Off the Top Of My Head

The Unholy Mess that is Tallafornia, Episode 2

2012-01-28T00:24:00.001Z

We quickly recap last week’s moronitude: so there’s thislove triangle between Cormac the Beefmonkey, Shnakey Phil and Cuntyflaps Nikita.And there’s the OPENING CREDITS! So I guess we’re just meant to forget all theother amazing things that happened last week. Well, Tallafornia producers andwhoever edited this recap, I personally am not going to forget OR forgive youfor inflicting Darryl the Gay on us last week, try as you might to pretend itnever happened. Anyway, it turns out that these episodes actually have titles. Thisone is called “Hook Ups and Heart Aches”. You can tell they really put a lot ofeffort into coming up with that. Personally I would’ve gone with “The One WhereNatalie Pays To Have Claire’s Accessories Diamonds Stuck To Her Labia” but yourmileage may vary.

It seems that the STI-magnets are having difficulty keepingtheir shag-pad clean. Kelly “used to keep the place clean”, we’re told overfootage of her hoovering up protein powder or something. Oh, it’s washing uppowder actually. Because as everyone knows, the washing up powder goes on thefloor of the bathroom. Then you lay the clothes over the powder and do theclean-uppy dance while standing on them and presto – everything’s clean!Somehow the footage of Kelly hoovering up the washing powder (possibly because shethinks the hoover needs cleaning) segues into a discussion of the “love”triangle between herself, Beefmonkey and Phil.

Prematurely Balding Jay, who seems to be most loquacious ofthe muppets, takes about 5 minutes to tell us that something involving theexchange of bodily fluids might have happened between Nikita and Phil. Then, Davidthe shit-stirrer takes two seconds to just outright confirm sex was had. Butlet’s not forget that David and Kelly, who sounds like she has a perpetualcold, are being all lovey dovey too. This is Kelly who has a boyfriend,remember. If you didn’t remember, don’t feel too bad, because it seems that Kellyhas only just remembered herself. She concedes that it’s “probably a bad sign”that she’s only just remembered him, as she struggles to recall his name. Thenshe tries to justify her cheatin’ heart on the fact that she’s only 22 and she’scontinually been in relationships for the last number of years. Dear Kelly, ifthey last one night then it doesn’t actually count as a relationship.

Time for a producer-mandated visit to somewhere knackery.This week, the girls are going on an excursion to some beauty salon withleopard–print EVERYWHERE, while the boys go to the Square Shopping Centre. Youknow, the one from the ads with the awful jingle. Yay! It’s Natalie, myfavourite Tallafornian! Saying that, having a favourite Tallafornian is likehaving a favourite cancer. Anyway, the primary reason for the girls’ visit tothe Leopard Lounge is so that Natalie can get vajazzled for her 21st birthday. Godbe with the days when people got silver keys for their 21^st. Now it’sdiamonds on their cooch. Also, Natalie looks like she’s put on about a stonesince last week but I presume it’s just fluid she’s retaining after drinking asmall lake’s worth of vodka. “Are you going out yourself tonight?” Natalie nonchalantlyasks her beautician, who is busy tending to to her lady-kitten so that itcan be properly bejewelled. Meanwhile, the steroid jockeys visitevery men’s clothes store at The Square to buy various v-neck t-shirts that aretwo sizes too small.

There are several shots of the Neanderthals pissing aboutinterspersed with footage of Natalie having her joo-joo adorned with rubies,diamonds, sapphires and gold. Also, there is an extreme close-up. Mercifully,they just about manage to avoid showing anything lippy. The lads finish purchasing t-shirts intended for boysaged 10-12, so they decide to get a birthday cake to celebrate Natalie’s comingof age.

Back to the salon, where the girls are parading their newlooks. Nikita and Kelly tell us that Natalie’s hair is “so different!” Well, it’snot greasy anymore, so I guess that’s a change. Suddenly we whip back to ChezSTI, where Natalie is delighted with her cake. She says it really made her feelat home. Everyone is very interested in Natalie’s new vagina decorations. Sheassures us however, that she didn’t show anyone, “bar the people in the house”.That’s six people, Natalie. Counting (aside: No joke, I initially wrote “cunting”) thebeautician, that means seven people have already seen your vagina, and you onlygot out of the salon about 5 minutes ago. Well done, love. Your ma will beproud. Phil confirms that Natalie’s vagina looked lovely. Beefmonkey lays intoNatalie’s cake (that’s not a euphemism), before outlining his “pulling regime”,which isn’t worth wasting any words on because everything Cormac Beefmonkeysays is a lie designed to allow him to pass as a human being until the day whenhe explodes in a sociopathic rage and kills dozens of people using whatever blunt objects are at hand.

It’s night time, and that means the gang of eejits are offto some dingey hole to disgrace themselves. This week, it’s Club 92, which hasfire-juggling, fire-breathing beauties and a VIP area where the Tallafornianswill be hanging out. Lots of shots of the muppets house drinking before theyhead out. Then they arrive at Club 92! And start doing push-ups! On the floor of the club! The disgusting,sticky nightclub floor! I have no idea why. I will never understand thesepeople. The morons decide to have a competition to see who could score the mostpeople in honour of Natalie. Truly, that is the best way I can think of to paytribute to Natalie. Nikita wins, by kissing 21 people in about two minutes.Cormac Beefmonkey decides not to take part in these shenanigans because it’snot his style. His style is more phone you up and breathe heavily into thereceiver, drive past your house with his headlights off or push thestill-beating heart of a faun through your letter-box with a note saying “WEWILL B 4EVER”.

More scenes of spit-swapping on the dancefloor. Kelly makesout with David the Shit-Stirrer. Kelly’s actual boyfriend shows up. David stirssome shit. Kelly dumps her boyfriend by text and makes out with David somemore. This is exactly how European royalty used to court one another in thepast.

Back at the home for the perpetually scandalous, the boysdigest the events of the evening like the gossiping fishwives they are. Theydebate the moral virtue of dumping one’s boyfriend via text. Prematurely Balding Jay is frankly appalled. That’s right, the stripper is appalled. I knowJay, you’re all so pious normally. As is par for the coruse with these absolutewasters, it devolves into a debate about who has the bigger biceps/pecs/cocksand they decide to arm-wrestle. For some reason arm wrestling requires them totake their tops off. I’ve seen porn that starts like this.

The girls are discussing Kelly’s newfound status as asingleton when Kelly slaps Natalie playfully. They wrestle, in the least eroticsimulacrum of foxy boxing ever and then fall over, legs akimbo. Suddenly halfthe screen is blurred, from which we can deduce the following: 1. Kelly isn’twearing any underwear and 2. Kelly’s vagina is massive.

No episode of this mess would be complete without drama inthe hot tub, and this week is no exception. It transpires that Phil may or maynot have implied that Nikita is easy. This would be the same Nikita who kissed21 people and has shagged both Phil and Beefmonkey. Needless to say, Nikita andseveral of her champions are shocked and appalled that her honour has beensullied in such a manner. Phil attempts to defend himself by explaining thatshe “took it completely the wrong way”. I guess there are lots of subtlemeanings to the phrase “Nikita is easy” so you can see how she might’ve missedthe part where he didn’t mean to call her slapper. Nikita is pissed atPhil! Phil tries to blame everyone else somehow! It’s somehow Kelly’s fault!Then it’s Beefmonkey’s fault! Prematurely Balding Jay says that “Philly is justhere to play the game”. What game? THERE’S NO PRIZE, YOU FUCKING TWIT. Whatsthe betting he thinks they’re actually taking part in an Irish version of BigBrother? I’m sure next week he’ll pluck up the courage to ask where the diaryroom chair is. Jay compares Phil to “Bambi caught in the headlights”. Ah, yes,that famous scene where Bambi is caught in the headlights of the truck thatnearly knocks him down while he's on his way to Tamango's. We all remember that scene.

Phil continues trying to explain how calling Nikita aslapper was totally everyone else’s fault, to little avail, until the argument finally ends when Phil and Nikita agree to continue having sex. Nataliefacepalms. Phil and Nikita fail to reflect on the fact that when even Natalieis aghast at your behaviour then perhaps it is time to have a long think aboutwhat you have done. Phil sagely points out that if sex is available to a man,he will take it. Because as we all know, the Y chromosome contains a gene thatcompletely removes the ability to turn sex down.

The episode concludes with the morons barging into the “scoreroom” to see what Kelly and Dave are up to. Kelly’s bra is on the floor andlest we forget, she wasn’t wearing any knickers, so it’s safe to assume theyweren’t lying in bed discussing potential ways to ensure that countries such asLibya and Egypt can emerge from their recent uprisings in manner that allowsfor a fair and egalitarian transition to democracy.

Next Week: Everyone reminds Kelly that she had a boyfriend.Kelly reminds everyone that she dumped him by text. Natalie has her anusencrusted with opals.

The Unholy Mess that is Tallafornia

2012-01-21T00:07:00.001Z

There are those among us who believe that 2012 is the yearthat will herald the end of the world. These people will spend the next 12months looking for signs and portents pointing to the forthcoming end of all that is; forindications that humanity is about to step off the edge of the cliff and hurtleface first into the gaping maw of oblivion. These people, desperate to findvalidation of their belief that we as a species have reached the end of theroad, need look no further than TV3s Tallafornia for the proof they need.

But lest you think that Tallafornia is the absolute worst thingthat could possibly happen to Irish television; your horror might be temperedby the fact that if you flick on to TV3 a few minutes early, like I did in myabsolute haste to ensure I didn’t miss a single minute, you’ll end up catching theend of Take Me Out, which makes T’fornia seems at least 5% less horrendous thanit actually is.

Awfulness of the opening credits as measured on the Voice ofIreland Theme Song Scale: 4.5/5. Lots of pastel colours float around as thenames of the assorted meatheads and fanny pads living together for our viewingpleasure float on-screen. Clearly amember of the production crew remembered the concept of in medias res from hismedia course at UCD, as we join the Gonnorrheans while they get suited and bootedfor a night out at Ireland’s premier hotspot for research into the transmissionof sexually transmitted infections, Tamango’s. Kelly (one of the dark-hairedgirls... and no, I can’t tell them apart) explains that her initial impressionof David (described on the TV3 website as, and I paste directly, “the life and sole of the party"....clearly you didn’t get very far in that media course, did you) is that he was aD4 rugby meathead, but she was pleased to discover he wasn’t. The otherGonorrheans speculate as to whether or not Kelly will be able to restrain herselfaround David’s massive man muscles, or will she give in to the smell of rawtestosterone and stale boxer shorts and cheat on her boyfriend?

Once they've finished setting up that storyline (hint: shetotally will cheat) Nikita puts on a pair of knacker-tights while the rest of theshitheads gather around the cooker, seemingly amazed by the fact that you canput food into a large white appliance and then eat it.

Future murderer Cormac arrives with some “tunage”. “Shakeyour hips like a bag of chips” remarks Natalie (it’s pronounced Nah-ah-lee) inwhat is just the first of many, many asides from her in relation to the topic offood and the eating of food. Also, what the fuck does shake your hips like abag of chips actually mean? It fails as a visual metaphor because quite simply,a human body in music-fuelled locomotion does not resemble a bag of chips asshe suggests. And wouldn’t a bag that vibrates madly utterly fail as a viablemeans of containing the deliciousness of the chips? Is Natalie one of thosepeople who thinks that rhyming something automatically makes it funny? Or is shesome sort of subversive literary genius, lampooning the general public’sinability to appreciate any form of poetic expression that doesn’t involve arhyming scheme? We’ll never know, because just as Natalie is about to share herthoughts on the future of prose in the era of the Kindle and e-publishing, MovesLike Jagger comes on and the arse-slapping begins. Prematurely balding Jay the stripper informs us that he has never stripped atTamango’s. Is Jay an actual stripper in that people pay him to remove hisclothes? Or is he a stripper in that he gets drunk, takes his clothes off andrages around the dancefloor hoping that his abs will distract from his thinninghairline?

Oh sweet Jesus. Natalie and Nikita decide to bust some movesin the cage. “People were throwing money down our thongs!” Natalie beams as my eyeballs vomit blood. Atthis point I’d like to remind anyone reading this that in the first episode,Natalie informed us that she wants to be a teacher. Yes, a teacher. I think I was on tosomething when I speculated that she’s some sort of subversive genius. Thisentire show is just one big exercise in ironic post-participation as far as she’sconcerned. Natalie and Nikita declare the cage their new local, as we endurefurther footage of them gyrating about with flakes of disease falling out oftheir thongs.

Kelly informs us that the big drama is going to be the “lovetriangle” between Cormac, Phil and Nikita, because the producers told her to say that. Well, it’s really more of a love hexagonbetween Cormac, Phil, Nikita and their respective reflections. And when we saylove we mean random-drunken-shifting. Like the kind that’s going on betweenNikita and Phil on-screen. Cormac informs us that “I’m a red-blooded testosteronefuelled male. I saw red” before judging Phil to be “a fucking shit-stirrer. Hestirs shit!” Cormac has a wide and varied vocabulary, and loves the SundayTimes crossword. I am greatly amused by the fact that Cormac the Beefmonkeyblasts Phil as a shit-stirrer two minutes after David gleefully skipped over tohim, malice in his eyes, and said “OH EM GEE, NIKITA IS SHIFTING PHIL!” and then showed him severalphotographs of the incident, some recorded footage, before telling him that Phil saidhis Ma had a cock. THE REAL SHIT STIRRER IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK,STEROIDMONKEY! “He’s Got To Accept The Consequences“ bellows Steroidmonkey, ashe confirms that he could “mooch twenty birds” if he chose to do so. Um. Okay?

It’s the morning after the night before, and afterdisinfecting their genitals, the Tallafornians are off to Prematurely BaldingJay’s Mammy’s house for a fry-up. Natalie informs us that she’s mad for thesausage. I never would’ve guessed. The girls ask Mammy Jay how she feels abouthim being a stripper. Mammy Jay says she loves watching him bounce around on-stagewith his meat and two-veg barely constrained by a tight sparkling red G-Stringas he rubs olive oil into his nipples. The meatheads are impressed that Jaygets on with his family, probably because the rest of them have all beendisowned for being such massive fucking disgraces.

And then they’re off to go abseiling and rock-climbing,except in the Health & Safety obsessed climate of modern Ireland, thisinvolves putting each of them in a harness and watching as they clamber down asmall boulder that’s about 10 feet high. It’s as riveting as it sounds.

The boys decide to have a quiet night in with the Wii whilethe girls head out to bond at “The Playhouse”. Nikita says she’s lookingforward to getting to know the girls better as she feels like their mammy buthasn’t really bonded with them. So like a mammy with post-natal depression,then? The boys bellow testosterone-fuelled warcries at one another as they playabout on the Wii. That’s the Wii, thecute little white rectangle regularly advertised by the likes of Julie Waltersand Carol Vorderman that’s the videogame equivalent of a nice cup of tea and asit-down. Hardcore, boys.

Cormac isn’t joining in though. He actually has a job. He’sa taxi-driver, so he’s off to scour the roads of County Dublin for a victim totake his ‘roid rage out on.

Over to The Playhouse where the girls have decided to showwhat independent women they are by spending all night talking about the boysbefore going out to find some additional inebriated members of the fairer sexto sacrifice to the meatheads. Way to represent, gals. Fortunately, because you wouldn’t go near these three women with a remote-controlled barge pole from the safety of a sterile environment, the only peoplethey find to bring home with them are Natalie’s cousin, Natalie's best mate and her otherbest mate WHO IS A GAY. Thanks for telling us, Natalie. We never would haveguessed.

The next excruciating ten minutes of this horrible showinvolve a horrendous gay playing up to every gay stereotype imaginable (Nobeers for queers? Check. Jokes about lube? Check. Jokes about hands whereeveryone can see them? Check.) getting completely bladdered and generally beinga total mess. There are lots of mentions of Brian Dowling, because BrianDowling is the only frame of reference the boys have for a gay man, and thisgobshite is so taken by the idea that he’s going to be on television that hejust completely plays up to the role of caustic, vulgar, mincing, predatoryhomosexual. In short: take the queen out back and shoot it before our peersdecide to rescind the Civil Partnership Act based entirely on this creature’sbehaviour. By the end of it all, the Tallafornians themselves actually seemlike models of quiet decorum in comparison.

Next week! The girls get vajazzled! I presume it’s a onehour special as a result. Also: I try to learn how to tell Nikita and Kelly apart.

The X-Factor 2011: The Semi Final Results Show

2011-12-04T22:20:00.001Z

Next week! Is the X-Factor final! At WEM-BULL-EE ARENA! Andyou decide who gets there! I can’t believe I only have two more days ofVoiceover Man in my life until he goes into hibernation again. Anyway, beforewe get to the FUCKING FOUR HOUR FINAL NEXT WEEKEND, which will probably killme, we have to make it through the rest of this mess. Dermot informs us that fourcontestants remain and one will depart. Unless the rules change in the next 20minutes, that is. Then he spends 30 minutes going through the various differentways of voting, and then a further 90 minutes chanting the phone numbers at us.Oh, and the Charity Single is number one. Who would have guessed, what with thepromotional juggernaut of this show behind it. Then there’s a horrendous groupsong of some number that I’ve never heard before. Apparently, it’s from thefilm Bridesmaids so I guess it’ll be familiar to the show’s voter demographicof middle aged women and gays.

