X Factor final

I'm not going to write loads about this, because I'm sure everyone has pretty much had enough of X Factor by now. I like watching the show myself, but after 3 or 4 months of it I do start think "God can please have my Saturday nights back now?"

But anyway, little Joe won in the end and I'm really pleased. Although I said I didn't mind really which finalist one, Olly was always my least favourite, so once Stacey was out it had to be Joe for me really. I don't know quite what he'll be like in terms of longevity, as boys do really struggle to find a place in the charts I think, and I'm not totally sure what market he's pitching himself at. If he goes for the mums like most X Factor boys do (Leon, Rhydian etc) then he'll probably flop after a few months. A much better long-term prospect would be to go for the Will Young section of the market: girls, gay boys and a few Mums too. It won't really be up to him though unfortunately, as the record label will just do whatever they think is most likely to earn them their money back in the short term, in the full knowledge that they'll have another X Factor winner in a year so it doesn't matter if he doesn't last longer than that.

I kind of feel that he might rather have a career on stage instead of as a pop singer anyway - he's got a very stagey voice and it seemed to be what interested him before he was on the show. Which is fine, Diana Vickers is apparently doing quite well on stage now, so if he does end up doing that then good for him.

The thing I'm most pleased about is that neither Danyl nor Jedward came even close to winning; beyond that I wasn't that bothered. Danyl was just too much of a wanky twat, and Jedward made me feel physically sick. They've released the voting statistics now (available on Wikipedia) and at times it was a bit touch and go, particularly Week 9 when Danyl got eliminated. Joe was never in doubt by that stage though so it wouldn't have made that much difference. And I'm quite pleased that my assertion that no one who is ever in the bottom two can go on to win was proven correct again.

So anyway, that was the X Factor for another year. I'm not that impressed by the single they've chosen, and I think it's stupid that they pick the single and whoever wins has to sing it regardless of whether it suits them, but I don't think they're likely to change that. I've heard rumours that Dannii might leave and be replaced by Melanie B from the Spice Girls, which would be a shame as she's a good judge. They should get rid of Louis if they're going to get rid of anyone.

I think Joe should have released that Journey song he sang as it suited him much better. Maybe he'll release that as a follow-up single or something.

Oo and I nearly forgot - Robbie Williams mucked up his own song!!! I was delighted, and had to rewind it and watch it again so I could enjoy it's full glory. He looked like he was going to cry as he thought "shit, this was my chance to make up for my first crappy X Factor performance, and I've fucked my lyrics up and now look like a dick". Olly should have refused to have him for his duet, if anything was going to be a drain on your votes it'd be performing with that fat faced drug-addled potatoman.

My favourite moments of the whole series though had nothing to do with the final, and everything to do with televised falling over humiliation. First was the majesty of Rachel Adedeji sucking carpet in front of Dannii Minogue:

And then there was the beautiful moment when one of John and Edward fluffed their big entrance with a humiliating slip/trip while bursting through a paper screen. Only a full fall involving the loss of teeth could have made it any better:

They're performing at Revenge this Friday, apparently. Maybe I'll go so I can shout "Enjoy your trip six weeks ago?" and then feel very very witty.

See you next year for more televised karaoke and premium rate phone voting fun.

Twinkling lights and celebrities

Last Friday we had the first annual Switching On Of The Christmas Lights on my road. Even though it may very well end up being the last one too, I still found it terribly exciting, not least because of the multitude of A List celebrities it attracted!

I should point out that I do not live on a main road, or in a town centre, so the very fact that we had Christmas lights of our own was slightly unexpected. Some of the shop keepers just got together and organised it, and one of them bought the Christmas lights from an entire town, or so we were told. I was therefore expecting a blaze of fluorescence up and down the street that could be seen from space, and was slightly disappointed that it ended up just being a few things on lamp posts.

Anyway, when it was initially advertised, we were told that Emma Chawner, a failed X Factor entrant and local lass, had been lined up for the grand switching on ceremony. In case you don't know who she is, behold:

She didn't get very far on the X Factor, even when she came back to sing a duet with her sister the next year.

Unfortunately, some of the road's shop keepers felt she would lower the tone somewhat and make it into a less believable event. They obviously weren't concerned with the hilarity aspect, or that Christmas is quite camp anyway and you don't get camper than a fat cavegirl in a home-made dress.

