Strictly Come Dancing 2008

But, if there was no tie in the judges vote - so if they had been given scores of 3, 2 and 1, then all 3 dancers could gain a total of 4 points at the end - 3 points being given to the person who had scored 1, 2 points to 2 and 1 point to the person who had scored 3.

Then they would all be tied again and would all go through to the final.

OR, the person who had scored 1 could not avoid being in the dance off again if they were given 3 points by the public and the person with 3 points had been given 2 points by the public. Again, the bottom placed contestant by the judges could not avoid being in the dacne off in this situation.

SO - what did they do this time last year to avoid this from happening? I can't believe anyone at the BBC could not have envisaged such a pointless vote last night?

Why not just of had 3 in the dance-off?

Because if the first 3 judges each choose different couples, Len Goodman can only select one. In theory he could select two (i.e. choose one to be eliminated).

Four voters to three candidates is a very messy system.

Then why not lose the least popular act, even regional voting (like Just the Two of Us) there was quite a few ways it could of been solved rather thangive the Daily Mail cannon-fodder.

If all dancers had scored 4, then the phone vote would be used to break the tie. This has been explained on the show in the past.

Even so in a three way vote it's highly unlikely the judges favourite would ever be in the bottom two, and the method seems to be geared so the public vote is less important, rather than more important, as the competition progresses.

No. As fewer dancers remain, it becomes more likely that the judges' favourite will be in the bottom two, not less. With three couples and no tie in the judges' scoring, the judges' favourite has a 50/50 chance of being in the bottom two.

i'd always been suspicious of whether strictly come dancing was live until this week - but one question, why doesn't bruce forsyth have an earpiece?

NB. In the event of the 4, 4, 4 situation the viewer vote takes precedence.

Brucie doesn't like wearing an earpiece, so Tess wears one only. This is why Tess sometimes has to hurry things up, as Brucie doesn't know the time left etc.

It's also true that Tess was going to chat with the contestants, she was trying to rush them to her side while Brucie was reading the autocue and ending the show. Doh!

Unlucky to anyone with VirginPlus who went out last night and set their box to record Strictly. Virgin's EPG had SCD ending at 9.45pm but it went on until 10.15.

Funniest moment of last night was Brucie ending his chat with Natasha Kaplinsky, sitting down together on the side of the dance floor, turning to the camera and saying 'Stands' - his own instruction on the autocue to stand up!! He made a joke out of it, very funny!