Interminable recap with occasional bits of backstagenonsense time! Unfortunately the backstage nonsense is completely and utterlyboring so let’s ignore it and the entire recap. Oh god, they’re doing awkward livebackstage banter between Dermot and the contestants again. Marcus has a rumblyin his tummy! Amelia is the comeback kid! Misha can’t interview for fuck. Peoplefrom South Shields can’t speak English! The end.

Next up is Justin Bieber.

Following that, is devout Christian Kelly Rowland, singingone of her many, many songs about casual sex. Well, actually, it’s a medley ofWhen Love Takes Over, Dahn For Whutevah and about two seconds of Commander. It’snot the worst performance ever (that honour still belongs to Nicole Sherznger.Both times.) but when you’ve managed to make Cheryl Cole’s performances lookgood you’re probably doing something wrong. Then again, she sings live, whichis more than the Colester ever managed, so maybe it’s a draw. The performanceamounts to Learn How To Strip With Ms K. About halfway through she ends up inher underwear, and by the end I was 95% certain the tit-top would come off andshe’d finish the performance with some tassles. Dermot arrives for thepost-performance interview and doesn’t know where to look at the mostly nakedMs Rowland. Into her eyes, Dermot. Look into her eyes. Kelly implores us to buyher album because she just did a striptease on live television and doesn’t wantit to have been for nothing.

Drawn out results time! We have to sit through videosexplaining why each of the contestants wants to make it to the final and whytheir mentors are proud of them. Just in case you weren’t paying attention toany of the intro-videos over the last 9 weeks. Actual results time! The firstact through to next week’s FUCKING FOUR FUCKING HOUR FUCKING LONG FUCKING FINALis Little Mix. Next through is Marcus. It’s between Amelia and Misha. Unsurprisingly,the girl leaving the competition is the one who has been in the bottom two nearlyevery second week. Misha B is out and she’s surprisingly humble and gratefulabout it, which just means that when she eventually does explode, it’s going tobe spectacular. She should join Kitty in her crusade to hunt down everyone inBritain who didn’t vote for her. Backstage, Little Mix breathe a massive sighof relief. For the first time in 9 weeks they can open their cupboards withoutfear of finding a used tampon inside.

And that’s that. Next week’s finale will be taking placelive from Wembley Arena. Given how smoothly the outside-the-studio broadcastshave been in previous finals (disembodied voice of Stacey Solomon, anyone?) I’msure moving the entire show off-site will work out wonderfully. We can lookforward to a plethora of SyCo acts and special guests with absolutely nothingto promote, who are only there out of the goodness of their hearts.

The X-Factor 2011: The Semi Finals

2011-12-04T19:05:00.001Z

It’s Semi-Final Time! To disgrace! The music! The X-Factorsemi-final is like the opposite of the petit mort. Instead of the feeling ofdread ennui after AFTER the big finish, with this show it happens right before.This is my way of saying that the X-Factor semi-final is usually a thunderousletdown the week before the spectacle and outrageous hyperbole of the grandfinal. Last year’s was better than most, what with the sudden and unexpectedrule-change to ensure Cher Lloyd made it into the final over Tesco Mary, all the better to legitimately advertise the former as X-FACTOR FINALIST. Theonly way this one could hope to take that travesty on would be if they changedthe rules to state that ejected contestants now win the show this year and thencrowned Frankie automatic champion. But I digress. Look, there’s Dermot dancingterribly!

Dermot clearly and definitively states that the contestantwith the fewest votes will be eliminated tomorrow night, and that the Judge’swill have no say in it whatsoever. That means they’re definitely bringing backFrankie and Biscuitman and ejecting all the other contestants. This week’sthemes are “Motown”, because they want Misha B in the final (that’s okay, foronce the wishes of the producers and my own are in concord) and The SongThat’ll Get Me Into The Final, which obviously means just about anything. Oh,if only Janet were still in the competition. She could’ve finally sangSlipknot. Or just stood on stage in a boiler suit looking confused havingforgotten the lyrics.

Misha B is up first. Her intro-video is one of those “let’signore the fact she was in the bottom two last week” ones where they try tomake the contestant seem super-cheerful and determined to pick herself up andcarry on as normal, as opposed to violently thumping anyone who looked at hercrossways in the reproductive organs, which is what actually happened. Misha isso happy to still be in the competition and make a go of it! She definitelydidn’t force a random production assistant to abort her foetus in an act ofatavistic vengeance. Misha also had the opportunity to meet Justin Bieber thisweek, and she took the chance to bully him on account of his massive vagina. Mishais singing Dancing in the Street while lines of Matrix-style code run up anddown the screen behind her. I’m not sure what this staging is meant torepresent. Maybe someone uploaded Rebecca Ferguson into the staging software?Misha is wearing a terrible wig this week because she’s ashamed of herAfro-Caribbean heritage and wishes she had straight Caucasian hair. That’s theroot of her desire to bully. It all comes down to hair. JUDGES! Louis Walsh’scontribution amounts to “You’re Misha B. You’re in the semi-final. The theme isMotown.” I don’t know Louis stating the fucking obvious surprises me at thisstage. It’s what he’s has been doing all series along. Tulisa reckons thatperformance will get Misha through the final. That means she’s gone tomorrow,then.

Kelly Rowland is too busy pondering potential solutions tothe eurozone fiscal crisis and almost forgets to introduce her act. She barelyrecovers by saying “Oh! Ah ain’t ready for mah grrl! It’s Kathleen Slater!”Nice save. Amelia’s intro-reel features her wearing a leopard print headbandwith kitty ears. AS a result, I am blind to any other details in her VT. Theremay have been some guff about how her life has changed since rejoining the show(number 1 charity single, performing with international superstars/musical ingénuesJLS and One Dimension, being able to afford designer earrings for her goodfriend Pat Butcher, etc.). Amelia’s singing Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, asong that’s all about the singer’s useless attempts to escape from the X-Factorcontestant’s water-tight, give-us-your-firstborn contract. Amelia’s dancers areall wearing tartan for some inexplicable reason. I’ve always felt that nothingsays Motown more than tartan. They’re also doing that “I AM SO ENTHUSED” facethat dancers do when they’re acting or interpreting or whatever the fuck it’scalled when dancers are playing out a scene and it’s completely fucking fakeand makes me want to kill them all. Amelia has a two-tiered mini-stage that hertartan-fags help her off halfway through the performance so she can jog aboutthe stage hyperactively while the dancers continue to make those fucking faces.Right, I’ve decided that next year’s charity single needs to be dedicated tohelping backing dancers recover from the scourge of Dancer Face. Or just usethe funds to ship them off to the Dignitas clinic. One or the other. JUDGES!Louis says the Amelia totally killed that Motown classic. The wake takes placenext Wednesday. Dancers not welcome.

Little Kandy Girl-Lash are up next. Remember last week, whenthe muffins channelled the emotions and sadness of every young girl who had everbeen bullied into Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful? Well, it turns out that thosewere HAPPY TEARS. That’s right, Little Mix are actually emotional vampires whofeed on the negative feelings of others. Especially Pick ‘n’ Mix. This week thegirls went to the premiere of Hugo, presumably so they could feed on thedisappointment of the critics present when they found out that MartinScoreses’s latest film is for children. Charles and Camilla were also at thepremiere. Perhaps they should replace Kelly Rowland and Gary Barlow on thejudging panel next year. Put it dahn! Little Mix are performing from atop aplinth that’s taller than the one Amelia had and has more lights and colours.The winner of this year’s show shall be the contestant with the most elaborateuse of plinth, I think. I feel this year’s choreography genius, whoever thefuck he is, has overused the concept of the plinth and made it meaningless. Imean, last year if there was a plinth on stage, you knew that One Directionwere going to try to connect emotionally with a ballad, and fail hilariously.Or that Rebeccabot needed to charge her batteries on-stage. But this year we’vehad plinths ahoy. Brian Friedman understood how to give the public just alittle bit of plinth to keep them wanting more. Now I’m disillusioned withplinth. To be honest I wouldn’t care if I never saw a plinth again. Oh, thesong? The girls are singing You Keep Me Hanging On by the Supremes. Mixed Racedoes a Janet Devlin and forgets her words at one point. You wouldn’t think thiswould be so bad with a girl band but unfortunately they’ve decided to approachthis song with a series of solos in a variety of different styles suited toeach individual voice that don’t exactly mesh together well. So yes, it’srather noticeable. And the whole thing is a basically a wall of incoherentnoise. JUDGES! Louis opines that the girls have lost their Mojo, presumably aninvisible fifth member of the group who helps them with their harmonies. Kellysays they’ve done better, and when Gary suggests they should focus more onMyxomatosis on lead vocals, Kelly agrees: “In a girl group there’s always alead singer. She so thinks that she was the lead singer of Destiny’s Child.

Marcus and his lovely cheekbones are up next. In his VT hetalks about how much fun making the video for the charity single was. The clipaccompanying this statement consists of people throwing leaves at Marcus whilehe mimes. He’s not the brightest crayon in the box, is he? Robbie Williams randomlyshows up to demand to be the centre of attention for a few minutes, as he iscontractually obligated to do on every single series of this show. Marcus issinging My Girl. Gay Marcus is singing My Girl. Accompanied by the faggiestbacking dancers ever. Marcus is also performing on a plinth. I’m voting for theplinth to win this show. Aside from some glory-noting and showboating, it’sprobably the best he’s been in weeks. Which means it isn’t horrendous dross, atleast. JUDGES! Marcus stands there and smiles gormlessly with his lovelycheekbones as the judges throw compliments at him. Kelly has momentarilyforgotten that Marcus is a big flamer and flirts with him. Louis hasmomentarily forgotten that Marcus is 40 years younger than he is and flirtswith him. Be careful in the lavatory later on, Marcus.

MISHA AGAAIN. The theme of her second intro video is Misha’sJourney So Far. It just recaps everything you already know and its basically whatyou’d imagine an intro-video would look like if Louis Walsh wrote the brief forit; you’re Misha B. You auditioned. You went to Boot Camp. You went to Kelly’s “home”and met Jennifer Hudson and tweeted “omg u look so fab – the bereavement dietis amazing” at her. You’re on the Live Shows. Next week is the final. Yep, definitelywritten by Louis. The song Misha has chosen to get her into the final is a more-balladyversion of Pink’s Fucking Perfect, except without the naughty words. This is ahuge disappointment. I was hoping that the song Misha B used to get to thefinal would be a cover of Missy Elliot’s She’s a Bitch, replacing allpunctuation marks with Misha Evil Laughs. That would be amazing. Consideringall signs point to Misha going home tomorrow night, it’s a shame that her lastperformance is something as completely neutered as this. Punch someone in theface while wearing a dress made from Heat magazines and dishwasher parts,Misha, please! JUDGES! Louis says she’s a major talent and should never be inthe bottom two. I think it’s a bit late for that, Louis. Tulisa uses the wordsconnect in a lot of different combinations and doesn’t make the slightest bitof sense. I think she must’ve signed a deal with Microsoft and misunderstandthe part where they stipulated “We’ll give you £500 every time you say the wordKinect”. Gary Barlow decides to dredge up bullygate. What he says amounts to “Tulisais a lying cunt and it ruined your chances in this competition.”

Kat Slater is up next. Before the competition she was anormal 17 year old girl, aside from the Progeria that makes her look about 30.Her intro video follows the same pattern as Misha’s although it’s slightly lessrigid and includes a diversion into Kelly giving Amelia some advice and callingher a pro.I guess Louis wrote the script again and then someone actuallyproofread it. Amelia’s song to get her into the finale is the jingle from theBodyform ad. “Whoooooa bodyform” she thunders, “Bodyformed for YOOOOOOU”. But notreally. Kelly’s advice to Amelia was to be more upbeat and positive, so she’sdecided to sing Avril Lavigne’s dreary ballad I’m With You. I can’t ever hearthis song without being reminded of the stupid video with Avril standing in thesnow wearing ¾ length pants. WHO WEARS ¾ LENGTH PANTS IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER? Atotal PUNK like Avril, that’s who. God, that pop-punk mess of the early-mid2000s was a scary time. The staging for Amelia’s performance involves a plinth,of course, suspending Amelia in front of a huge black hole. I have no idea whatit’s meant to mean. Maybe Not-Bran-Friedman, as I shall call whoever isresponsible for the choreography and staging this year, got a new screensaverand wanted to show it off. I do wish they had introduced us to the bastardresponsible for the performances this year, actually. It’s hard to hate someonewithout a face to put to the interpretive dance concepts that enthral millionseach week. That’s why I really appreciate the screen time they gave to thefashion Nazis in Style Team™. Personally, I think the black hole represents theyawning chasm in Gary Barlow’s soul where normal people keep things likeempathy and understanding. JUDGES! Louis pleads with Kelly, “She has to be inthe final!” I don’t think it’s Kelly’s decision, Louis. Tulisa says that I’mWith You is one of the best songs ever. Please remember that Tulisa is 22 yearsold. Gary Barlow decides Amelia is smiling too much so he decides to tear herapart for being “shouty”. Has he never seen Eastenders? That’s just how they speakin Walford! The way Amelia thanks Gary for his criticism has an underlying subtextof “I’m going to run you down when I see you in the car park.” Kelly applauds Amelia on her beautiful pipes.Kelly has full body CT scans of all of her girls, and likes to let them knowwhich of their internal organs are the prettiest.

Marcus is next and his VT is about the gay old time he hadat the hairdressing awards. Given the fabulous subject matter, I guess Louiswrote this one too. Marcus explains how Gary has become a father to him,replacing the absent one who missed out on his childhood and in doing soensured he would become a homosexual. As you can imagine, this intro videoabout hair-dressing awards (which Jonathan Ross appears to have presented, forsome reason... I guess the hair industry is much more powerful than I hadanticipated. Maybe they can save the Euro.) is the most fascinating thing ever.Moving swiftly on before we all fall into a boredom-induced coma, Marcus hasdecided that the song to get him into the final is a limp and rather hollowperformance of the Jackson 5’s Can You Feel It? Marcus is performing from a plinth,of course, but his plinth DESCENDS FROM THE CEILING, which I think means theproducers want him to win. I mean, none of the other contestants were giftedwith a sky-borne plinth. The song starts out all flat and weird. Maybe it’s thethin air high above the audience on Sky-Plinth. He’s wearing a leather outfitthat’s been put together using just 20% of the leather that Sami Brookes worefor her ill-advised attempt at singing a Cher song during Everyone WearsLeather For Some Reason night back in Week 3. JUDGES! They all thought it was abit lacking, except for Barlow who thought it was the best thing ever.

Closing the show is Little Mix. Last week, the intro reelinforms us, they got to meet Jessie J again after she helped put the grouptogether at Judge’s Houses! Insert clip of Jessie J having no idea who any ofthem are and barking something about feeling the music and being credible orsome such shit. Get a haircut, Jessie! This time last year, Pick ‘n’ Mix wasworking in a bar, where she was employed to eat all the peanuts on the floor atthe end of the night. Her appraisals were always very positive. Myxomatosis,meanwhile, had just finished college and was wondering what she would do withher life, while Mixed Race worked at Pizza Hut. We’re not told what Mixed Upand her little vole face used to do for a living this time last year, so I’massuming she was either dole-scum or a model for some of Sylvanian Familiesrodent people. The girls remind us all that they’re SISTUHS and really love oneanother and then Pick ‘n’ Mix starts crying AGAIN. She is now officially themost leaky-eyed contestant since Leona “Cried Every Week” Lewis. I’m a bitchubby! Waaaaaah. I’m being bullied by Misha! Waaaaaah. Misha’s stoppedbullying me! Waaaaaah. Where’s my Doritos? Waaaaaah. The girls are singing If IWere a Boy. Again, they all get extended solo bits, including Mixed Up RatGirl, who may be about to topple Pick ‘n’ Mix as my favourite. And it takes aLOT of leverage to topple her. Rat Girl just looks so sneaky. I wouldn’t besurprised if she had a utility belt full of smoke bombs, just in case she everneeds to make a quick getaway. She’s probably the one who forced Frankie tosnort those 58 lines of cocaine from the Bulgarian prostitute’s backside andtold the paparazzi. Mixed Race doesn’t forget her lines this time, which isnice. The performance is equal parts atrocious and decent, but there are noplinths involved so I think they could be in trouble. JUDGES! Louis comparesLittle Mix to Girls Aloud and the Sugababes. I’m going to assume it’s meant tobe a compliment. Kelly says that when they find their dynamic they’ll changethe world. No, really. Kelly actually said that Little Mix will change theworld. Are they going to stumble upon the cure for AIDS while writing lyricsfor their second album or something? Barlow says they were shit and should beashamed of themselves for bring such weak vocals to the final, and that if they’rein the final next week and sing that badly, he’s going to shoot himself live onair. A slightly deranged Tulisa breaks the Judging Table in half as shepassionately beats it with her fist while imploring the public to vote. HIGHWYCOMBE MUST VOTE. That crucial High Wycombe vote is make or break forpoliticians, referenda and reality TV show girl bands.