So they ditched Emma Chawner, and I was disappointed.

Instead though, we were upgraded to:

Annabel Giles, who performed no real function at the event other than lending it a BBC-level of classiness,

and

Michelle Collins! Yes, Cindy Beale turned on our Christmas lights! She was very gracious, and seemed to know a couple of people from our road. One of them was kind enough to collar her and ask if Chris could have her photo taken with her, and it was very weird to hear Cindy Beale's voice go "Yes of course. Chris! Chris!" and call him over.

I can see why she was more classy than the dumpy girl, but she was less hilarious. I was also very suspicious that there was no actual wiring involved in her 'switching on' the lights, she just did a count down, then sort of moved her arm. A couple of the lamp post lights came on, and then a man in a fluorescent jacket ambled down the road switching each one on one by one. But you can't have everything, we had LIGHTS and it was fab.

Oo yes, and I almost forgot, we had Santa!

So hurrah for living on the campest road in the campest part of Brighton.

Here's me looking Christmassy:

And then the next day, as if all that weren't enough, I saw Gok Wan in a jewellery shop in the lanes. It was an all-out celebrity overload. Oddly, he was wearing the same outfit he always wears on television, leading me to think he only actually owns one set of clothes. Presumably he stands naked in the kitchen while he washes them in the sink.

Anyway, I'm feeling all Christmassy now and can look forward to seeing twinkling lights every time I walk up my road from now until, erm, Christmas. Ho ho ho!

X Factor final 12

What the fuck??? Once again the X Factor has managed to surprise us with a mixed bag of good singers, mediocre singers, and some truly unfathomable decisions. We're now down to the final 12, the selection we will be repeatedly and forcibly exposed to over the coming weeks right up until Christmas.

I could tackle this post in the same order as the last one, for consistency, but I think it is far more important that I move straight onto the groups first as I feel like I'm about to explode.

The groups - Louis Walsh, sex pest and retard extraordinaire

What the fuck??????? He put John and Edward through!!!!!!! I can't BELIEVE it. It's not that I can't believe that Louis would do it, I can very much believe that, but I can't believe he had the audacity to put through a 'group' who can't sing, who stood there like a wet fucking weekend singing off key, and who then cried about how shit their performance was, and who Ronan Keating even said "well I can't see why you like them", but who he put through ANYWAY solely because he wants to finger them. It was SO bare-faced and transparent! There was no musical justification for it, and yet he just did it anyway.

Of course, he can make the argument that putting in a group that everyone hates is 'good television'. But he won't be making that argument because he'll be too busy jiggling up and down on their cocks to think about it. He claims they "have potential". Potential is not enough by this stage of the competition! Potential is fine for the first audition, but then you boot them out at the second stage and say they're not ready or aren't strong enough. It was just ridiculous!

If they had been two black twins from Battersea with those voices, would he have put them through? No. A million times no. Louis Walsh is a racist. Not because he wouldn't put them through because they're black, but because he so blatantly favours the Irish over all others and with complete disregard for their actual ability. It'll probably come out in the papers in a few weeks that he knows their family or something, the same as it did with Simon and Leona, and that's why he's pushed them through. Or maybe he doesn't know their family but their school is near his house and he used to look at them in the playground through the railings while toying with his Irish flute.

So anyway, that was dreadful, just dreadful. Also through for the groups are Kandy Rain (meh, they'll last two weeks) and Miss Frank. Miss Frank are OK, I don't always like the rapping much, but they can sing reasonably well and aren't doing badly considering they didn't want to be a group.

I'm glad he kicked out Harmony Hood, because they were crap and were just there to make up the numbers. They thought they were good because they were all urban and 'street', but I'm sorry, this isn't Sister Act II: Back In The Habit, being from the gritty suburbs but having a heart of gold isn't enough for this competition. If that's what you're hoping for I suggest you look for a fat black woman in a nun's habit and ask her to make your musical dreams come true.

