision but Len says the audience (whose telephone votes usually decide who stays on) should have "kicked off" Di Angelo after he suffered a disastrous attack of nerves and forgot his steps two weeks ago. "The viewers come to people's rescue thinking they are doing them a favour and then moan at the judges because Gethin is gone," he says. "Gethin shouldn't have gone. Matt should have gone two weeks ago, when the judges had him 20 points below anyone else."

If this doesn't get Len the boot, nothing will ...[/quote]

i understand what hes saying hes not knocking anyone except the voters who kept matt in on his bad week ( damn im one of those)
If matt had been in the dance off he may of gone that week meaning letitia would of stayed, and prob gone last week, leaving alesha and gethin in the final
Im glad Matt stayed

I thought the para about how middle-aged women sitting at home stuffing their faces on fish and chips wouldn't vote for slim young Alesha was fairly dodgy!

I think Len had better watch it and maybe not bite the hand that feeds him.

I found this generalisation and stereotyping both insulting and totally uneccessary.

And I have usually been keen to see the best in Len

"Are viewers tougher on the more gifted women dancers? Len sees a "scenario" he says. "I would imagine far more middle-aged women than middle-aged men vote. I imagine them looking at Matt [and thinking] 'a bit of eye candy, a hunky young dude'. And they look at Alesha and they are sitting there eating their fourth KitKat and they've just had three square meals and a fish supper, all bloated out, and they go 'Bugger her, I'm not voting for that.'"

Way to go Len, way to go. [/sarcasm]

I've never done this before Len, but for you I'm going to make an exception.

*slow claps*



*ticked off*

Stand up please,
the one person Len has not insulted.

Why are you confused?

I'm slow clapping Len because I'm very very ticked off with him.

Btw I am a really big fan of Alesha and was also of Letitia

I'm a middle aged woman so maybe Len has got it ever so slightly wrong

Sorry . I'm at work and got distracted .

Thought you were supporting him . So sorry

I think he's got it EXTREMELY wrong

Hehe, don't worry I just read it back and I can see how it can be taken the opposite to how I meant it. The 'way to go' was meant to be sarcastic, lol.

Fully fledged member of the Misogynist club if you ask me

What the HELL is Len on?

Obviously if Matt is scoring higher than Gethin ever did the judges consider him the best dancer, and therefore should consider him the rightful one for the final. If they don't consider his dance (waltz) better than Gethin, then it was their choice to mark him incorrectly, a mistake they could've rectified by voting off Matt, but again, didn't.

I'm on the wrong side of 30 so probably qualify as a middle aged woman and I'm supporting Alesha

As for Matt, I do like him as a personality and as a dancer but don't fancy him at all. And even if I did, I'd never vote for someone for that reason.

Having said that though, a lot of people on here seemed to take an instant dislike to Kelly based on her flirtiness - maybe that's what's meant by older women being biased against the younger, pretty ones.

It was refreshing that Len was so honest about Matt though - makes a change for someone to actually speak their mind rather than say how fab all the contestants are all the time.

[/quote]

Len's just making excuses he knows the public don't like him.

agree completely - this kind of spineless behaviour really irritates me. If Len thought the GBP had got it so wrong by not voting Matt off and that gethin was the better dancer then he should have put his money where his mouth is - HE was the one judge who really could have changed everything but he didn't

he did the same thing with gabby - when he voted to kick gabby out, quite a lot of people irrespective of how much gabby was disliked said well hang on she was the better dancer. Len's answer was to blame the beeb for the new format - he knew the format before the show and could have decided not to do it but he didn't. Cowardly imho

tbh Initially I thought lens critics were too harsh but as the series has gone on and reading some of his comments, I do think he needs about a different role on SCD, one that doesn't involve wielding paddles!

You mean that's not how it is

I tried counting it earlier, and by those calculations (correct me if wrong) Gethin's average was 32.9, Matt's 32. I must admit to being a little surprised - I would have thought Matt had scored higher but his duffer of a week damaged his scores a lot.

I think this week we really saw one of the downsides (as if there weren't plenty already) in that the dance that scored higher was improved in the dance-off; the better scoring dance wasn't performed as well the second time round.

I think one of the biggest problems with this article is that it doesn't allow for people to vote for personality, to vote during the week when it looked like it would be a good dance, etc. Instead, we're meant to blindly follow the lead of the judges.

erm what he said was Matt should have gone because he messed up that week - it's hardly an earth shattering comment and has been made repeatedly several times by other people incl the other judges. He didn't say though that Matt was or is a bad dancer per se

If he really said that he's a prehistoric idiot ........no change there then given what i think of him already.

The judges provided two different leads, and voters chose whom to believe:
Craig marked the meltdown foxtrot 4, Len 8.

For Matt's waltz both provided the same lead: 10.
After the sensational use of his 10 paddle Craig is now frightened about what could happen in the Final.

That's rather rude. It's quite possible to disagree with someone without being so sarcastic about it