Performances over, Dermot reminds us what we have to lookforward to on tomorrow’s results show: performances from Justin Bieber (ohdear) and Kelly Rowland (oh very dear). There’s an unending recap of tonight’sperformances and a bit of shameless cross promotion with I’m A Fucking Has-BeenWho Stretches the Definition of the Word Celebrity Into Meaninglessness, Get MeOut of Here before the show’s over and we can all clench our anuses inanticipation of the excitement that will be the semi-final results show.

The X-Factor 2011: Week 8 - Results

2011-11-27T23:34:00.001Z

It’s the results show! With special guests Olly Murs andJessie J! Oh, we’re really scraping the barrel now, aren’t we? We’rezooming along this week. I barely have time to make sure that the scowl ofhorror I wear each week when watching this show is properly affixed, and we’realready on to Olly Murs and his musical performance. Oh, and the Muppets? The Muppets? Are they promoting their new film that isn’t being released in Europeuntil February 2012? Excellent timing, Disney. So Animal is on the drums (ofcourse), Fozzie is on bass and a curious looking new muppet descends from theceiling in some contraption and proceeds to dance about on-stage singing badly and...oh, it’s Olly Murs. What, you thought just because that joke was obvious I wasgoing to avoid making it? This is actually the most bizarre thing ever. Perhapsthey felt that the only way to make Olly interesting when his trousers aren’t sotight that they’re cutting off the circulation to his brain is to add anelaborate performance involving some of the world’s most beloved puppets. WhenOlly Murs looks back on his career (some time next year when he’s invariablydropped by SyCo) I really have no idea whether he’ll consider this a high pointor a low point. Performance over, Olly chats with Dermot and then strokes MissPiggy’s leg. The actual Miss Piggy. Not Jesy from Little Mix. Olly looksconfused when Miss Piggy doesn’t react. I don’t think he realises that as she’smade out of felt she can’t actually feel it when he squeezes her thigh.

Before you can say mahnah mahnah (doo doo doo doo doo),we’re on to the interminable recap. Remember when Janet sang Mmbop last night?No, neither do I, because she didn’t sing it so much as sway about on-stage asthe music played. We zip through the interminable recap at light-speed thisweek. Does this mean I can’t call it the interminable recap any more? And we’restraight on to Jessie J. Two performances and the interminable recap, with noadverts thus? Are the producers feeling okay? This is all very strange;normally the concept of an ad break is used as a punctuation mark betweensentences on this show. As Jessie J sings her latest dirge, which is the songthat Misha B sang a few weeks ago in the sing-off, I keep thinking that a lightfitting is going to fall accidentally and injure her to prevent her taking upher place as a judge on the BBC’s forthcoming potential X-Factor rival, TheVoice. Then I remember every single BBC Saturday evening reality show of thepast 15 years and realise that ITV don’t need to do anything to sabotage thecompetition, the Beeb will manage that all by themselves. Jessie J is a screechymess who spends the duration of this song beating every note in the song todeath with all the other notes that hang around it. Dermot and Jessie chitchatand mentions several times how much the song means to her because she wrote itherself and she’s so credible and an artist and BUY HER ALBUM.

Ah, an ad break. I feel much better now. Everything has beenset right with the world. The reason for the ridiculous pace of tonight’s showbecomes apparent as Dermot introduces a short film about the work of thecharity benefitting from this year’s X-Factor Charity Single™. Yes, it’s thatawkward moment when the X-Factor does something for a good cause and I can’tsay anything cruel about it, because the charity they’ve chosen is one thathelps dying children. Damn, that’s just completely bullet-proof. Unlike lastyear’s charity, which helped injured soldiers. The short film ends and withoutmuch fanfare we’re straight into the performance of Wishing on a Star. Oh look,there's Kitty. They actually let her back into the building? They’re never goingto get rid of her. The only reason they got her out the last time was becauseshe went for a drink with Lady Gaga, an object of fervent religious worship forKitty. And the gays. I can’t tell which lineup The Risk are using for thisautotuned, lip-synched mess, but I’m going to assume the band now consists offour random people who visited the ITV website, got a pop-up saying “Would youlike to be in a mediocre boyband?” and clicked Yes in the hope that they’d endup replacing Irish Bieber in One Direction. Oh, speak of the talentless devil,there he is! Yes, just when you thought the stage couldn’t get any more packed,they wheel in JLS and One Dimension to sing the last 8 seconds of the song.Just keep telling yourself it’s for a good cause. Dermot excitedly announcesthat The Chancellor has decided to waive the VAT on the single so that allproceeds go to charity. Hooray for the Chancellor! Unfortunately, the VAT onthe XFactor Charity Single would’ve saved several thousand public sector employees.Boo for the Chancellor!

O FORTUNA! It’s actual results time. The contestants swaggeron-stage following a quick change of outfit from their charity single clothesto their potential elimination clothes. Kat Slater appears to be wearingsomething from Ann Summers. I didn’t realise they had a Junior Miss Slapperline. In no particular order, and padded out as much as Dermot possibly can, becausehe’s only got three names to call out are Amelia, Marcus and Little Kandy GirlLash. Thank god Little Mix got through, Tulisa actually looked like she wasgoing to vomit while waiting for that announcement. Speaking of vomit, whenDermot asks Kelly how she feels about having two of her acts in the bottom two,she says that she’s feeling very sick. Oh fuck, she’ll be on a plane to LAwithin the hour in that case.

First up is Janet. Doing her Janet thing that she does, inher own Janet way that she knows how to do. This usually means forgetting thelyrics, these days. Janet’s song for survival is Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars. OhJanet, you don’t need to chase cars. Brendan will pick you up in his hearse.It’s pleasant and better than anything else she’s sung recently. Though anyoneI spoke to about it afterwards hated it, so maybe I just like the sound offunereal keening. That should be the name of Janet’s first album, I think. Thator Drowning in Formaldehyde.

Misha is up next. She has decided to sing a song forsurvival, despite the fact that she could just stand there doing her evil Mishalaugh for 2 minutes and the judges would still choose to send Janet homeinstead. Misha’s performance is vocally strong but fairly bland. Poor Misha.You’re awesome, but no one will vote for you. Why is that? Oh right, the bullything. Whoops.

Louis Walsh is first up. This week Louis has decided thathe’s basing his decision on yesterday’s performances. As with all the judges, criteriagoverning the decision of who to eliminate seems to change every week. Sometimes it’s the sing-off alone. Soemtimes it’s yesterday’s performances.Sometimes it’s based on “potential to be a recording artist”. Sometimes it’sbased on how hard Louis wants to bone them. Other times it's based on whether or not their name is an anagram of something the judge likes. What’s the point of the bloodysing-off if it has no effect on the elimination? Anyway, Louis sends Janethome. Tulisa sends Janet home. Kelly Rowland sobs and sniffles and wipes hernon-existent tears unconvincingly until Dermot reminds her that if she refusesto make a decision, The Cheryl Cole Solution will come into effect. The CherylCole Solution states that in the event of a judge refusing to choose betweenher own act because she’s frightened the public will think she’s a bitch fordoing so, then the act with the most votes from the other judges will go home.Kelly says a silent prayer of thanks to St. Cheryl and decides to enactX-Factor precedent and avoid making a decision. She also gives Dermot a blowjobfor reminding her of the ability to abstain. Janet’s farewell video reminds usof the quiet little blonde girl who was tragically slain by Biscuitman beforebeing reanimated by the producers in a dark voodoo ritual to avoid thecontroversy of harbouring a serial killing biscuit maker.

Next week, it’s Semi-Final time. Last year’s semi-final waswhere they decided to change the rules to ensure Mary Tesco was eliminated; soI can’t wait for next week’s shock Everyone-Who-Isn’t-Named-Misha-B-Is-Outtwist. Oh, and Kelly Rowland will be performing on the results show, too,providing she isn’t in LA with another “cold” or busy tweeting photos toBeyoncé captioned “Me & Misha hanging out. U jelly?”.

The X-Factor 2011: Week 8

2011-11-27T01:05:00.001Z

It’s time! To disgrace! The music! And I hope you’ve gotyour ears secured, because we’re disgracing it twice as hard as last weekbecause the contestants are going to be doing double the singing. Last week,Biscuitman was eliminated and the rate of unexplained murders in the areasurrounding Rancho X-Factor coincidentally plummeted. As did sales in thenearest confectioners. Voiceover Man excitably informs the audience about eachcontestant singing twice as he’s accompanied by the most over-dramatic musicever used in this show’s recap. And we’re talking about a programme that uses OFortuna on a weekly basis, here. Voiceover Man reminds us that Kelly Rowlandhas three acts left. “Let’s see how long that lasts,” states an outraged GaryBarlow, using the power of basic mathematics to work out that Kelly has a 3/5chance of losing an act tomorrow. Dancing Dermot sashays on-stage. The lesssaid about it the better. He explains this week’s theme, Guilty Pleasures andMusical Heroes by saying that this week’s theme is Guilty Pleasures and MusicalHeroes.

First up is Little Kandy Girl-Lash, again introduced asTulisa’s Little Muffins. Look, they’ve already been through one name change,Tulisa, why are you trying to confuse things even more? Newcastle Little Mixerexplains how this week, the girls “wentoo wintah wundalahnd”, which is Geordiefor “My colleagues and I visited a Christmas themed carnival. It was simplymarvellous. The atmosphere was splendidly festive, and our mentor, Ms TulisaContostavlos, accompanied us, which made the evening all the more enjoyable.When the evening drew to a close, we returned to our temporary lodgings withmany happy memories that I shall ever look back on with a huge smile. Beforebed, I decided to start a new book, but had a hard time choosing between JulianBarnes’ The Sense of an Ending and Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty.While I’m eager to read the former due to the furore surrounding this year’sMan Booker Prize, I ultimately decided to begin reading The Line of Beauty inearnest. I think recently viewing the trailer for Meryl Streep’s Thatcher putme in the mood for some fiction set in that turbulent era. Thus far, it has notdisappointed.” Or something. There’s footage of Tulisa and the girls on aslide, recreating that famous experiment where Galileo dropped a heavy item anda light item from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to show how objects fall at thesame speed irrespective of mass. And sure enough, Tulisa and Pick ‘n’ Mix makeit down the slide at more or less the same time. Eventually, the editors ofthis VT remembered that it was for a singing competition, and got around toexplaining the song choice – the girls will be singing a Justin Bieber song, mashedup with a Diana Ross number. And I have no idea if it’s meant to be theirguilty pleasure or their musical heroes. The girls perform Bieber’s “Baby” withelaborate staging. They’re waitresses in a 1950s style Diner. But there’s nofood! I wonder who ate it all? Why did they have to open the show with a JustinBieber song? Are they trying to completely destroy me? How am I supposed toremain coherent for another 9 songs after this opening? JUDGES! Louis didn’tlike it, because they insulted his diva Goddess Diana Ross by twisting her songinto a dark Satanic chant by mixing it with the lyrics and music of thepubescent Canadian demonspawn.

Next up is Janet Devlin. “I’m going home” she announces inher intro video. Oh Janet, don’t be so defeatist! The elimination isn’t untiltomorrow! But sure enough, back home she goes, BACK TO HORRIBLE IRELAND. Dying,famine-stricken bankers line the streets, staring at Janet forlornly withsunken, hopeless eyes. “Where have the good times gone?” they ask her, withdistended stomachs that haven’t known the sweet taste of caviar, cocaine orCristal champagne since the Anglo-Irish bailout. Janet sways down Main Street,Tyrone, wailing her song of death as headless horsemen reap the souls in herwake. Then she turns on the Christmas lights, and ooh, aren’t they pretty?Janet explains that she’ll be singing Hanson’s Mmmbop, which is not really thetype of song she normally likes. THAT'S WHY THEY'RE CALLED GUILTY PELASURES YOUGHASTLY TIT. Janet Devlin does Mmmbop? Is this a sign of the end times? Itstarts less awful than her Jackson 5 song from a few weeks ago. Then again,that’s like saying that having your testicles chopped off is a less awful wayto be emasculated than having a red hot poker shoved 5 inches up your urethra. Butthen Janet manages to forget the lyrics AGAIN, and just shuffles aboutawkwardly on-stage. “Mmmbop”, Janet! The fucking lyrics are “Mmmbop”! JUDGES!Louis tries to pretend everything is okay, because he realises that Janetwinning is the only way for Ireland to battle its way out of recession.Everyone else knows it was a train wreck.

It’s Misha B time! In her intro-reel, Misha explains thatthe past few weeks have been really emotional for her, but that she’s decidedthat she “wants Misha B back”. Oh great, this means she’s started leaving deadanimals in Little Mix’s dressing room again, does it? “I’m saying goodbye toall my troubles”, Misha explains, so I can only conclude that Kelly Rowland hashad Mama Misha B assassinated after the upset she caused last weekend. Misha consultswith the Evil Fashion Nazis of Style Team. After picking her outfit, she confirms thatshe’s definitely back to being 100% Misha B. That’s good to hear. I hate whenmy Misha B is laced with impurities like rat poison and baking soda. Misha’s guiltypleasure is Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Fun, performed from atop a big redstairs. As you do. There’s rapping! There’s a patented Misha B laugh in there,too! Ha! Aha-ha! That sound is music to my ears, although I’m sure it sendschills down the spines of everyone Misha has ever bullied. So about 15% of thepopulation of the British Isles, then. JUDGES! They all love Misha B andthey’re terribly excited that she’s back and gotten rid of that dreary clonewho replaced her for the past few weeks.

Up next is Marcus, who’ll be singing Wham’s I’m Your Man.Hopefully Louis won’t take that as a proposition. Marcus’s VT is all about hisrelationship with Gary. He’s not just his mentor, you see, he’s his FWIEND. Marcusexcitedly tells us how he visited Gary’s recording studio, which I’m just goingto assume is a horrible smutty euphemism. Further talk of Gary’s “recordingstudio” and the fun times Marcus had “in it” pushing all the buttons andfiddling with the knobs. What vile smut. On to the performance! Marcus singing thissong is somehow gayer than George Michael doing it. Perhaps that’s why Georgewas taken ill this week; Marcus is absorbing his swagger. Well, that or hishabit of smoking greenhouses of weed and crashing into gay cruising areas hasfinally worn his health away to nothing. Marcus proceeds to vault up onto thejudge’s table and gyrates in front of Louis Walsh. MY EYES! Judges! Louis isunable to talk because he is so overcome with arousal. The sexually chargedtalk continues as Kelly Rowland fixates on Marcus’s abs, Dermot calls him “Thepostman who ALWAYS delivers”, Gary Barlow mentions how Marcus “came in mydressing room earlier” and Louis talks about how he’d like Marcus to explodehot sperm all over his face.

Kelly Rowland warns us to shut the building down as KatSlater is next. Why? Does she have rabies or something? Diabetes isn’tcontagious, Kelly, you ignorant shrew. Amelia explains how she’s so happy shegot through at the expense of Fat Craig. This intro video is where she trulybecomes an established part of the show, as we experience all of the clichésyou’d expect from an X-Factor intro-reel the week after a contestant was in thebottom two. Amelia is sad! Amelia picks herself back up! Amelia is determinednot to end up in the sing-off again! Amelia’s guilty pleasure is Anita Dobson’sAnyone Can Fall in Love, also known as The Ridiculous Song That Put Lyrics tothe Eastenders’ Theme Tune and Inexplicably Made it to No.4 in the UK Charts.Well, actually it’s T’Pau’s China in Your Hands. But I’m going to pretend shesang the other song instead, because that’s much more amusing than the realityof Amelia belting out T’Pau and doing a damned good job of it. So, four-fifthsof the guilty pleasures were songs from the 1980s? And the other one was JustinBieber, which doesn’t count as actual music as it is actually a form of auralheroin that only affects thirteen year old girls. Judges! Louis remindseveryone that he saved Kat last week. Except he fucking well didn’t, he showedhomo-solidarity and voted to save Biscuitman last week. Tulisa loved Amelia!Gary... reminds Amelia of her numerous defeats in this competition for somereason and then insults T’Pau. He goes on to call your mother fat, makes a jokeabout people with Down’s Syndrome and then phones Simon Cowell to ask is hedoing the likeable Mr Nasty routine right yet.