The boys - Cheryl Cole

This category wasn't toooooooo bad. Fit Lloyd got through, but is a bit young and may crack under the pressure. She got rid of equally fit Ethan, but I agree that he didn't sing all that well in his final performance. I don't know why she tortured that opera boy by making him wait, she was never going to put him through. And Rikki Loney needs to give it up with the hats, it's not a good look. Who was the other one? Oh yes, Joe. He's alright, a bit wishy washy. Suspiciously he's from South Shields like Cheryl is, so when she said "I felt like I knew you as soon as you walked in" it was a bit obviously just because he has the same accent. But anyway, I guess Lloyd is my favourite from this lot. He could do with not speaking though, he's rather too Welsh.

The girls - Dannii Minogue

As I said before, I found it hard to identify individual girls from this category, and didn't know that much about them. She's put Rachel Adedeji though, which is fine. I suspect her real reason wasn't that she liked her singing, but rather that she liked her prostrating herself before her at the end of Bootcamp (see previous photo).

I quite like the Stacey that got through, she is dippy and sweet. She talks weirdly like Frank Spencer at times, which I find rather amusing. And the Lucy girl has a good voice so I suppose that's OK.

The overs - Simon Cowell

Some odd decisions here again. Both the women got the chop, which is a shame because they had great voices. He was maybe concerned they would be overshadowed by the under 25 girls, or that they simply wouldn't get the votes. He's quite shrewd like that: he doesn't necessarily pick the best singers, because he knows the public don't vote for the best singers. Look at Eoghan Quigg: he was crap, and he had a big white face that slowly expanded through the series until he looked like Michael Myers from Halloween. But he got through to almost win it, so Simon knew what he was doing.

Annoyingly, he kept Danyl, who is so retarded he can't even spell Daniel. And this was despite his massively over-the-top performance, which included gurning and occasionally looking quite like Kermit the Frog. There is such a thing as adjusting your performance to suit your type of audience, and his monstrosity was just not suitable for two people on a sofa three feet in front of you. I don't like him, he's a knob.

Jamie Afro is through, but he has been slightly raised in my estimation because he DID adjust his performance - he toned it down a lot, and it felt much more appropriate for the setting. I still don't like him, I don't think he'll sell records, and I don't know why he always has a fucking dishcloth tucked into his jeans. I don't need my windows washed, thank you Jamie, although you could probably buff them to a nice shine with that afro.

And finally there was big cheeks Olly. He's okaaaaaaay in a hamstery sort of way. I suppose for novelty during Big Band week he could house the entire band actually in his cheeks, that might be fun. He's not great though, he has bad bad hair and his voice is only OK. He's no Austin Drage anyway.

So yes, I was mildly disappointed. I think I want Lloyd to win (he's probably not strong enough) or one of the girls (I don't mind which at the moment).

And John and Edward need to be beaten to death with a rusty rail spike.

X Factor final 24

The X Factor has finally progressed beyond its endless parade of mentally impaired and recently bereaved people, to a stage where you start to actually know who some of them are. Yes, it's the Judges Houses, and from a pool of thousands of delusional retards we're now down to 24, some of whom can actually sing! It's exciting, I know.

However, I'm not actually thrilled by their chosen selection. When they showed them all, I thought "Really? One of them is going to win? Oh." So that's not exactly great. There are also some that I want to kill with a claw hammer, but I suppose the X Factor wouldn't be the X Factor if you couldn't scream in rage at the screen from time to time.

So, let's see who we've got.

The boys - Cheryl Cole

Cheryl's got a fair group of boys, considering I think they're a harder group to work with as the voters don't always warm to them. I don't know much about Duane Lamonte, and Rikki Loney is just some boy in a hat. Ethan Boroian is sort of cute, and so is Lloyd Daniels, even if he is a bit young. He's a big improvement on Eeyore Quigg at any rate. The other ones don't really stand out for me, so I guess Ethan and Lloyd are my favourites. Not sure they've got the strongest voices though.

The girls - Dannii Minogue

This is easily the strongest category every year, so Dannii's lucky they gave it to her. To compensate for her lack of musical knowledge or talent, they also revealed Kylie would be helping her out in picking her final three. Shame they can't ditch funny-nostrilled Dannii in favour of Kylie completely. I don't really know much about the girls though, because they've hardly shown most of them. There are a couple of quite good Staceys I think, and a girl called Rachel who fell on her face in her eagerness to get a closer look at Dannii's nose.

