X Factor 2008 - Major Shock! Laura White is Out !!!

Laura White is out of X Factor 2008. How on Earth did this happen? This is a major shock and probably one of the biggest upsets in the competition I have ever seen.

Second favourite and 3-1 to Win, Laura looked destined for the final, but sees her self go out as early as Week 5. On Mariah Carey song night she sang, "Endless Love", played the piano and surely deserved to go through to week 6.

All comments from the Judges were positive apart from those of Simon Cowell and yet after the viewers votes were finally counted, she found herself in the bottom two.

It perhaps goes to show, the X Factor isn't just about having an amazing singing voice. It's also about image, style, likability and overall popularity with the public. Despite being exceptionally talented, Laura has failed to connect with those watching at home which is a bit of a shame.

Rank outsider, Daniel Evans escaped yet again, and Laura was in the dreaded bottom two sing off with the awesome and massively underrated, Ruth Lorenzo.

As before, Ruth Lorenzo gave an awesome performance in the sing off. She sang Knocking On Heavens Door which was absolutely amazing. Laura sang, Somewhere Over the Rainbow.



To be honest, neither girl should have been voted out. This shock result shows, that in the X Factor, no one is safe.

Laura was faultless this week, but still goes out. Maybe Cheryl Cole's acts are not such a dead cert to win after all, with Laura White eliminated and Diana Vickers suffering from Laryngitis, the competition has been thrown wide open.

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BBC Strictly Come Dancing - Week 6, Mark Foster Out

Swimmer, Mark Foster, has become the sixth celebrity to be voted out of Strictly Come Dancing 2008.

He and professional dance partner, Hayley Holt, finished bottom after the Judges initial votes and this time the added Public vote was not enough to save them from the dance off. Here they faced former tennis star, Andrew Castle and dance partner, Ola Jordan. Andrew was a little unlucky to be in the dance off as he perhaps gave his best performance of the contest so far.

When the dance off was complete, Craig, Arlene, Bruno and Len all agreed, Mark should be the one to go.

Mark Foster is the most successful swimmer Britain has ever produced. Six times a World Champion, with 10 European Champion medals and two Commonwealth Champion medals, he has also broken eight world records in his career. This accounts for nothing on the dance floor however and when all is said and done, I think he had a pretty good run.

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X Factor - Week 3 - Scott Bruton out

Scott Bruton has become the third act to be voted out of X Factor 2008.

This week was Big Band night and it is only when you see acts having to face the bottom two sing-off for survival, you can see how much that this contest really means to them. This competition is tough. Very tough.

Scott's performance of "That's Life" saw him fall into the bottom two against Daniel Evans. Evans gave a very emotional and heart-felt performance of his survival song which was enough to see him go through.

Louis had the final judges vote on the matter and you could tell it was an extremely hard decision for him to make. In a week where the performances have been arguably the strongest ever, it was always going to be tough deciding who would be the one to go.

Simon Cowell said it, in other years, Scotts performance would have been strong enough to go through.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

The Premiership: Ramos has the full confidence of the Board.. oh dear

Ever since Juande Ramos took charge of Tottenham Hotspurs, I'm sure that all Newspaper reporters have been ready to run the imaginatively titled story, "Vamos to Ramos!". They are all ready with it, ready to go, it must be like having an itchy trigger-finger.

Now that Juande Ramos has been given the vote of confidence by the Tottenham board, the Reporters' trigger-fingers must be itching like crazy. The Vote of Confidence often means the complete reverse and is usually a polite prerequisite to total doom.

The Chairman, Daniel Levy has said he intends to give Ramos every chance to make a success of his spell in north London. He failed to mention however, if this had anything to do with Football.

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BBC Strictly - Week 3 - Rhodes verses Foster

It was Gary Rhodes and Mark Foster facing the Dance-Off this week. Rhodes scored just 18 points with the Judges on his first performance and his Dance-Off performance was even worse. Here's how the four Judges saw it...

Mark Foster deserved to stay in by a very wide margin.

Related Story
Gary Rhodes Out

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ITV: The X-Factor

Whilst the BBC have their yearly contest of "Strictly Come Dancing", the ITV have "The X-Factor". Both shows are always on at the same time of year and involve the viewing public to vote for their favourites to stay in the respective competitions each week.

The main fun for X-Factor, for me, is the earlier shows where you get to see the acts that are just plain dreadful. Thousands of people audition each year and while most will be "just average", a small percentage will be "extremely poor". Very very extremely poor in fact. Maybe a word has yet to be invented to adequately convey how bad they actually are. Oddly, each one of them believes they are the best singer in the world ever.

Delusion must be quite a strong influence, because one suspects, if you have reached such a high level of awfulness, you must surely be vaguely aware of it. Mustn't you?

Here is a video I found on Youtube from a few years back. The producers of the show gave all the worst auditioners a chance to perform a Michael Jackson song together. Pay particular attention to the women that misses her queue completely.

Yes... it started off poorly and ended at the depths where no human was ever meant to journey. Abandon ship! Abandon ship! Get out while you can !!!

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BBC Strictly - Week 2: Jody Kidd v Gillian Taylforth

Here's how the final vote panned out with the judges yesterday between Jody Kidd and Gillian Taylforth. Both had to compete this week in the dance-off for survival.

In the end the decision was unanimous. Jody's improvement over her first dance was remarkable.

Related Stories
Gillian Second out

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BBC Strictly - Phil vs Don

Following on from my latest Strictly Blog, here is a recording of how the final vote panned out.

Phil Daniels was perhaps a little unlucky, but that's the nature of the competition. There wasn't much to choose between Don and Phil in the end and really, Gary Rhodes should have been in the bottom two instead of Phil. That's just my opinion of course, and the voting public strongly disagrees!

This Saturday see the female celebrities strut their stuff for the first time.

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BBC Strictly - Phil Daniels First Out

Phil Daniels has become the first celebrity to be knocked out of this years Come Dancing Competition.

After the Judges votes yesterday, Daniels lay third from bottom and temporarily safe. Alas, when added to the votes of the British public, he slipped into the bottom two and was paired against Don Warrington in the dreaded dance off.

Gary Rhodes had originally placed last after the Judges vote, but found popularity with the voters (as often is the case with last placers) and leaped clear of the danger zone. This placed Eastend star, Daniels in an unenviable position.

After dancing again, Don Warrington was thought to be the better of the two, and survives to face week three where the men and women mix into the one competition. It was a close vote though, evens with the judges at 2-2, but Head Judge, Len Goodman had the final decision and halted Daniels progress.

Just how far can Gary Rhodes go? If he doesn't improve at all.. probably a long way. The public liked to be entertained and will often continually back an underdog.

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