Up next again is Little Kandy Girl-Lash again. And again,Tulisa introduces them as her “Little Muffins” again again again. And to thinkthey call this show predictable repetitive nonsense. A second song meanssuffering through a second intro-video. Because the first wasn’t execrableenough. The girls explain that their musical hero is Christina Aguilera andthey’re going to be singing Beautiful as it means so much to them. Because, weare reminded for the millionth time, they’re ordinary girls! Just like all thegirls at home who don’t normally vote for girlbands on this show because theythink they’re going to fuck their boyfriends and piss on their favourite shoesor whatever primal social fear it is that makes girls mean to one another forno reason. So keep voting for Little Mix, because if you don’t, it’s justlike kicking yourself in the face with a shit-covered shoe. Footageof the girls being interviewed by a random radio dude about Pick ‘n’ Mix beingbullied online. “I AM NEVER GOING TO GO ON A DIET BECAUSE I LIKE EATING TOOMUCH”, she explains. She’s got such a mighty mane of hair. She looks like alioness. Or a King Charles Cavalier. The girls do an average rendition of thisincredibly over-exposed and worn out song that has Pick ‘n’ Mix sobbing herlittle heart out by the end. Awwww. I think I want them to win now, justbecause my life is a better place with Jesy in it. The rest of them can fuckoff. Aside from Mixed Up, maybe. I like her evil little vole-like face. Judges!Louis is still in the toilets masturbating furiously after Marcus thrusted intohis face earlier. Kelly liked it. Gary Barlow thought the vocal was a bit weakbut he approves of the friendship between the girls. I’m sure they’re delightedto know that. Dermot attempts to speak to a snotty/sobby Pick ‘n’ Mix, whoexplains that they chose the song because all the ORDINARY GIRLS who followthem on Twitter asked them to. So what you’re saying is that you didn’t pickthe song because Christina is your musical hero? I’ve just lost all respect forLittle Mix. Which means I feel exactly the same about them as I did 3 minutesago.

The next act is Janet, unless she’s forgotten how to leave thetoilet where she’s been crying for the past 40 minutes since she forgot thewords to Mmmbop. As the theme for the second song is musical heroes, I wasreally hoping that we’d see Janet perform some Pantera. Alas, she’s decided tosing the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Under the Bridge instead. Dammit, Janet. Inthe intro-video we’re introduced to her boyfriend Brendan, who looks rathera lot like Richmond the Goth from the IT Crowd. Or y’know, Noel Fielding, whoisn’t exactly dressing much different when he’s playing Richmond to how henormally dresses, I guess. The staging for Janet’s performance involves a giantscreen with Janet’s face on it blankly fading in and out, watching herselfperform. It's like that Halloween special of South Park presented in Spooky Vision that has Barbra Striesand's face flash on-screen to horrifying effect every so often. I like to think it’s a manifestation of Janet’s soul, trapped in limbowatching her reanimated body perform and helpless to do anything about it. Andwondering how Brendan can love the cold, dead skin of zombie Janet so much morethan he ever loved Live Janet. It’s much better than her first song, which isfaint praise indeed. Being kicked in the face by a horse is a better experiencethan Janet singing Mmmbop. JUDGES! Blah blah blah Ireland blah blah blahshamrock says Louis. Tulisa lauds Janet for being herself. Basically Tulisasays something completely pointless. Then Gary says that he respects Janet forcompletely ignoring the advice and criticism he gives her every single week.Gary likes when people ignore him? He’d fucking love me so; I’m always tryingto convince myself that he doesn’t exist. Kelly Rowland says Janet should beproud because she, and I quote “you’re still like I’m still gonna come out hereand I’m still gonna sing my Janet Devlin style way of singin that I know how todo”. Such a wordsmith, that Kelly Rowland. Before Dermot can interview Janet,the Ghostbusters storm into the studio and trap her in an ecto-containmentunit.

Misha’s second intro video is all about how Misha and Kellyare BFFs now. We see them hanging out and having fun, and Misha enthuses to thecamera about how awesome Kelly is, and Kelly bitches about how Beyoncé hasn’tbeen in touch in weeks, and when she is it’s all baby this and baby that, soshe’s had to get a new BFF and as Michelle Williams is so fucking boring, shedecided to go with Misha instead. They hug! Misha is performing Killing MeSoftly as her second song. So does this mean that Lauren Hill is her musicalhero or Roberta Flack? Misha performs in front of several mirrors, reflectingher arse into infinity. Imagine if they’d done this kind of staging for Treycand Her Massive Arse last year. It would have melted eyeballs. Continents wouldbeen lost. Civilisations destroyed. The mirrors make it appears as though thereare many Mishas, which I’m sure is a concept that has reduced all of Little Mixto tears. The performance doesn’t really work. For a start, there’s no rapping.Secondly, there’s no evil Misha laugh. And finally, she sings the whole songin a rather upbeat manner that just doesn’t work. It comes across as "Oh,he's killing me softly! Wheeeeee!" But it’s definitely better than Little PaijeRichardson’s gender-altered version from last year, so I guess that’ssomething. Judges! Tulisa reckons that this has been Misha’s best week ever andthat she’s the one the other contestants have to beat. Including the ones whohave never been in the bottom two, Tulisa? Gary says that the competition wouldbe duller without Misha. Well, he’d be the expert on that, wouldn't he.

Marcus returns with a completely unfocussed intro-videothat’s sort of about how Stevie Wonder has always been his musical hero,genuinely, unlike all the other contestants who were just lying (I’M LOOKING ATYOU, LITTLE MIX) and then segues into how his mother is so proud of her gaypostman son, who clambers onto tables and shoves his crotch into the faces ofmiddle-aged Irish men while singing 80s camp classics by public-sex fan GeorgeMichael. Marcus is singing Stevie’s Lately. He sings it a little bit tooearnestly; it’s all a bit over-emotional and contrived to drag emotions out of your unfeeling heart whether you like it or not. It's also boring. Reallyboring. JUDGES! Louis just stares at Marcus’s groin and doesn’t say a word.Tulisa says it was emotional. Yes, Tulisa, but it was too emotional. It wasforced emotion. It was overwrought and unconvincing. And more than a little bitshouty. Tulisa tells us that Marcus doesn’t want to play the sympathy card buthe’s had a tough life and deserves to be in the competition. I KNEW he seemed excessivelycomfortable gyrating for old man Louis earlier! Tulisa’s comments justmake me want to Google Marcus non-stop until I can find out exactly what thefuck she’s referring to.

We’ve somehow survived 9 performances, and just have to makeit through one more, as Kat Slater closes the show. Kelly, introducing Amelia,refers to her fans as “her lillies”, which just sounds like a fanny pad. I canpicture the advert right now. Just like all tampon ads, it’d feature Kellyhanging out with her girls on a rollercoaster, or about to go skydiving when,oh no, she’s on the blob! What is she going to do? Why, she’ll just stuff inHer Lillies™, of course, and then she’ll sky dive and coast rollers all thelive-long day, whilst being all super-fresh and clean and other words thatblood-nappy adverts typically feature. Amelia explains, in her intro video, howKelly Clarkson is her musical hero, because she was in a show like the X-Factorand went on to have a music career. By that logic, couldn’t Cher Lloyd beAmelia’s musical hero? I think I’d love to see her cover Swagger Jagger. It’dcertainly be better than this lacklustre version of Since You’ve Been Gone. Thevocals are up and down and all around the place. It isn’t terrible, it’s just abit pitchy. JUDGES! Gary thought it was a bit shouty, Tulisa thought it hadproblems but proved that Amelia was a rocker at heart, and Louis Walsh hasnothing of import to say, ever.

That’s your lot for tonight. Tune in tomorrow when the showwill feature world-class musical guests like... eh... Olly Murs and JessieJ. Oh. Well, tune in anyway.

The X-Factor: Week 7 - Performances & Results

2011-11-20T22:11:00.001Z

IT’S TIME. TO DISGRACE. THE MOVIES! In a surprise twist,this week’s episode begins on time. No last minute contestant resignations orreturns. No technical hitches. No Jihadists bursting into the studio andunleashing a hail of semi-automatic weapons-fire into the judges, tearing GaryBarlow apart while Louis Walsh observes “You’re Muslim. You’re angry. You’relike little theocratic revolutionaries.”

This week’s Dermot’s Dance Dance Revolution is set to theJames Bond theme. I gather they’ve now started doing elaboratedancing-presenter intros with Steve Jones and His Mysteriously DisappearingWelsh Accent as well on the US Factor. That just shows how completelyspontaneous and natural this franchise is, and how the producers don’t justhave a tick-box of elements that the series should have. Dermot unleashes manyterrible film-related puns before welcoming the Judges on-stage. Unfortunately,Kelly Rowland is not dressed like the bastard offspring of the landed gentryand a penguin this week.

Gary Barlow introduces Craig Colton with all the enthusiasmof a comatose deaf mute. Biscuitman intro-videos about how he attended acharity gig put on by Barlow. At no point do they mention the name of thecharity, which you’d imagine is the kind of thing you might want to do withgood causes. The contestants got a shock announcement this week, the VT informsus, when Tulisa announced that all of the remaining contestant were definitelyon the X-Factor tour. They scream with delight until they realise it meansbeing shackled together in a tour bus for several months for less than £100 aweek. Oh naive contestants, you didn’t think the producers weren’t going tofind some way to claw back the money they spent on bleaching and straighteningyour teeth, did you? Now we’re on to Biscuitman’s family. Jesus this VT iscovering a lot of ground. Biscuitdad kisses his son. That’s the root of hishomosexuality right there. Emotionally distant fathers produce strong,independent manly sons – that’s Parenting 101. “We always knew Craig was goingto be a singer from an early age” says Biscuitdad, cleverly using the wordsinger as a euphemism as a hilariously fake and staged clip of Craig listeningto Paparazzi at a bus stop segues into last week’s aneurism-inducingly boringperformance. “We’re so proud to be his mum and dad”. What terrible parents.They’ve changed the little clips that accompany Voiceover Man’s announcement ofthe names at the end of the intro reels, presumably to replace the terrifyingfaces Craig used to pull in his with a marginally less terrifying one of himsmiling while thinking about how he’s going to cut out and eat your liver whileyou’re still alive.

Craig is singing Licence to Kill, from some James Bond filmwhose name escapes me. The Living Daylights, probably. “Please don't bet thatyou'll ever escape me; Once I get my sights on you.” This song is doing nothingto undermine my suspicions that Craig is a serial killer. Soaring vocals andglory notes! Horrifying facial expressions! Arm-thrusts of emotion! I’ll giveBiscuitman this much: he’s consistent. Unfortunately he’s consistently as dullas dishwater and this week’s performance is no different. JUDGES! Louis thinksCraig is better than the song choice; Tulisa thinks he sounded amazing but alsodoesn’t rate the song choice, and Kelly Rowland comes within several nanometresof actually offering criticism, before reining herself in and deciding that “AHJUST LOVE YOU” is a constructive critique. Gary Barlow rails on Louis and Tulisa by pointing out that the X-Factoris a singing competition, not a “song-choosing competition”. Like the famousEurovision Song Choosing Competition, for example. Louis and Tulisa’s reactionsare priceless; the latter reminds Barlow that he has criticised song choicesseveral times in the past. Gary decides to deal with this by continuing to talkuntil the other judges fall asleep from exposure to his dreary voice.

Up next is Wee Janet from Horrible Ireland. Janet’s introvideo repeats Gary’s warning from last week on how she was bordering on boring.This really cut to the bone for Janet, because if anyone knows boring, it’s MrBarlow. Janet is very pretty in her intro video; they really should stop tryingto make her look like a corpse for her actual performances. “I’m not boring,I’m just weird” explains Janet, as she squashes some blueberries with a spoonand smears the resulting mush all over her eyelids. One of Evil Fashion Nazisfrom Style Team™ gets an airing in Janet’s VT to explain how difficult it is todress Janet. I mean, first they have to find a cemetery with crypts fromVictorian times, then they have to break into them, and then you mightn’t evenfind any bodies with the same build as Janet. Frankly, they can’t wait for herto leave so they can get back to more conventional styling arrangements likedressing poor Pick ’n’ Mix differently from the other members of Little Mix soshe stands out even more, or making papier maché evening gowns for Misha B.Janet is amazed that people at the Twilight premiere knew her name. “How do youknow my nyaaaaaaaam?” she wonders. Because people on Mars can hear VoiceoverMan bellowing it, Janet. Janet is singing Sixpence None the Richer’s Kiss Me,from every teen chick flick ever. She’s accompanied by the fake plastic treesfrom Cher Lloyd’s throne of winter staging last year. Actually, the whole routine(Janet sings while two “lovers” seated on a park bench stare longingly into oneanother’s eyes and pretend to chat) seems very familiar. This show is now socreatively bankrupt that they’ve started re-using complete staging routines inaddition to the props. Come back Brian Friedman, we need your twisted genius!JUDGES! Janet fidgets nervously, not because of their potential comments, butbecause the Elixir Vitae only works for a few hours and she doesn’t want toturn back into one of the undead live on-stage. Louis loved it and says she has“natural Celtic charm”, what with her hair, which the Style Team made redder,and her alabaster skin, which the Style Team make whiter. Natural Celtic charmindeed. Tulisa is happy that Janet is BACK IN HER BOX and not trying anythingdifferent. Gary Barlow says something forgettable, while Kelly has changed herspeech-switch from Agreeable Nonsense to Random Bollocks Falling Out My Mouth.“Me Me? I’m Janet Devlin. Boo Boo.” So in addition to forgetting how to speak,she’s also forgotten who she is.

Comeback queen Kat Slater is up next. I was hoping her introreel would distil six week’s worth of X-Factor VT clichés into one. We’d have aquick clip of Amelia sobbing because she misses her family; Amelia worryingabout the bad comments she got from the Judges; Amelia ‘s anxiety about whetheror not Alfie will be able to run the Queen Vic without her; Amelia telling usthe story of her Type 1 Diabetes so we feel sorry for her; Amelia being bulliedby Misha B because she’s the new girl, and so on. But alas this one justfocuses on how Kelly took all of her girls to a spa so they could relax. We seeAmelia and Kelly in a sauna together. I presume that Amelia excused herself atsome point and tried to lock Kelly in there as part of her vendetta againsther. If it hadn’t been for those damn modern safety features... Kat is singingAretha Franklin’s Think, which was performed by Aretha on television once andis thus eligible for inclusion under Rule 18: No X-Factor theme shall ever betaken seriously, ever. As is always the case with Kat, I am continuouslydistracted by thinking “HOW THE FUCK IS SHE SIXTEEN?” during the performance. Sheputs in a competent and confident performance, which is nice for her given thehead start all the other contestants have had in getting used to being on thisshow. Louis says that Amelia could be the next big female singing sensation (Idon’t think Adele is getting off of that throne without a fight) although Louisalso thought that Goldie Cheung could be the next big female singing sensation,so his judgement is a little suspect. Tulisa had a problem with the songchoice, because she didn’t know it. It’s a bit surprising that Tulisa isn’tfamiliar with Aretha Franklin’s discography given that Ms Constostavlos’sprofessional career revolves around pretending to be black. Gary Barlow droneson about semitones until Amelia stabs him in the arm with her insulin and putshim into a coma. No one notices the difference.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and following formerbookies’ favourite Misha B’s second stint in the bottom two, the producers havedecided to dredge up the biggest sob story imaginable. Well, second biggest –they could’ve killed her Aunt who raised her but they decided instead thatthey’d have Misha’s long-estranged mother write an open letter to thenewspapers, and then film the resulting conversation between Kelly and Mishaabout their respective family issues. It’s rather awkward, because they can’tdo the usual X-Factor thing of ending with a resolute statement of intent oreasy summary of whatever the intro-video topic was. Instead it’s an appallinglyvoyeuristic insight into a girl with a troubled family-life talking aroundthose issues, with someone she has only really known for 2 months, while a crewfilm every word and, judging by the background noise that accompanies it,several people are cleaning up after dinner nearby. I guess Kelly’s busyschedule meant they could only film this intensely personal moment for Mishawhile in the kitchen. So... they got me to feel sorry for Misha, but not forthe reasons they wanted? Is that still a win for the heartless bastards? I’msurprised they didn’t set this whole piece to a ballad version of Papa Roach’sBroken Home segueing into the Spice Girls’ Mama. If all that wasn’t enough,they also decided to dress Misha as an angel, to make you feel even worse fornot voting for her. She’s singing a song from The Bodyguard that isn’t theDolly Parton cover. I didn’t even know the Bodyguard had more than one song.It’s a typically strong vocal but I miss fierce bitch Misha with the Rhino hairand newspaper thrones. BRING HER BACK. I was hoping that having someone new tobully in the shape of Amelia would reignite that spark, as it is clearly beingcruel to others that fuels her talent. Alas, Mamma Misha’s move probablycancelled that out. Dman you, Mamma Misha. JUGDES! Louis reminds Manchester tovote for Misha. So does Tulisa. I think she might need a bit more than just onecity to vote for her in this show that frequently tallies voting numbers aboveten million, guys. Gary says he was very sad to see Misha “last week twice inthe bottom week”, which I guess means that Kelly Rowland’s verbal diarrhoeaaffliction is contagious. He’ll be calling people Mimi and Boo Boo before heknows it. In between bouts of not making any sense, Gary agrees with me that weneed Misha Bitch back.