The overs - Simon Cowell

Simon seemed quite pleased with his category, and I think he's probably got my favourite act so far, Nicole Lawrence. Yes she milked the death of her Dad a bit, but she has that whole big fat black woman with a great voice thing going on which really does it for me. He also has Jamie Afro, who I can't stand, and bizarrely has managed to find two people who can't spell Daniel properly. One of them I hate, I think it's Danyl Johnson, as he's a complete and utter wank spittoon. It's one thing to give a confident audition, but it's quite another to completely frig yourself off on stage while shouting your own name (he didn't actually do that, but he may as well have). He's a knob anyway. I'm sure Simon won't keep both him AND Jamie Afro though, they're too similar in their wanky styles, so at least one of them should get the chop.

The groups - Louis Walsh

And once again, Louis has the groups. The only thing I have to say about this category, is what the FUCK? What the HELL are John and Edward still doing there? They're TERRIBLE and they can't sing. Louis says they 'have something'. The only thing they're going to have is Louis' cock in their mouths as he forces them to nosh him off. He doesn't even like novelty acts so what the hell is he doing? Actually, I know what he's doing, he's just always fancied the idea of a threesome with twins, so now that he's got two blond Irish twins in his power he must be doing a leprechauny celebration jigdance all the way to his sex dungeon. They have to go, they just have to, in the name of all that is holy. And for child protection reasons.

So, that's the X Factor for this year. Not thrilling, and a possibly mediocre Christmas Number One on the way. I'll still watch it of course, and some of them may even grow on me. You never know.

X-Factor final - move over Leona

So anyway, following on my from my ranty ill post, last Saturday was the long-awaited X-Factor final. The last three in the running were horrible, horrible little Eoghan/Eeyore/Eggnog/puttyface potato baby, JLS, and Alexandra. Naturally, we wanted Alexandra to win because she has easily the best voice.

I can't be arsed to go into massive amounts of detail, but first to be executed, I mean eliminated (wishful thinking) was Eggnog. Thank GOD for that, I was getting really worried about him. He was getting far too smug and sure of himself as the weeks progressed, and he just does NOTHING for me. He's too young to be cute, even when he's older he's not going to be cute because he looks like Michael Myers, he's got a fat arse despite being 16 years old, and there's just no power to his voice. He's just awful. So anyway, he got a quick slap down, leaving us with JLS and Alexandra.

Things could still have gone either way, as lots of people seem to like JLS. In my opinion, this was the moment that finished them off though, 51 seconds into this video:



What the HELL was that??? We were so stunned when we saw it we had to rewind it three times just so we could laugh at it.

So in the end, after I'd sneakily voted six times at considerable expense whenever Chris' wasn't looking, Alexandra emerged as the rightful victor. She seemed rather more surprised than I thought she would be, she could hardly talk, and she was crying so much that her foundation went all streaky (as a friend correctly pointed out - they'd gone for expensive mascara that didn't run, but scrimped on the foundation).

So hooray! Obviously I would have preferred Austin, but that dream died weeks ago. They've since released the voting shares for each week, and to my HORROR Eehhggeeoon got the highest number of votes in 6 out of the 10 weeks. So we had a lucky escape there I think, I couldn't stand hearing him on my television all over Christmas. At least he can bugger off into Irish obscurity now.

Alexandra has released a version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah as the X-Factor single and basically guaranteed Christmas Number 1. I quite like it, I've always liked the Rufus Wainwright version, and she makes it into an uplifting song. It's brought some controversy with moany whingebags on the internet proclaiming Jeff Buckley's version is the definitive version and it should never be recorded again, and they've started a download campaign that might see us have the same song in the Number 1 and Number 2 slots by different people, which is ridiculous. I've listened to his version and don't actually like it. He sings it with a lot of pain, I'll give him that, but if I want pain I'll slam my face in the fridge door. I just find him quite whiney, his volume changes are abrupt, and his trill things are random and unstructured. So anyway, I prefer the Alexandra version.

So that was the end of X-Factor for another year. Shame the Christmas Number 1 is always guaranteed to be whoever wins the show, it's quite hollow. I like Alexandra though, she's got a great voice and she's less sappy than Leona.

Fed up

I'm so fed up. I'm ill, and have been since 3am on Tuesday morning when I woke up with raging backache and headache. I appear to have caught the flu, and this time it actually is the flu and not just a cold that you have to call the flu so you get more sympathy. I spent Tuesday laying on the sofa unable to sleep because the pain in my lower back was so bad, cramming paracetamol eagerly down my neck only to find it didn't make the slightest difference.

Since then my symptoms have been varying themselves each day, just to keep me interested. On Wednesday I was feverish, dizzy and achey, and then the aches turned into shooting pains in my hips overnight. Since then it's been a mix of dizziness, an annoying cough, neck ache, general fatigue, and bizarre temperature fluctuations that have me sweating even when it's freezing in here.

Surprisingly for me, I actually have a piece of work that I need to get on with (I know, who would have thought?) and so I've been stressing about that. Today I tried to drag myself into work because I thought I'd be feeling better, but I didn't even make it out to the car with Chris before I felt faint and had to give up. And then I was just annoyed with myself for getting up early and wearing myself out and making myself feel worse. It's our office Christmas party today too, so I'm missing that now.

And on top of that, when I did get to the car this morning we found that some fucktard has done something to the passenger door so you now can't open it from the outside. The key doesn't really turn in the lock, and the handle just flaps uselessly up and down. You can open it if you get in the driver's side, thank god, so it's not a disaster. If both doors had been fucked it would have been a nightmare this close to Christmas. Who would do that? Why the fuck can't people leave things alone that don't belong to them? It's not even that nice a car to try and steal, if that's what they were doing. It's seven years old, it's small, and the paintwork is all scratched where Chris helpfully 'cleaned' it with a scouring pad, not thinking that perhaps that's a bit abrasive for use on a car.

So anyway, now we've got that to sort out as well. Won't be before Christmas, there are only two working days left. Then the new year... probably not time again before Chris goes back to work. So then when? February half term? How fucking ridiculous.

So I'm fed up. And I don't want to be ill any more. And Chris' sympathy has long since expired - I only get two days of it before he gets bored and decides me being ill is just annoying. I've been too ill even to blog the final of X-Factor, after months of watching it and ranting about it on here. Maybe I'll do it in a minute, first I'm going to channel hop on the TV and see if I can find someone less fortunate than me to make myself feel better.

UPDATE: Ha! I didn't even need to channel hop, because East17 have popped up on the telly and Brian Harvey is certainly less fortunate than me. For one thing, he's entirely unfortunate looking, he looks like a rat baby. And he also had that incident where he accidentally ran over his own head (quite an achievement) and had to spend months in hospital. And then he tried and FAILED to become our Eurovision entry, which really is a slap in the musical face - you're not even good enough for Eurovision, the continental career-killer. So yes he's less fortunate than me and I'm quite pleased about it.

This is getting silly now

OK, I don't want it to seem like all I write about on here is X Factor, but once again I find myself going WHAT???? after the most recent episode. It's just SO ridiculous! Even Simon Cowell knew it was just getting stupid this week, as for some bizarre reason they had Laura and Ruth in the bottom two. OK so Laura's wasn't her best, which I blame on her choosing to play the piano as well as sing. Why over-complicate it for yourself? Her singing clearly got better once she got up from the piano and could focus on it. But anyway, that's not the point, the point is we still have Eoghuoounn there, based solely on the fact that he's a stupid child, and we still have Daniel, based solely on the fact that his wife died and he then devoured her corpse and turned into a massive Jabba The Hutt in a suit. I can't believe it! Laura was a really good singer, and neither of those two chumps can actually sing! And still they don't even end up in the bottom two!

I did like very much though the way she and Ruth just ignored Dermot's attempts to host when he announced who was going, and carried on hugging and consoling each other despite his calls for Ruth to bugger off so he could examine Laura's best bits.

So anyway, the whole programme has just turned into a farce. Amusingly, loads of people had immediate Facebook statuses expressing their disgust, and when I searched TweetScan for 'x factor' lots of people had written various angry comments on Twitter, mostly calling for Fat Daniel to be executed as soon as possible. I just don't get it, I really don't. You may as well roll a die and get rid of one of them that way, and save us all three hours - it's that random.