Tulisa again introduces Little Kandy Girl-Lash as her“little muffins” this week. Does this mean Tulisa has taken up the bullyingbaton from Misha now that she’s too forlorn to do it herself? The Little Mix VTis all about how difficult it is being a girl band. So they got some advicefrom The Saturdays, the group that have honed the girl band formula sosuccessfully that one of them had to become a “part-time” member due todepression, and another just announced she’s knocked up. Well, Pick ‘n’ Mix isprobably already depressed from being fat, so all we need is for one of theothers to get pregnant and Little Mix will officially have made it. PersonallyI feel Mixed Up should be the one to sacrifice her hymen for the sake of thegroup as she’s currently the least noticeable member. You notice Mixed Racebecause... well, she’s mixed race. You notice Pick ‘n’ Mix because of all thecrumbs and discarded sweet wrappers on the floor around her. And you noticeMyxomatosis because she never shuts the fuck up in their intro videos. ButMixed Up? Totally needs to get pregnant. Or just replace her with PregnantShoe, actually. Little Mix also got to go to the premiere of Twilight. Cueshots of the Little Mixers being all squeaky and excited because THEY’RE NORMALGIRLS JUST LIKE YOU AND LOVE TO ROT THEIR BRAINS ON THE INSIPID WORKS OFSTEPHANIE MEYER WHO INVENTED VAMPIRES OMG TEAM EDWARD LOL. Taylor Lautner makesa brief appearance because if Kelly Rowland isn’t going to dress as a penguinthis week then a man who looks like a llama is the next best thing. At no pointis he topless so I totally don’t care. The girls are performing En Vogue’sDon’t Let Go, which was probably maybe used in a film some time. Maybe. Pick‘n’ Mix has somehow been squeezed into a pair of leather trousers. In relatednews, the branch of Boots closest to the X-Factor studios is currently out ofstock on talcum powder and Vaseline. It’s a surprisingly competent performanceand the girls remain in harmony and in-tune about 90% of the time; three timesmore than One Direction can average, which I guess makes them the best X-Factorband ever. JUDGES! Louis says that it’s incredible how much they’ve grown andblossomed. I agree, I remember when they looked like the bargain bin at Topshophad been dumped over each of them, and now they’ve progressed into the evilstripper waitress look. Progress indeed. Kelly loved it. Gary breaks thehorrible news that from next week, the contestants will be singing two songseach, and a part of me dies inside. The girls shuffle quickly off-stage so thatPick ‘n’ Mix can get out of the leather pants before her heart seizes up.

Ending the show is sparkle-fag Marcus. His intro videofocuses on his mixed comments from last week, and his resulting identitycrisis. Marcus thought he was finding himself, but now he isn’t so sure! By theend of the VT Marcus has decided that his true self is a womanisingmotorcyclist with a voice made of gravel, and he rides off into the sunset tobe with his old lady Katey Segal. Not really. Marcus did however get to meetlast year’s contestant Rebeccabot, who has returned from the future to save usfrom nuclear Armageddon in 2012. Unfortunately, her creator Dr Robotnik senther back a year too early, so she’s going to piss about releasing an album anda few singles before she’s inevitably dropped by the record company in 6 monthstime. Her resulting fury will push her to decide that humankind must bepunished, and she’ll upload her Artificial Intelligence to the world’s nuclearmissile silos and destroy us all while nerds complain on internet forums thattime paradoxes in Science Fiction just don’t make sense. Anyway, the gist ofthe intro video is that Rebecca helps Marcus to decide to do his own thingwhile being diverse, or something. Marcus is performing Higher and Higher whileevery person in the 40-member choir accompanying him pretend to have epilepticseizures for some reason. Perhaps it’s the outrageously loud pink tuxedo andmatching pink shoes the evil fashion Nazis made him wear. Oh Style Team,really? You total fuckers. JUDGES! Louis describes Marcus as “The little manfrom Liverpool with the big soulful voice” and says he has nothing but goodthings to say about him because he wants to have sex with him. Kelly says thatMarcus has shut the building down, confusing him with last week’s powerfailure. Then she starts talking about levitation and radiating beauty andshe’s really in danger of becoming this show’s version of Paula “I see an auraaround you” Abdul.

RESULTS SHOW

Dermot informs us that our special guests this evening willbe Rebeccabot and Rihanna. He introduces the judges, and it appears that Kelly iswearing a silver Jetsons dress to make Rebeccabot feel at home in the year2011. Before we know it, our ears are being raped by the Horrendous Group Song,which Dermot promises us features “3 girls, 2 boys, a band and a very specialover 25” – oh good, Kitty’s holding someone at gunpoint to get back on to theshow, isn’t she? The dumbasses united are performing that song by Bryan Adamsand Sporty Spice, so no prizes for guessing that the very special over-25 isBryan Adams, making a surprise appearance to flog his greatest hits album andtour. Dermot asks Bryan if he has any advice for the contestants. “Write yourown music and perform live as often as you can” He has never seen this showbefore, has he?

It’s awkward backstage chit chat time. Dermot asks LittleKandy Girl Lash to demonstrate their “good luck ritual”. Their good luck ritualinvolves them making faces. NORMAL GIRLS JUST LIKE YOU VOTE FOR THEM. Dermotasks Misha if she’s betraying her Afro-Caribbean heritage by straightening herhair. Then he asks Janet if she feels like she’s back on track. She does. KatSlater says she doesn’t want to go home, and Craig says he thinks he might,because he realises he’s a boring bouncy bastard.

The first performance of the night, not counting that zombieBryan Adams, is the return of Rebeccabot. We can be sure of this because theclip introduces her involves the words REBECCA RETURNS TO SAVE US ALL flashingon-screen in huge letters over a montage of her fighting the good fight againstthe Terminators in the Matrix. She’s performing atop a light-up plinth which Ican only assume is either a regeneration device to charge her batteries, or thetime machine she used to make it to the space year 2011. You know what’s anawful boring lyric? “La La La”. This song has some of that. And trust me, thelast thing Rebeccabot needs is something to make this song MORE boring. Afterthe performance, Rebecca informs Dermot that she co-wrote the album using aunique programme that came with her latest firmware upgrade. And she just sanglive, too. Bryan Adams will be so happy.

Next up is Rihanna, with a rather bizarre and ridiculousmess of a performance. Firstly, she’s singing We Found Love, which is basicallya dance track, and they don’t exactly make for terribly interesting performancewhat with the repetitive lyrics and frequent sections of thumping music with nowords. So they’ve decided to fill up all that space with dancers invading theaudience and pretending to have the tamest rave ever. But secondly and evenmore bizarrely, there’s a backing track for the entire song, as though Rihannawas going to mime but then decided she wanted to sing live as well. So we haveRih-Rih singing in time to her own identical recorded vocals. And then halfwaythrough she starts giving up and only half singing the lines and the wholething is a complete disaster. She does however plug her new album like a prowhen Dermot interviews her after the performance, so at least she got somethingright.

And now it’s the results and time to crush someone’s dreams!IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER except that which producers the most drama, Misha B issafe, followed by Little Mix who have, inexplicably, NEVER been in the bottomtwo. Marcus is safe, so it’s between Janet, Kat Slater and Biscuitman for thesing-off. And Janet is safe so it’s Craig and Amelia in the bottom two. So theBritish public vote Kat INTO the competition last week, and this week she’s oneof the two lowest polling contestants?

Anyhow, first up is Biscuitman, singing Will You Still LoveMe Tomorrow, in the style of a kicked puppy. At several points he looks likehe’s either going to burst into tears or vomit. He’ll feel better once hestalks an audience member on their way home, kills them and eats their brainswith fava beans and a nice Chianti. Kat Slater meanwhile chooses to performGaga’s You and I, in the style of Lady Gaga. She does a good job. And then it’sdecision time. Gary Barlow decides to be an absolute cunt and sticks the bootinto Kat by telling her she shouted her way through her performance whileBiscuitman’s was lovely and emotional. He sends Amelia home. Fuck off Gary. Kellytakes umbrage at Gary’s comments and unsurprisingly decides to send Craig home.One apiece, Dermot informs us, just in case we’d forgotten how to count. Tulisasends Kat home. Louis decides to send Craig back to the biscuit factory, so weget the very first DEADLOCK of the series. And it seems the public have decidedthat the biscuit has gone stale, as Craig got the lowest number of votes. Simultaneously, Danyl Johnson deletes Craig's phone number. Asthey play the recap of his time in the show, I find that I actually cannot tellany of his performances apart. He really was doing exactly the same thing weekafter week. Fist pump, make a face, glory note. Lather, rinse, repeat. So I guess it’s a good thing that he’s going home, not leastbecause the population of London are now safe from his murderous ways. But theX-Factor tour is starting soon. So lock up your loved ones and don’t walk alonein the dark, because the Biscuitman is coming to a town near you. And if you’renot careful, you might find yourself dunked. By which i mean horribly mutilatedand left to die in a field while Craig emotionally punches the air and pulls aface.

The X-Factor 2011: Week 6 - Results

2011-11-14T00:19:00.001Z

IT’S TIME. TO CRUSH SOMEONES DREAMS AND THEN FORCE THEM TOTAKE PART IN A TOUR OF THE BRITISH ISLES IN THE NEW YEAR, BEFORE CASTING THEMADRIFT, SHACKLED TO A CONTRACT THATPREVENTS THEM FROM RELEASING A SINGLE OF THEIR OWN UNTIL 12 MONTHS AFTER THESHOW BEGAN, THUS MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM TO CAPITALISE ON THEIRSHORT-LIVED FAME! Okay, so I actually missed the first few minutes of the showbecause I was being a good boy and doing an assignment, but I’m sure I didn’tmiss anything crucial. If it was anything like the previous show, the onlything I missed would have been several minutes of badly edited old auditions.

Well, actually, I did miss most of the Horrendous GroupSong™. On the one hand, I’m delighted, because the Horrendous Group Songusually makes me want to plunge my head into a bathtub full of acid. On theother hand, the Horrendous Group Song usually makes me stop to re-evaluate mylife and think “Hey, things aren’t so bad you know. If I can make it throughthat wooden, uncoordinated, autotuned disaster then I can survive anything.Perhaps even sticking my head into a bathtub full of acid.” Oh look, I tuned injust in time for the interminable recap. Woo and indeed Hoo. Mixed fortunes forDreary Janet! Applause for future serial killer Biscuitman! A big “Meh” forMarcus! A chariot and dancers pretending to be horses for Kitty! The briefreturn of 2 Shoes! It all just reminds me what an amazing show we didn’t havelast night.

The first of our musical guests tonight is... oh fuck. It’s OneDimension, back to torment me. It’s time to welcome back Muslim Bieber, IrishBieber, Curly-haired Bieber, Superior Clone of Bieber Bieber and Inferior Cloneof Bieber Bieber. The boys haven’t changed at all since last year, except thattwo of them are now Curly Headed Biebers, which just means I’m going tohave to completely rethink my naming conventions. Oh, and they’ve also sincehad a DEBUT NUMBER 1 and 2011’s FASTEST SELLING SINGLE, according to theX-Factor Hyperbolic Text Generator. Bieber Squad are singing their new song,which I’m not even going to bother looking up the name of. The song is acareful demonstration of Boyband Songwriting Principle Number 7: Have the boyssing directly to an unnamed GIRL as often as possible. This allows prepubescentfemales who have yet to develop the critical faculties necessary to realise that One Dimension will never be their boyfriends to continue thinking there’s achance that one of them might indeed be their boyfriend. This principle isilluminated with the lyrical wordsmithery of this song, such as “Girl, can wetry one more time, one more time?” and “Girl, can you cup my balls when you dothat? Oh yeah, just like that. Now work the shaft. Mmm. Oh yeah”. Irish Bieberis still completely gormless and verging on retardation, and proceeds to DANCEVERY ENERGETICALLY while all the others are doing their best to pour some doe-eyedemotion into vapid lyrics like “Girl, won’t you let me take a dump on yourchest, and leave it there for a day, and then lick your eyelids?”. But at leasthis hair isn’t two tones of ridiculous any more. Newly Curly Haired Bieber sounds like awolf being raped by a bear during his section. “Oh girl, can I stick my fingersup your nose, and cum in your hair? If I call you girl, will you be my girl? I’llnever cheat on you. Girl. If you’d only massage my prostate”. And then we’redone. Thank fuck. The producers have paid the audience to react wildly, andwhen they’re finished, Dermot asks Bieber Squad who their favourites are.“Little Mix” they say, before hastily adding “But not the hefty one.”

Dermot decides to fill some time by awkwardly interviewingthe contestants. He asks Kitty if she’s excited to meet her hero Lady Gaga.Kitty is excited to meet her hero Lady Gaga. Dermot asks Janet if she’snervous. She is nervous. The insightful interviewing continues until we havefilled the requisite amount of time. Also notable: the huge reaction Marcusgets from the female contingent of the audience. Either they’re all fag hagshalf cut on Smirnoff Ice, or they’re particularly deluded.

And then it’s time for genuine intergalactic superstar Lady Gaga to whoreher newest (lame) single, Marry the Night, which supports the right ofindividuals to marry concepts of time. Keep an ear out for the follow-ups, Aborting the Morning and Divorcing Noon. The Hyperbolic Text Generator informs us that Gaga has won several Brit Awards,as though that means something. Gaga probably isn’t even aware sheowns any Brit Awards. She melts them down and uses them to fill in cracks onher Grammys, American Music Awards and Billboard Awards. Gaga’s performancebegins inside a confessional with a gigantic cross overhead, from which sheemerges wearing a costume that makes it look as if she’s been decapitated. Thenshe changes into her knickers, which have more talent in them than all five ofOne Direction. Performance over, Dermot asks her if she knows who Kitty is.“Provided you ask me no further questions, my response is ‘Yes’”, says theGaga. Then she leaves to go and change into her eveningwear, which is probablygoing to consist of a urinal costume and toilet-seat hat.

It’s results time! Boring serial killer Biscuitman isthrough and closer than ever to realising his ambition of meeting Adele,killing her and stealing her skin to fashion a wedding dress out of. Janet isthrough, and looks about as shocked as the rest of us. Sparkle-fag Marcus isthrough. DON’T BE SO SHIT NEXT WEEK, MARCUS. FRANKIE is through. Oh wait, heisn’t. Muwahahahaha. Kat Slater is safe, leaving Little Mix, Misha B andKitty... Little Mix are safe. Pick ‘n’ Mix eats her fellow band members withjoy.

Kitty decides to sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, a songabout an alternate world where things are better, and you just know she’simagining a planet where she’s touring with Lady Gaga. Or justsomewhere where she survives the forthcoming judge’s vote. It’s a goodperformance, and it’s at times like these, stripped of bombast and spectacle,that you’re reminded that she genuinely can sing very well.

Now it’s Misha, singing a song called I Am Not a Bully (ButI’m Going To Fucking Kill You). Well, she actually isn’t, but I have no idea what sheactually sang and had to look it up online. Then it turned out to be Jessie J.Whatever. It’s good but I always prefer upbeat fierce bitch Misha B to sombreI’ma Be Eliminated Misha. We go to the Judges, even though it’s a foregoneconclusion that Kitty is going home. Louis saves Kitty, obviously, while theother three choose to send her home. Louis gallops on-stage to say farewell tohis final act, as he again becomes the first judge to lose all of hisperformers. Kitty asks Dermot for the microphone so that she can give us onelast Kitty moment, and sings a few lines of the song she couldn’t perform lastnight, Born This Way. And after making her dignified exit from the show, theclass act continued over on the Xtra Factor (I swear I only watch it for thefirst ten minutes to see how tight Olly’s trousers are), where El Gaga herselfran on-stage at high speed, despite wearing a pair of mutha-fucking huge heels,threw her arms around Kitty and asked her to come for a drink with her. InKitty’s head, that’s probably a better prize than she would’ve gotten forwinning the show.

The X-Factor 2011: Week 6

2011-11-13T01:37:00.001Z

IT’S TIME! TO FACE! THE OLD CLIPS? Initially, I feared thatthe fact we were being treated to a bunch of random audition clips for thefirst 15 minutes of the show meant that Kitty Brucknell went on a pre-emptiverampage due to the likelihood of being eliminated tomorrow and had killed all thejudges. Then I realised we would never be so lucky. And we weren’t, as it turnsout the whole shebang was merely delayed because of a power failure. An unusual example of fail occuring outside the confines of the show for once.

The delayed show begins with another Dermot dance routine. Ireally don’t know what to make of these, but I guess they’re here to stay so Ishould just grin and bear it. It’s like a less awful version of the HorrendousGroup Song™. Perhaps it’s Dermot’s pitch for a place on Strictly Come Dancingin case he ever gets the boot from presenting this. Anyway, he apologises forthe late start, and introduces a short video to bring viewers up to speed with thelatest farcical developments in this chaotic series. Frankie “decided to leave”which is code for “Frankie snorted 18 lines of Cocaine and had an epiphanywherein he realised he was an absolute bollocks with no talent and needed to go”.

Desperate to ensure the show remains on schedule, because they’ve already put asignificant deposit down for the final at Wembley Arena (and that place doesn’tcome cheap), the producers had to scramble for a replacement contestant to padthe drama out for the requisite number of weeks. So they decided tobring back the four contestants eliminated in Week one. They’ve extracted dour SoljaBoy Jonjo Kerr from the frontlines of the Cylon Civil War, where he valiantlyholds the line against the Franco-Klingon hordes. They travelled to PlanetBoring, ignoring the pleas of a desperate Sophie Habibis in favour of James “I’mso dull I don’t even have a proper surname” Michael. Then they made their wayto Essex and found amazeballs half-preggers totes emosh duo Two Shoesunderneath a pile of coats they’d stolen from a nightclub. Finally, theyrescued the oldest-looking sixteen year-old in the universe, Kat Slaterlook-alike Amelia Lily from the clutches of Phil Mitchell. Thevideo explaining this nonsense actually features Two Shoes saying “OMG SHOEREVENGE” which is possibly my favourite moment of the entire series. The mostpopular of these four will be chosen by public vote to return to thecompetition and perform at the end of tonight’s show and then face potentialelimination tomorrow. Got it? No? Well, that’s okay, because it’s a foregoneconclusion that Amelia Lily is going to romp home with the vote anyway.

Dermot introduces the judges and tonight’s theme, which isSing a Song by Lady Gaga or Queen. For some reason, Kelly Rowland has decidedto dress as a penguin tonight, demonstrating that her tenuous grip on realityis worsening each week. Dermot asks each of the judges which of the four actsthey’d like to see return. Tulisa, Kelly and Gary unsurprisingly go for each ofthe acts they originally mentored. Louis, meanwhile, picks Kat Slater.Somewhere backstage Jonjo Kerr has shed a single tear. Maybe. If he wasn’t adead-eyed sociopath who joined the army to feed his urge to kill.

First to perform is Kitty Brucknell, which means she’s goinghome tomorrow, alas. Kitty’s VT focuses on how she’s the biggest Lady Gaga fan inthe world and absolutely cannot wait for the opportunity to perform Born this Way. Her excitement at becoming Gaga is palpable. She bounces up and downand off the walls, detailing her elaborate plans for Born This Way. Then it turnsout that Misha B will be performing it instead because she knows where Kitty’sdad lives (in a shopping centre, wearing a sandwich board that says “Vote Kitty”,if this intro video is anything to go by) and has lots of friends with crowbars.Bereft at being denied the opportunity to sing her favouritest Gaga song ever,Kitty had a massive strop and decided that if she couldn’t sing it then shewasn’t going to sing any Gaga song at all, and she was going to hold her breathuntil she fainted and not do her homework and Misha B is a big meanie. So,Kitty has decided to sing Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now instead. From atop achariot. Attached to four dancers dressed as... leather-clad war horses? Ithink the sheer lunacy of the staging for this performance actually broke mybrain’s ability to interpret it. The dancers rear. They shake their heads in ahorse-stylee. They approximate a canter. The level of sheer insanity on displayis almost equal to the Mad Hatter’s party performance of It’s Oh So Quiet froma few weeks ago. I think they did it on purpose to bleach away all memory ofFrankie. Unfortunately, the routine isn’t enough to ignore the fact that it’s afairly weak vocal. JUDGES! Gary calls Kitty “very pretty” which is probably theclosest he’s come to being aroused in about 12 years.

Is your brain still reeling from the sight of grown adultspretending to gallop about on stage as horses while a botoxed “twenty-eight”year old channelled Boadicea? Do you need the equivalent of a nice cup of teaand a sit down following a frenetic epileptic seizure brought on by a diamond bulletof sheer madness being shot into your cerebral cortex from a sniper-rifle carvedfrom pure calcified bedlam? You’re in luck, because Craig Colton is up next!Craig’s VT is all about how hard he works and features practice and singinglessons with Gary Barlow. Does the fact that Gary was doing a lot of singing inthe video make him eligible for the sing off in the next show? Here’s hoping!Craig enjoyed himself last week, when he proved he could do up-tempo by singingthe ballad version of a floor filler. Therefore, he has decided to take achance and be even more unique this week. You won’t be at all surprised then tohear that Craig’s unique spin on Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi is to completely rip offher piano-version of the song. And without Gaga manically tinkling the ivoriesit isn’t half as fun. Oh, maybe by “unique” he was referring to the fact thatconfirmed homosexualist Craig Colton has changed the lyrics from a male objectof desire to female. A combination of his newfound sexual confusion anddisturbingly tight trousers make this the scariest Biscuitman performance ever.I genuinely thought his considerable and quite-confined thighs were just goingto explode and kill the audience. Considering the rapturous applause they giveBig Bore Biscuitman, however, perhaps death is the least of what they deserve.JUDGES! Kelly Rowland informs Craig that “You just did that” and I wonder if she’strying to steal Louis Walsh’s world title for stating the obvious. She’ll haveher work cut out.

Tulisa introduces her only remaining act, Little KandyGirl-Lash. They’re her “Little Muffins”, apparently. Though one of them is muchhigher in calories than all the others. The intro video is a bit all over theplace. First of all it’s about the girls being sad that The Risk went. Thenthey’re happy because they’re the most successful girl band on the X-Factorever, which must mean they’re going to be in the bottom two tomorrow withKitty. Then they have a not-at-all-staged “girly night in” with Tulisa. Thenseveral massive random dogs magically appear. Then they’re rehearsing and Pick ‘nMix breaks down and everyone is sad and I have no idea what was going on.EDITORS? NARRATIVE STRUCTURE? SORT IT OUT! Anyway, Little Kandy Girl-Lash willbe performing Gaga’s Telephone tonight. Myxomatosis takes most of the vocalsactually, with the rest just backing her up. Also: Pick ‘n’ Mix is wearing hergigantic chunky neckwear that spells out LOVE yet again. Except it’s onbackwards. I hope the poor girl isn’t dyslexic on top of all her other flaws. JUDGES!Gary Barlow spits into their faces and tells them they’re getting predictableand he’s sick of seeing them have fun and wishes they were miserable cunts likeJanet instead. He asks if they’re happydoing the same thing every week and they have a hilarious Little Mix huddlewherein they confer and decide that they are indeed happy doing the same thingevery week. It’s almost endearing.

Wee Janet Devlin from Ireland is next. We know this becauseKelly Rowland introduces Janet by mentioning Ireland, talks about Irelandseveral times in the intro-video, and mentions Ireland again after the song isfinished. From this, I conclude that Kelly has only just learned what Irelandis in the past few days, and wants to show off the new word she learned. Pleasenote that Kelly Rowland is wearing what appear to be several foxes, a bearpelt, eighteen mink and a couple of raccoons about her shoulders. Janet is sadin her video because she was third from bottom last week. No Janet, it is in noparticular order, remember? Also, the bottom three were The Risk, Johnny andKitty, you thicko. The theme of Janet’s VT is Let’s Get Janet Back In Her Box. Toachieve this goal, she’ll be performing Queen’s Somebody to Love in anoverwrought, wrist-slittingly depressing style. Seriously, it’s so scaled backand slowed down that listening to it practically propels me back in time to aperiod when Frankie was still in the competition, so I’m forced to fast forwardfor my own well-being. It’s just so, so dull. Surprise elimination tomorrow?Maybe. Then again, look how far the Norrie Iron vote got Eoghan Quigg a fewyears back... *shudder* JUDGES! Louis Walsh is incredibly enthusiastic aboutJanet but we won’t pay any attention to that because it’s all lies. Tulisa saysthat she feels that Janet is very one dimensional. This is the same Tulisa wholast week chastened Janet for trying something different and told her to getback into her box and don’t dare come out. Dermot rightly points this out. Thejudges ignore this sage fact. Dermot basically asks Janet how she feels aboutbeing pigeon-holed and she says she just needs to find a middle ground betweensad and happy. Sappy! No Janet! Come out and sing Du Hast next week! You knowyou want to.

From Janet feeling uncomfortable in her box, to sparkly gay Marcusfinally finding his. His VT is concerned with how much fun he had last week andhow that’s the kind of music he wants to be making. To this end, he comes outand performs Another One Bites the Dust with the exact same dance routine andin the exact same style as Reet Petite last week. It just does not work. Thissong, in this style is just completely jarring and wrong. And just when itseems like it can’t get any worse, the performance ends with Marcus and hisdancers blowing sparkle fag glitter dust into the camera. The judges uniformlydecree that doing something identical to last week was the wrong move. “TacticalCritique”, cries Barlow, which assumes that the judges on this show have about100 more IQ points than they actually have.

Misha B is up next and there are no surprises for guessingwhat she’s performing seeing as they let it slip at the start of the show whenKitty had her strop. Her VT depicts her happiness at not being in the bottomtwo last week, which gave her the confidence to start bullying again followinga rough week. Shots of Misha thumping a pregnant woman in the womb, givingschoolchildren wedgies and reviewing footage of the London riots while shouting“That’s me!” and “There I am again!”. The video assures us that Manchester is supportingMisha. Because she’ll kick the entire city in the face if they don’t. This isn’t Misha’s bestperformance, and she loses further points because she isn’t even dressed as a rhinocerosor a papier maché newspaper queen to distract from the limp vocals. If Mishaever finds this blog I’m going to get such a bullying. JUDGES! Louis actuallysays that Misha reminds him of a little Chaka Kahn. Or possibly Jackie Chan. It’sdifficult to tell. He’s just bloody doing it on purpose now, isn’t he? Garyapplauds Misha for her work ethic because she’s always had at work unlike othercontestants who sleep all the time. If I were the other contestants, I’d bevery creeped out by the possibility that Gary Barlow may have just admitted towatching me sleep.

We take a quick break from the performances for the biggest foregoneconclusion in the history of foregone conclusions as Dermot announces who thereturning competitor will be! He tries to strangle some drama out of the momentbefore announcing to no one’s surprise that Kat Slater is back in the competition. After a quick intro video toremind us who she is, Kat steps on-stage wearing very little to perform herrendition of The Show Must Go On. That’s such a clever song choice given thecircumstances that I refuse to believe it’s deliberate. There’s no way theproducers or Kelly Rowland or whoever gave Amelia that song was witty enoughto be so meta. Considering that Kat barely had two days to pack her bags andleave Albert Square, learn the song and rehearse it, she does a pretty amazingjob. It’s quite an uneven trade when you consider she’s replacing Frankie. SubstitutingFrankie with a wind-up drumming monkey toy would have been a sufficientexchange, but here we are being spoilt rotten with someone who might actuallybe able to sing. JUDGES! Are enthusiastic one and all because they’re hardlygoing to fucking well criticise the first person in the history of this contestto be voted IN to the show by the public, are they? Kelly explains how it toreher heart out to get rid of Kat and she’s so glad to have her back. Kat grinsevilly and you know she’s totally going to get bullying advice from Misha B andmake Kelly’s life hell.

Join me tomorrow when the producers decide to bring back TheRisk with an all new lineup voted in by the public. Meanwhile, Amelia decidesto burn down The Queen Vic and blame it on Kelly by leaving her weave at thescene of the crime.

The X-Factor: Week 5 - Performances and Results

2011-11-09T13:12:00.003Z

IT’S TIME. TO DISGRACE. THE MUSIC. Well, actually, that timewas last Saturday, but Frankie’s ejection from the show early on Tuesdayafternoon actually rippled backwards in time and caused my body to enter astate of extended orgasm which left me completely incapacitated for severaldays, hence the lateness of this week’s recap. On with the show! We quickly coverlast week’s events, by which I mean we spend several minutes before the titlemusic even begins watching the highlights of last week’s episode. Byhighlights, I mean the parts that didn’t make you want to stab pencils into bothyour eyes and ears to make the hurting stop. By eyes and ears, I mean thesensory organs that you put under immense strain each week as you force them toattempt to make sense of this show.

Following the interminably interminable recap, Dermotarrives on-stage with another dance routine. I guess he set an X FACTORPRECEDENT last week, and we all know those are legally binding. He reminds usof this week’s theme, club-classics, a “ballad-free zone”. Whatever willBiscuitman do? It’s also a double elimination, which means the act with thelowest number of votes will face instant ejection, shame and sorrow; while theother two-thirds of the bottom three compete in the sing-off. Also: KellyRowland is back and holding Tulisa’s hand again during their walk on-stage, so wecan all pretend they don’t hate one another’s guts.

First up is Johnny Robinson, who points out in his VT thatmost people who win the X-Factor aren’t his age. They also don’t look likeSkeletor in drag, Johnny. Johnny is the unfortunate victim of Louis Walsh’smedley machine this week, as he performs both Madonna’s Hung Up and Dead orAlive’s You Spin Me Right Round. In fairness to Louis though, he’s been ratherrestrained with the Medley Machine this year. Around this point in 2010, we’dalready had Wagner’s unforgettable triple medley of Hippy Shake, Hey Jude andGet Back. I wonder what Wagner is doing right now. Something filthy, no doubt.Anyhow, this performance is slightly schizophrenic, as we switch betweenshrill, plate-shattering voiced Johnny for Hung Up, to Low Voice MasculineJohnny for Spin Me. Well, as masculine as Johnny gets, which is at about thesame level of masculinity as having a manicure whilst being fisted by DaleWinton. JUDGES! Tulisa found it predictable; Kelly says she wanted to dancewith him, and Gary Barlow has fallen into a coma due to the unbearable boredomof being Gary Barlow.

Next we have Wee Janet Devlin from Horrible Ireland. WeeJanet has taken control of everything this week, including her styling. Thisexplains why she looks almost like a normal teenage girl rather than the gingerwraith haunting the moors that the evil fashion Nazis of the Style Team™ preferto dress her as. She’s straightened her hair! She isn’t wearing black!Unfortunately, Wee Janet spent so much time on her styling that she forgot tolearn the words to the song, and there are a couple of awkward silences in theperformance where she shuffles about on-stage while the viewer fills in themissing words to the Jackson Five’s I Want You Back. You know, that song thatliterally everyone knows the words to. JUDGES! Louis loved it, because Janet isIrish. Tulisa backtracks on her desire to see Janet do something different andtells her to stick with what she knows. Stay in your box, Janet! Don’t you daretry and emerge from that niche the judges have decided you must occupy! Garyapes Tulisa. GET BACK IN THE BOX, JANET. BACK IN THE BOX AND PUT THE LID DAHN.

Biscuitman is up next, and his VT revolves around thedifficulty he’s having in singing something that isn’t a ballad. Which is whyhe comes out and sings Heaven in the style of a ballad with up-tempo music. Solong as Craig hits those glory notes and makes uncomfortable faces, theaudience will lap it up. Also: there is dancing. Dancing Craig is a frighteningsight. Combined with the scary snarling and off-putting faces, it just makes itseem even more likely that he’s going to emerge from the TV screen and kill me.I usually have at least two night terrors a week concerning Craig “The Killer”Colton. This performance is going to ensure I don’t get a good night’s sleepfor a week. JUDGES! Louis loved it, Tulisa loved it, and random words fall outof Kelly Rowland’s mouth in a completely incomprehensible fashion.

Following that, we have The Nu Risk Vibe. The boys who arethe members of the band this week got to meet JLS and asked them for advice onbeing a boyband. JLS responded by informing them that they might want toconsider not changing members every time the audience blinks, for a start. Acompletely not-at-all staged part of the intro-video sees The Attractive Onefrom JLS ask The Blacker of the Two Black Ones from The Risk if it’s true thathe gave Nicole Scherzinger his phone number last week. Glad you asked,Attractive One from JLS! Because it is indeed true, and why, the cameras justhappened to be around to record the very moment when it happened! Fancy that.Not recorded: the moment when Nicole reminds him that she’s only recentlysingle, completely heartbroken over her split from Lewis Hamilton, and nowwants to drive a dagger through her heart because of all the pain he’s dredgedup for her. I hope he’s happy. The Risk are singing A Night to Remember thisweek. In a clever move, they’ve decided to juxtapose this song choice with acompletely forgettable vocal performance. How meta. JUDGES! Louis sayssomething completely stupid and inane while his brains just slide out of hisears on-screen. Kelly tells them they need to harmonise better. For once, she’scorrect about something. Gary Barlow has ceased to exist due to the unbearableboredom of being Gary Barlow.

Next up is Marcus Collins, who I’ve decided is going to bethis year’s winner. Well, either him or Biscuitman. Preferably Marcus, becausehe’s cute as a button and doesn’t make faces that give me nightmares. Marcussings Reet Petite, which is one of those songs you totally know even if youdon’t know the title of it. It’s pretty good, and at least the entireperformance, with several dancers and a big 1950s vibe to it, has a lot ofenergy, unlike every other performance thus far for “Club Classics” night. EvenRebecca Ferguson managed a bit more energy last year than most of 2011’scontestants, and she was a fucking android. JUDGES! Louis is very enthusiasticabout the talented, attractive young gay man, for some reason. He goes so faras to compare him to a Little Bruno Mars, a Little Jackie Wilson, a LittleEverly Brothers and a Little Little Richard. Meanwhile, Paije Richardson sobsuncontrollably at home with only his memories to console him.