Halloween, brought to you in spoooooooookyvision

Hmpf, well I've calmed down a bit since my 2am rage, but I'm still not happy about it. Daniel and Eoghuoauon got more votes than both Austin and Rachel? Really? Really?? What's wrong with the British voting public? This is surely a serious argument against universal suffrage; if people vote like this on the X-Factor, can they be trusted to vote for a government? Maybe you should have to sit a sanity exam before you can register to vote, I might run for parliament and suggest it.

Anyway, I had a marvellous end of week and Halloween weekend. I was off work Wednesday - Friday (two day weeks rule), and we had some friends down for the first couple of days so we went and did lots of nice things like eating out, shopping, going for drinkies, letching shamelessly at hot bar staff, and flashing CCTV cameras in bar toilets.

Then Friday was the first part of our Halloween Extravaganza - Halloween Super Dynamite Boogaloo. We made loads of effort with our outfits this year, and I'm really glad we did because lots of people had really really dressed up! Chris was the Joker, very topical this year, and had excellent make-up, and as an accessory to that I went as Robin. Robin is not the sexiest of outfits (I was a traditional Robin rather than a Chris O'Donnell one), and I did verge on the Rodney Trotter Robin, but I think the outfit was still a triumph, especially as it was all homemade. Several people said to me "wow where did you buy your outfit?", which is surely a ringing endorsement.


Halloween Boogaloo was good, especially as so many people had made the effort to dress up. I have to say it was freeeeeezing weather for hotpants and a t-shirt though, and I was particularly annoyed to arrive at the club after 11 (supposed to open at 10.30) only to find they had not even opened the doors yet and we had to stand outside for 10 minutes while my legs went slowly numb.

Then on Saturday we went to a friend's Halloween House Party, where we bobbed for apples (much harder than it looks) and played slightly disturbing Halloween Twister. We re-used the same outfits of course, it's not every day you get to wear a metre of yellow satin, and a Catwoman turned up at the party so we had a bit of a theme going. I think girls can be a bit lazy when they dress up actually, they're always witches, cats, naughty devils, or occasionally bunnies. Where's the imagination ladies??

And Sunday was my and Chris' 10 year anniversary, bless. I don't know where the time has gone. Actually I do know, it's gone on a year of A Levels, a four-year degree, and five years of young professionalism, but it still feels like it's whizzed by. I'm just glad we both managed to remember the anniversary this year, one of us has forgotten for the last three (me twice, Chris once) and I was determined not to let it happen for such a big one as the tenth.

And now it's back to work and it's all rather dreary. On the upside, we are unexpectedly going to see Alphabeat tonight, which should be fantastic, and tomorrow is the US election about which I am soooooooo excited. I may get up at 4am to start watching the results come in. I'm not sure why I care this much, it's not like I live there, but it is important and having read about it constantly in my Economist for the last year I feel pretty invested in it. Go Obama! You're a bit of an unknown quantity, but what the hell, let's spin the wheel for a change.

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Oh. Holy. Jesus.

Just got in late from halloween party (blog to follow) and like an IDIOT I looked up who went off X Factor. What the fuck?? My poor Austin is no more?! Well now what am I supposed to do? There's no one hot left in the competition! I can't believe Daniel is still in. I now hate X Factor. I will begrudgingly back Alexandra but I'm not happy about it. I don't even want to watch my tape of tonight's episode any more, it's too distressing.

X factor disaster!

I can't believe Daniel is still milking his dead wife like a prize fresian, and at the expense of poor Scott! He so did not deserve to go before that fat goofball. Ok, he wasn't going to win, but he had more appeal than sweaty dead wife jabba the hutt. And Louis was so gutless not to vote for Daniel. I felt so sorry for Scott... Oh well, guess I'll be backing Alexandra and Austin now. Oh and also that pointless irish doll deserves to die too.

Update: Some clever person on Digitalspy has commented that Louis probably voted for Scott because he was one of Simon's acts and he was just being malicious. I hadn't thought of it like that, I think that sounds very very likely. I also can't believe that he cited as his reason for saving Daniel the fact that he "meant every word". Hello?? The show's not called 'Once More With Feeling', this is the X-Factor and Daniel has NO charisma!