Goddess Kitty is next, and her intro-video is all about hercreative streak. Included is a clip wherein she genuinely suggested approachingthe song in a post-Apocalyptic manner. I love her. Also featured: Kittysuggests a performance inspired by Sister Act 2 (NOT THE FIRST ONE, NEVER THEFIRST ONE), using a zip-line to travel to the stage, or singing the song in thestyle of a Hellenic Goddess weeping for Greece’s financial ruin. Kitty issinging Madonna’s Like a Prayer tonight. Much as it pains me to be critical ofHer Fierceness, it’s not Kitty’s best performance, and is a bit lifeless anddull. Though it says something about Kitty’s usual calibre that I find aperformance involving explosions of glitter, dancers dressed as nuns andmid-song costume changes dull. JUDGES! Tulisa reckons Kitty is the onlycontestant who could hold people’s attention at a concert for 90 minutes. Kellyand Louis have a massive bitch-off where Louis does that thing where he getsall indignant and shouts over the other person and just comes off as a massiveknob. Gary Barlow winks back into existence long enough to call Kitty a shittydancer, before ceasing to exist again because he’s so fucking boring.

Up next, teehee. It’s Frankie. Teehee. Teeheehee. Okay, so Iwasn’t laughing when I first sat through this intro-video and performance. I actuallywanted to tear my teeth out of my skull and jam them into my eyes to make thehurting stop. As ever, the intro-video is accompanied by the likes of FranzFerdinand, Arctic Monkeys and VampireWeekend, just in case we forget how edgy and indie and credible Frankie is.That’s why he’s singing I Gotta Feeling, by the Black Eyed Peas. I guess havingthe most objectively awful contestant in the history of this show perform asong by the most objectively awful band in the history of music has a certainlogical symmetry. Looking back, you’d never have thought this was going to beFrankie’s last performance on the X-Factor. Assuming that you ignore the factthat it’s exceptionally bad, even by his usual low standards, which are locatedsomewhere below sea level. He falls about on-stage tunelessly talking throughthe song for 2 minutes of my life that I’m never going to get back. JUDGES!Louis Walsh completely lays into Frankie. “Gary has built you up into beingthis rock star. You’re not a rock star. You never will be a rock star.” It tookeight years, people, eight long years, but Louis Walsh finally made a goodpoint. Tulisa is confused because she was just getting used to rebelliousFrankie and then he comes out and sings the Black Eyed Peas. BACK IN YOUR BOX,FRANKIE. Preferably one with no air holes. Kelly tries to take Louis to taskfor telling Frankie “what he’ll never be”, and they basically have anotherbitch-off where Louis comes off as a massive cunt but WHO CARES WHEN HE JUSTDELIVERED A DEVASTATING ASSESSMENT TO FRANKIE. Kelly tells Frankie that hereally needs to work on his vocal, as it’s the only thing that’s lacking. Inthis singing competition. Nothing gets past that Kelly Rowland. Gary chastisesLouis and the audience for booing the disgusting human slagheap that isFrankie.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, it’s Misha B! Misha’s VTis basically The Rehabilitation of Ms Misha B (Part 2) because it obviouslydidn’t work last week. So this week we’re treated to Humble Misha! Fun-lovingMisha! Hard-working Misha! Essentially-an-Orphan-Misha Being Visited ByExtended Family Misha! At no point do we see her bullying anyone, so we cansafely conclude that Misha B is definitely not a bully and we should all votefor her so she can win instead of Craig Colton. Oh, they’ve decided to giveMisha the week off and have a clone of a young Tina Turner perform Proud Maryinstead. Wait, silly me, it’s just Misha being awesome again this week with an amazing‘fro to boot. Is there any hairstyle she can’t pull off? JUDGES! Louis Walshsurprises us all by announcing that he loves Tina Turner and he loved thatperformance. Tulisa loves the toned-down Misha. Toned down in this case meanssporting an afro with a radius of 5-feet rather than a rhino-horn or crown madefrom newspapers on her head. Gary says something but Misha bullies him backinto non-existence because she hates boring people. And interesting people. Andeveryone else. Misha B will fuck you up.

Closing the show is Little Kandy Girl-Lash. Tulisaintroduces them by reminding us that they’re at the vanguard of fourth-wavefeminism and have endorsements from Germaine Greer, bell hooks, Judith Butlerand Catherine Mackinnon. Continuing from last week’s attempt to allow theaudience to get to know the girls as individuals, we find out which part of thecountry each of them is from, and a little bit about their childhood. There’sPick ‘n’ Mix, who lived in Essex until she was forced to leave by a famine thatmysteriously ended when she left to take part in the show. Then there’s MixedRace, who’s from High Wycombe and discovered she could sing when an intruderbroke into her home and threatened to kill her family unless she touched him.And she did. MUSICALLY. Then there’s Mixed Up, from South Shields, who used tosing at old people’s homes until they took out a restraining order against her.Finally, there’s Myxomatosis, who’s also from South Shields and used to singfor coins in the laundrette which she melted down to make genital piercingswith. See, aren’t they lovely girls? Don’t you want to vote for them? If youdon’t then you’re an anti-woman misogynist, you patriarchal pig. Little KandyGirl-Lash sing Rihanna’s Please Don’t Stop the Music. They’ve decided to take aunique approach to the song, by choosing to perform it completely out of tune.I have to give it to Pick ‘n’ Mix though, when it comes to the dance moves shereally gives it socks. What with the light-up costumes they’re wearing, and theneon lighting on-stage, it’s like watching an epileptic elephant. JUDGES! Louisloves everything about them, Kelly really believes in them but wants to beslain by them a capella and Tulisa reminds us all of their feminist credentialsfor the fiftieth time.

RESULTS SHOW

For this week’s horrendous group song, our darlings decidedto murder Jessie J’s Price Tag. That’s not so bad though, because that song isfucking shit anyway. This was followed with a performance from JLS, who werecompletely overshadowed by Florence and the Machine being amazing immediatelyafter them. Then Dermot reveals the results: Little Kandy Girl-Lash arethrough. Hooray for neon elephants! Marcus is safe, as is Misha B, which meansthat a huge spike in the number of young people suffering Chinese burns andkidney-punches has been averted for another week. Craig is safe, as is Frankie.And Wee Janet.

This is the part where I would rant for an entire paragraphabout the fact that Frankie was safe, but the fuckwit has now been expelledfrom the show so I need do nothing but revel in my joy. *revels*

Okay, I’m done revelling. The bottom three are The Risk, GoddessKitty and Johnny. Goddess Kitty is going to make the world regret wronging herthis way. The Risk are immediately ejected for having the lowest number ofvotes, and Tulisa is genuinely shocked and appalled. That’s exactly how I feltwhen Frankie survived. There’s a montage of The Risk’s time on the show,which actually amounts to a highlight reel of the eighty different singerscombined in dozens of configurations who were at one point or another allmembers of The Risk. I think all of us were members of The Risk at some point.

Sing-off time! Johnny performs Unchained Melody inhis gender-bendingly confusing style, which means that he sings it surprisinglywell, albeit in tones you’d expect to come from a 47 year old lounge singernamed Denise rather than a bloke. Kitty sings Kelly Clarkson’s BeautifulDisaster and also sings it well. Dermot goes to Louis first for his verdict,and Louis picks Kitty as he thinks she’d sell more records in “the real world”.As opposed to that imaginary world where Louis thought contestants like Johnnyand Goldie Cheung might sell records when he picked them. Tulisa picks Kittyfor similar reasons, and because Kitty would actually decimate the populationof the British Isles and perhaps even all of continental Europe if she wasejected. Kelly Rowland reminds the public to put their hats on when voting.This is because she’s from Georgia, where people vote by wearing hats with thename of their preferred candidate or amendment result, and then partake in adance-off with the opposing sides. It’s a good thing that a majority vote wasreached, as Gary Barlow continues to not exist due to being exceedingly dull.Johnny says his farewells and Louis starts crying because being reminded thatmiddle-aged gay men of questionable talent have a limited shelf-life makes himemotional.

Next Week: The fallout from Cocozza-Cocaine-a-palooza! Don’tmiss it, because it’s going to be amazing to see how they spin it.

The X-Factor 2011: Week 4 - THE RESULTS

2011-10-30T22:19:00.002Z

It’s Sunday! It’s the X-Factor! It’s the results show. Sorry,I got a little bit Louis Walsh there, didn’t I? As it’s almost Halloween, it’stime to get really scary, so the contestants have decided to treat us toanother horrendous group song. Forget Paranormal Activity, if they packageevery X-Factor group song ever into a short film they’d end up with the scariestHalloween flick ever. This week, the contestants are ruining Bright LightsBigger City, which wasn’t even that good a song to begin with. The use ofautotune and reverb means that Frankie is singing in tune for the first timesince... well, since the last group song two weeks ago. At one point a randommember of the audience appears on-stage to join in the.... oh, it’s Sophie.

After the group song, comes the interminable recap of lastnight’s performances with backstage highlights. Apparently Louis said theSophie comes across as a “secretary that sings at the weekend”. I don’t evenremember that part. The mental fugue that descends upon viewers when Sophieappears on-screen must be spreading beyond when she’s just singing. Misha B inrhino-form bullies Pick ‘n’ Mix. Janet fails to do Horrible Ireland proud bybeing shit. But Louis thinks she’s great. Louis would think a dead pigeon wasgreat if you told him it was Irish. The function of this week’s interminablerecap seems to be to remind us all that last night’s show was resoundinglyboring.

And now we’re on to the first guest performance of thenight, it’s last year’s Chosen One, Cher Lloyd. Does this mean that this timenext year we’re going to be watching Frankie promote a new single? Thehyperbole-filled introductory piece struggles to find enough information tomake Cher seem exciting. DEBUT NUMBER 1, it exclaims, as we’re forced to endurea 4-second clip of Swagger Jagger. Which is about 4 seconds more than anyoneshould have to spend listening to it. 100 MILLIN HITS ON YOUTUBE, the on-screentext thunders, failing to elaborate that those 100 million hits were frompeople logging on to see the point at which the concept of music hit the actualrock bottom. Considering how low-rent the musical guests have become, and howthey’re really having to stretch the hype-text, I wouldn’t be surprised to seeone of them boast about how many followers someone has on Twitter. Cherperforms her new song “I'm a Big Pikey” while dressed as one of the horrible childrenfrom Toddlers and Tiaras crossed with a Quality Street. She’s actually becomeeven more of a Cheryl Cole clone than she was before. Song finished, Dermotasks her how she’s been doing. Sheexplains that it’s been a lot of hard work, and that she hasn’t had a goodnight’s sleep since the police evicted her from Dale Farm, but they’re gettingon with things.

Dermot decides to ask the judges who’s in trouble this week.Alexandra says that she wasn’t feeling Frankie this week. Judging by his VTs,she’s about the only woman in Britain who hasn’t. Our next musical guest is NicoleSherzinger, a woman who can make Sophie Habibis seem interesting. Nicole mimesher new song. If she mimed, and Cher the Pikey sang live, does that mean thatCher has more credibility than Nicole. Dermot asks Nicole how it feels to bethe woman who destroyed Cheryl Cole’s career. Nicole says it feels awesome andmakes her hot, and proceeds to furiously finger herself on-stage.

It’s results time! The first act safe is Little Goddess Kitty. Yay!The audience boo, because they’re all fucking idiots. Little Risk are safe, as isNot-so-Little Craig. Little Mix make it through, and officially become the mostsuccessful X-Factor girlband ever by managing to survive more than a month.Little Gay Marcus is through to next week. He smiles! He’s so happy! He sings!He dances! Little Johnny is safe and busts some Night Fever moves to celebrate. Myeyes! Little Elfin Janet from Horrible Ireland is through, leaving Little Talent,Misha Bitch and Little Interest in the bottom three. Dermot announces that Frankie is safe,because people are actually picking up their phones and voting for him. Thesepeople deserve to be sterilised lest we all suffer the prospect of them passingon their clearly deficient genes.

So, it’s the Invisible Woman versus Misha B in the sing-off.Sophie is first to perform, in what seems like a stupid move. I mean, if Sophiegoes first then it just gives Misha more time to stew in her anger back-stage.Girl is gonna be tweeting some pretty nasty shit at Little Mix tonight. Sophiehas decided to sing The XX’s Shelter in a last ditch attempt to be remembered.I am honestly thrown by the choice of song and never expected to hear thisparticular band on this particular show. Of coruse, Sophie makes a balls of it,but that’s probably because she knows she’s going home.

Alexandra Burke introduces Misha’s performance by saying “Thisis way too close to home”. Alexandra, as you might remember, was NEVER in thebottom two. Misha B makes her way on-stage, having caused grievous bodily harmto several production assistants and emotionally terrorised several others. Shesings Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody, and is quite good at it, except for thepart where she “breaks down” at the end and can’t continue, which comes acrossabout as genuine as anything that Frankie Coccozza has ever said or done in oneof his introductions.

Judges! Dermot announces that Kelly Rowland is joining invia telephone from Los Angeles, which is just amazing. Kelly sounds like that voice you put on when you're phoning in "sick" to work. Louis decides to sendSophie home. You bastard, weren’t you watching her VT last night? Don’t yourealise her parents have forgotten all about her and she has nowhere to go?Tulisa likewise decides to send Sophie home, because Misha will fuck her up ifshe doesn’t. Dermot goes to Kelly for the telephone judging, and she toodecides to send Sophie home, because Misha stole nudes from her mobile phoneand threatened to leak them to the press. I think we had a lucky escape thisweek, folks. If Misha had been ejected then she would go on a one-woman crusadeto bully THE ENTIRE WORLD. Pray she does not end up in the bottom two nextweek. And while you’re at it, pray that the frontal lobes of the idiots who areactually voting for Frankie stop working, so we can finally be rid of him. Nextweek’s theme is “club classics”. I can’t wait for Janet’s interpretation of BennyBanassi’s Satisfaction.

The X-Factor 2011: Week 4

2011-10-30T00:12:00.000+01:00

It’s been a dramatic week in X-Factorland, and the episodehasn’t even started yet. Firstly, Rhythmix were forced to change their name toLittle Mix due to a copyright dispute. If you are one of the 2 Rhythmix fansout there who keeps voting for them, please note you must now refer to yourselfas a “Little Mixer” rather than whatever the fuck you called yourself before.Either way, you’re still a retard.

Secondly, Kelly Rowland STORMED OFF to America following aMASSIVE ROW with Tulisa of Delphi. Alternatively, if you’re not a fuckwit whobelieves everything plastered on the front page of the Star, Kelly Rowlandreturned to the US for a previously arranged commitment that was signposted andadvertised many months ago, and was then stranded following a viralinfection/order from the producers to stay away for a week so they can milk theTulisa/Kelly feud they’ve invented for all the publicity they can get. MsRowland will be replaced by 2008 X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke. Those sneakyproducers hope you can’t tell the difference between one black woman andanother.

And finally, Someone™ from The Risk decided that being amember of Britain’s riskiest boyband was just too much of a risk, so he left.Before you can say, “Which one was he?” however, they’d already announced thathe was being replaced by Someone Else™ from ejected boyband Nu Vibe. Yep,that’s right, they brought back a contestant from a group who previously failedto garner enough votes to proceed. Why don’t they just fucking well bring back2 Shoes while they’re at it, with replacement members Sami Brookes and AmeliaLily?

So, after 3 paragraphs that illustrate just how much of afarce this show has become this year, it is FINALLY time. To face. THE MUSIC. Thisweek’s theme is “Halloween”. Which just means that (yet again) the acts canpick from the entire history of western music as long as they add some spooky music and wear elaborate make-up. Considering what the Evil Fashion Nazis of the Style Team do them on a regular basis, that shouldn't be too hard.

Opening the show this week are NU THE RISK. The video introrecaps the shenanigans over the last 48 hours. We’ve lost an Ashley and gainedan Ashford. Those sneaky producers hope you can’t tell the difference betweenone black man and another. The Riskier Risk are performing Thriller. It wasinevitable that SOMEONE would, so we might as well get it over and done with right off the bat.It’s... oh, I dunno. It’s not awful, it’s not good. It’s just boring. Like most of this year's show, actually. But youneed something unchallenging to ease you into the Halloween special, I guess. Imean, last year’s one gave us Mary Byrne as a horny little devil. If that hadopened the show then brains would have melted and eyeballs asploded. The judgesenthuse mightily about The Riskier Risk, although methinks they doth protesttoo much. i.e. the judges realise what a fucking mess this show has become sothey’re trying to give the impression that everything is A-Okay with all these rapid-fire emergency changes.