X-Factor, bam bam bam, bam bam ba naaa naaa

I do love the X-Factor, despite it being the epitome of trash TV. I've gone off some things like Big Brother, but I still really get into X-Factor. I think it's the act of choosing your favourite from a selection that does it for me, a bit like Pokémon. The fact that they sometimes have a good looking boy or two doesn't hurt either (Austin and Scott are best this year).

Dannii Minogue never ceases to surprise, with her bizarre slitty nostrils and the insane way she squawks "hot hot hot, extra jalapeño, I want what she's having, etc" after her acts perform. I was quite shocked this week by how much she looked like a sex doll though - was that the look she was going for?



This week's episode carried the normal amount of disappointment that the really really poor acts still somehow managed to get through. I'm thinking particularly of Daniel "corpse for a wife" Evans. What is he still doing there? He has no sex appeal at all, his voice is mediocre, and no-one would buy his records other than post-menopausal old biddies who think he looks like "a nice boy". He only got through, and has only survived this far, on the basis of him milking his dead wife like a prize Fresian. The only way he could have drawn more attention to it in his audition would have been to skid into the room riding her decomposing carcass like a sled. He needs to go, and he needs to go soon; you can't get rid of perfectly good acts and retain his sweaty fat-cheeked pudginess in their place, it's just not fair.

I thought the coaching that Rachel has undergone was very obvious too. They know she's got a big mouth on her and that she didn't take criticism well in the auditions, and so she has clearly been drilled to respond to every comment by saying "thank you, it's been taken on board" incessantly like a parrot with an inferiority complex.

I'm also still quite surprised by the delusions that X-Factor contestants maintain. To be clear - winning the X-Factor is not going to make you a pop star. Not a proper one. It makes you an X-Factor winner who will have a Christmas number 1 and if they're lucky one or two more singles before the record label, and the public, lose interest. Leona Lewis has done reasonably well, but she's an unusually good winner. Do they not remember what happened to all the other winners? Steve Brookstein was appalling and got dropped really quickly. Shayne Ward seemed to have potential, but is still relatively obscure three years after he won. Leona is fine, if a little sickly, and might carry on for a while. And Leon has had what, two singles? I can't name them, even the X-Factor winning number 1 from last year. He'll disappear fairly soon too. And yet the contestants still believe this is going to propell them to world fame. No, it won't. You'll get to have a couple of hits, and be part of the X-Factor tour. That's fine, but don't expect much more. And then once you've been dropped you've got to go back to the real world and try to get a normal job, and feel embarrassed that you're working in an office again.

An additional odd delusion is the one touted by parents on the X-Factor that they want to "win for a better life for their children". Hmmm, apart from saying it for the obvious milking of the wee children, how exactly do they this is going happen? Being away from home, touring and performing, particularly for those that are single parents, is not in my opinion going to improve their children's lives. Yes they might have more money, but I think their children would rather have a parent than a weekly maintenance cheque.

This concludes my X-Factor rant. It wasn't meant to be a rant, I intended to write how much I like it. And despite the apparent evidence to the contrary, I do love it, I do watch religiously, and I'm sure I'll have voted more than once before the series is out. Shouting at the screen is just part of the fun.

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In your face, Welshy

I am SO pleased that Rhydian didn't win X-Factor! Obviously I would have preferred it if Same Difference had won, they are just so happy and cheesey, but at the same time I knew they never could. I'm surprised they got as far as coming third actually. But who else actually flew around the stage on bits of string?? That definitely deserved some credit.

Once it was down to Rhydian and Leon I thought oh no he's going to win now, even to the point where I voted for Leon just to try and prevent it. And it worked! I couldn't bear the thought of that albino twat being on the radio all the time, even the gappy-toothed Scottish midget is better than that. And although Rhydian was mostly big smiles and congratulations, there was one moment when he was in the background that he did NOT look happy! Good...

I've read today that people are complaining they tried to vote for Rhydian and couldn't get through for an hour. Yeah whatever, that's just sour grapes. If you live in Wales, you can expect to have a crappy phone network, nobody wants to ring anyone in Wales anyway so what's the point in having a good one?

So now Rhydian can be consigned to the dustbin of oblivion that is the 'X-Factor Tour', Leon can have two singles then get dropped, and I can look forward to Same Difference coming to do a gig at Revenge!