Next up is Johnny Robinson, who, unfortunately, has notdecided to emulate Mary Tesco’s costume choice from last year. Rats. I wascertain he’d come out in a sequined dress and glitter-horns. Johnny refers toBarlow the Plank as “My Gary” in his intro-video and plucks petals from a rosewhile saying, “He loves... he loves me not”. This week, Johnny will be singingThat Old Devil Called Love while staring stalkerliciously at Barlow. Louis hasresisted the temptation for gimmicks of any sort for the first time in about 4years, so it really is just Johnny accompanying a piano. It’s still bizarre, inthat whole cognitive dissonance way that occurs when a middle-aged man sings ajazz classic in a convincing approximation of a woman's voice. It's just not as bizarre as the Johnnywe’ve come to expect. You know, the one who bursts out of glitterballs andfull-stops his performances with “VOGUE!”. Performance over, Gary Barlow runson-stage to hug and kiss Johnny. No, really. He actually did, I swear. Gary thanks Louisfor giving J. Ro a song that let him show that he could actually sing.

Time for the part of the show where time seems to slow to acrawl and you find yourself with holes in your memory – it’s Sophie Habibis!This week in the adventures of Sophie Plain and Tall, Sophie decides to sneakout of the X-Factor house and visit her parents at home. Unfortunately, no oneat the X-Factor Contestant’s Lodge for Future Z-List Celebrities actuallynotices she left. Even more unfortunately, when Sophie arrives home, ittranspires that her parents had completely forgotten she existed, and hadconverted her bedroom into a sex dungeon. So, a dejected Sophie isworking through her anger at being as memorable as a skidmark from a wateryfart by singing Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down). There are parts that arealmost good, and then are parts that are not-so-good. The almost-good partsinclude the throne of hot topless men that Sophie is sitting on. The not-so-goodparts include all of Sophie’s singing. JUDGES! Have left the stage because theythought they were on an ad-break. Except for Gary, who just went into his regeneration alcove to recharge his boring batteries.

Next up is little gay Marcus. It’s typical Marcus really.Serviceable, but not memorable. The most notable thing about his performance ofthat old X-Factor staple Supersitious is that it leads to the revelation in theJudge’s Comments that Louis can now note emotional states as part of hisability to state the absolutely fucking obvious. “You’re happy” he tellsMarcus, before adding “You sing. You dance” and “You’re on the X-Factor”. The man's a genius, I tell you.

Now it’s time for Misha B. Last week, we learned that the Bis for Bully. Or Bitch. Or Both. Anyhow, following the news that Misha is atotal cunt, it’s rehabilitation time, so her intro-video is full of shots ofher looking pensive and alone in a park as she considers her bullying ways andhow best to kill Tulisa and make it look like an accident. Misha performs TaintedLove with awful music. Luckily, the pure awesomeness of Misha doing a fantasticjob while dressed as a big red rhino distracts from the terrible arrangment. You know last yearwhen they were trying to convince us that Cher Lloyd was all urban n’street andshit? Well, Misha would eat Cher Lloyd whole and spit her out again, and then piss all over her face. And spit on her. Notjust because she’s a bitch but because she’s genuinely as cool as they tried totell us that Cher Lloyd was. Judges! Tulisa performs the producer-mandated climbdownfrom last week’s controversial comments like a boss, and actually manages toretain some dignity. Louis attempts to ape Kelly Rowland by spitting out someof the phrases from her catchprase-o-matic.

Next up is Wee Janet Devlin from Horrible Ireland. Herintro-video actually concerns Horrible Ireland (PLEASE DON’T MAKE HER GO BACK!)as her parents discuss Janetmania. It’s all people are talking about in Ireland,apparently. No, it’s not like there was an election or a referendum oranything. This week Janet has dressed as Corpse Bride to sing The Police’s I’llbe Watching You. It’s not great, to be honest. It’s screechy and pitchy andboring and Janet is probably going to be gone in about 2 weeks if she continueson this path of diminishing fairyland returns. I guess having a red-headed woodland elf in a wedding dress sing a song about a stalker is pretty on-theme though. Judges! Alexandra Burke says thatJanet did Horrible Ireland proud. Louis Walsh promptly backhands Alex forstealing his bit. Only Louis may relentlessly mention the contestant’s countryof origin in the desperate attempt to secure some patriotic votes, you cow.Don’t you forget it. Louis does another impression of Kelly Rowland, this timein blackface.

Prepare the Dettol Baths because it’s Frankie Cocozza time.As feared, the producers have decided that Frankie’s survival of the publicvote last week is a ringing endorsement of his new Diet Pete Doherty persona,so we get more of the same in the intro-video. Frankie wants to go out and getdrunk and bang birds. Gary wants Frankie to work. Frankie pouts and runs to hisroom, slams his door, opens it, shouts “I HATE YOU!” and then slams it againlouder. He’s just a rebel who can’t be tamed. Remember last week’s contrivedopening to Frankie’s performance where he sauntered from back stage like arock-god? Well, this week they repeat that as Frankie makes his way to thestage from the middle of a rent-a-crowd of screaming girls. “Should I Stay OrShould I Go?” Frankie croaks. Please, fucking hop on the same train Ashley didand go, you vile, contrived, phony piece of shit. Judges! Tulisa says she nowbelieves that this is the real Frankie. She actually uses the word rebellious.Poor Tulisa. The producers must’ve slapped her down hard after Misha-gate. Alex lobs some criticism at Frankie. Frankie hits back at Alex, tellingher she doesn’t know what it’s like to be cooped up in Casa del X-FactorContestants. Em... who wants to tell him exactly what Alex is famous for...? Nevermind, that’s probably the third-stage syphilis rotting his brain.

It’s Kitty Brucknell! It’s Halloween! It’s going to beAMAZING. And it is. Kitty performs Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams, and is totallynote-perfect and all kinds of awesome. Seriously, if she’s in the bottom twoagain this week it will be the biggest crime against humanity since the RwandanGenocide. Judges! Alex and Louis have the gayest fight ever; after Alexcontends that Kitty is in danger of becoming too cabaret and Louis charges into inform her that it isn’t cabaret, it’s burlesque.

Second-to-last performance of the night, and we’ve still hadnothing to equal the visceral horror of Mary Booooooorn last year. Boo. Anyway, we’re on to RhythmicKandy Girl-Lash. The intro-video details how the girls have had to change theirname after a charity thoughtlessly went back in time and registered thetrademark years before they did. So now they will be known as Little KandyGirl-Lash, or something. The greater part of the intro-video however, isdedicated to the upset caused to one of the members of Little Kandy Girl-Lashby hurtful message board posts about her weight. We’re shown footage of FattieKandy Girl-Lash sitting with a laptop on one massive thigh, and several itemsof confectionery on the other, blubbering uncontrollably. Meanwhile, in anotherpart of the X-Factor House, the sounds of furious typing and cruel guffaws canbe heard from outside Misha B’s room. So... one of the girls has some weightissues that obviously upset her and they decide to rename the band LITTLE Mix?Cruel bastards. Anyway, Little Kandy Girl-Lash are performing Katy Perry’sExtraterrestrial. Which is a pity, because I actually like that song and nowthey’ve gone and ruined it. They’re meant to be possessed dolls or steampunkandroids or I dunno what. Something that isn’t extraterrestrial anyway. They’realso performing on swings suspended over the stage. I wait expectantly forMisha to come out to perform the Kanye West rap part of the song and use it ascover to push the girls off their swings, but alas it does not happen. Judges!Tulisa reminds us that girls need not feel intimidated by Little KandyGirl-Lash, because they’re just ordinary girls who are completely unremarkableand aren’t in the least bit special. Great confidence boost there, Tulisa.

I feel like I’ve gone on forever about Little Mix, but Ican’t let it go without mentioning one thing – when the tubsy one (let’s callher Pick ‘n’Mix) was upset, she was being consoled by another Mixer (let’scalled her Mixed Race). Mixed Race says to Pick ‘n’ Mix “But you’re so pretty!”managing to distil every thin girl’s patronising attempts to make her fatfriend feel better into just 4 and a half words.

Almost as boring and twice as big as See-through Sophie,it’s Biscuitman! Biscuitman’s intro-video is completely asinine and deliriouslybland this week, so let’s focus on the important stuff. Like his new haircut,which makes him look like a fat version of Russel Tovey. Or the fact that he’sprobably going to end up in the final, and maybe even win the damn show. Biscuitmanis singing Set Fire to the Rain this week, just in case you were worried thatthe two weeks we’ve managed to go without an Adele song was giving youwithdrawal symptoms from bad Adele cover versions. He sings, he snarls, hemakes odd faces. He hits big notes but is completely unexciting.

And thus endeth Halloween at X-Factor Towers. Join us tomorrow for the results, and performances from Cher Lloyd and Nicole Ratzinger. Hmmm, only two guest performances? Could that mean...? A horrendous group performance??? I live in hope...

The X-Factor 2011: Week 3 - THE RESULTS

2011-10-23T22:48:00.000+01:00

LAST NIGHT! WAS ROCK NIGHT! Voiceover Man reminds us. So theacts decided to sing from the back catalogues of such rock luminaries as Kesha,Gnarls Barkley, S Club 7 and The Wombles. Generally, it was the biggest sham ofa theme since... well, since last week.

Dermot O’Leary appears on-stage, disappointly fully-clothed,and says it’s very tight at the bottom. Somewhere backstage, Johnny Robinson’sinnuendo-sense went through the roof. There’s no horrendous group-song thisweek, alas. Maybe they’ve decided to only do them every fortnight, as it issimply too dangerous to have them more often than that due to the risk of theaudience’s brains erupting into flames from the sheer horror of it all. Sowe’re straight on to our first guest of the night with something to promote, MsKelly Clarkson and her massive hips. Kelly is singing her new song, Mr Know ItAll, which is all about being a feisty lady and not taking any guff from theman or the press. Just like half of her other songs then. Kelly has decided totake a page out of the Sami Brookes fashion catalogue and is wearing a dressthat is about three sizes too small. I’m not kidding about the massive hips. IfTreyc Cohen and her Massive Arse from last year’s show came back and had anarse-off with Kelly, I think Kelly’d win.

Never-ending recap interspersed with backstage footage time!Marcus Collins got ten out of ten from Louis Walsh! Louis gave a hot young gayboy full marks? Imagine that. Louis actually repeats his critique of Marcusfrom last night – “He smiles. He sings.” Wow. Eight years as a judge on thisshow, people! Sami hoping to turn back time; Rhythmix being shit, et cetera, etcetera. There’s someone called Sophie in the recap too. Was there a wildcardepisode and I missed it or something? Who is this girl? After Tulisa accusedher of being a cunt, Misha sauntered backstage to give her reaction: “Whathappens backstage should stay backstage.” She then proceeds to punch a pregnantsound engineer in the womb while screaming “I AM NOT A BITCH” while the evilfashion Nazis of the Style Team watch on approvingly.

We’re following the multiple Platinum, two-time Grammy and12-time Billboard Music award winner Kelly Clarkson with... Professor Green.Professor Green accompanied by Emily Sandé, as Voiceover Man kindly andlaboriously tells us. I think that by featuring scumbag white rap this week,they’re just softening us up for Cher Lloyd next week. Frankly, she’s going toappear like some sort of musical genius compared to this. It’s a lot like whatyou’d expect from a Ukrainian Eurovision entry from the early 2000s, whenLinkin Park briefly popularised the combination of rap with angsty,melodramatic singing until the world realised that it was simply appalling.

Almost there, just one more special guest to go. Oh lovely,it’s professional annoying twat Bruno Mars. I’ve always thought that Brunolooks like a transsexual Michael Jackson. We can’t actually hear a word that he’ssinging, because either the microphone is broken, or Bruno’s ego exudes anelectro-magnetic pulse that shut down the equipment around him. Or perhaps Mishahas been bullying a sound engineer too and this is his desperate cry for help. Aswe can’t appreciate Mr Snicker’s singing, we’ll just have to be entertained bywatching Kelly Rowland dance around and holler in excitement instead. Brunobusts some impressive dance-moves, along with his slightly less-impressivebacking dancers, who have been told that if they come anywhere near upstagingBruno they’ll be shot. It goes on forever. No, really. I had my dinner, made a cheesecake for dessert,scrapped it when I realised I’d used the Garlic and Herb Philadelphia byaccident, made another one with proper Philly, ate it and did the washing up inthe time it takes Bruno to conclude his performance. Yawn.

OH FORTUNA! It’s finally time for the results at last.Marcus is safe. Awww, he’s so cute. Bitcha is next. To celebrate gettingthrough, she’s going to twitter-bomb the youngest member of Rhythmic KandyGirl-Lash with obscenities. Speaking of, the little girlband that could havedefied the X-Factor curse for another week. Johnny is safe, as are Janet andBiscuitman. FRANKIE the enormous dripping, diseased cunt, is safe and theaudience boo loudly. Oh British public, you fools. The producers are just goingto take his survival as a ringing endorsement of the new Bad Boy persona andkick it up several notches for next week. Mark my words, next week’s introvideo is going to push the Pete Doherty Lite agenda even further and we’ll betreated to footage of Frankie blowing a dealer in Camden to score some heroin.The Risk are safe, leaving Kitty and Sami in the sing-off. This is the biggest injusticeever. Even Nelson Mandela thinks so.

Sami the Horse clipity-clops on-stage to perform first. Herlast performance is going to be an act of defiance, as she proudly proclaimsher humanity by singing You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman Who Is Not aHorse. It’s vocally pretty good. Midway through the performance, Kitty bargeson-stage with a semi-automatic rifle and several hostages in order to performLady Gaga’s Edge of Glory in the style of her original audition. Just like backin the first show of the series, Kitty forgets to enunciate, so it ends upsounding more like she’s on the Hedge of Laurie. Who is Laurie? And why are youon her hedge? Is Laurie the plain girl who isn’t Janet or Misha? This is soconfusing! Kitty attempts to end her performance by scrunching up her face inan approximation of crying, but it’s somewhat difficult to be convinced whenthere isn’t a single tear to be seen.

Judges! Gary was impressed with both ladies but decides tosend Sami home. Kelly also says that it’s time to send Sami to the gluefactory. Cut to Kitty, who has again appears to be both bereft and distraughtWITHOUT A SINGLE TEAR. I love you, Kitty. Tulisa decides to be contrary and votesto send Kitty home. Dermot informs us that Louis can opt for Sami and send herhome, opt for Kitty and go to deadlock, or opt for neither, in which caseX-FACTOR PRECEDENT stipulates that the act with the majority vote thus far willbe set home. X-Factor precedent? See how you’re still causing trouble withouteven being on the show, Cheryl Cole, you racially violent thug? As we all knowfrom previous series, Louis loves nothing more than a good old-fashioneddeadlock, but in a shock twist, he actually decides to make a decision andsends Sami home. Chin up, Sami, there’s always the Grand National.

Join us next week for classical music night, when thecontestants will be performing such symphonic favourites as Metallica’s Masterof Puppets, Tom Jones’s It’s Not Unusual and Black Lace’s Agadoo.

The X-Factor 2011: Week 3

2011-10-23T01:40:00.001+01:00

It’s Saturday. It’s 8pm. You know what that means? Yes, it’stime. To disgrace. The concept of Rock Music.

Additionally, it is also time for Voiceover Man to do arelentless recap of last week’s “drama”. There was a massive shock when hot-favourite super-talent and all-roundlikeable moppet Frankie, who you might know from that new film Cantagion, endedup in the bottom two! None of that is true, except for the bit about the bottomtwo. And maybe the part about Contagion. Dermot O’Leary seduces his way onstage and introduces the judges: puddin-lover K-Row; puddin it on the down-lowLouis Walsh; puddin it whatever way Simon Cowell tells him to, it’s GaryBarlow; and Tulisa. GET READY TO ROCK,Voiceover Man enthuses. I am on the very edge of my seat with not caring.

Marcus Collins is up first. I wonder will his vote collapsefrom being in the sacrificial slot. His intro video is a bit boo-hoo though, somaybe that’ll save him. Plus he’s a cutie pie. Breast cancer! Loneliness! Nomoney for the bus! Homosexuality! Jesus, the Marcus Collins Story has it all.Coming this winter on Sky UK Living TV Gold. There’s a whiff of a last minutechange about this intro-video actually. It seems like it’d be more suited tothe postponed Heroes-week theme they decided to abandon because the producersthought Rock Week would be a better idea to save Chosen One Frankie. Anyway, Marcus sings Lenny Kravitz’s Are YouGonna Go My Way and it’s alright. He’s only ever alright, really. He’scompetent but he never seems to go beyond that. Judges! “You stand. You smile.”Louis Walsh is as insightful as ever.

Second act of the night is wee Janet Devlin from Tyrone inhorrible Ireland. Please vote for her so she never has to go back to horribleIreland where no one is ever happy. People think she’s a witch because of herbright red hair, you know. They‘d throw potatoes at her except the Irish needto hold on to them in case there’s another famine during this time ofausterity. Janet’s intro video is Janet versus the press. Basically they’retrying to make her seem like less of a wallflower and it isn’t working becauseI refuse to believe that tabloid journalists, the scum of the earth, are astame as this. Either that or they fed them all Valium before the interview. Janetis singing Sweet Child of Mine. After we found out that Janet is a bit of agoth last week, I was expecting Actual Rock from this performance. Instead, weget a harp. Just like all those famous rock songs with the harps in them. LikeAC/DCs You Harped For Me All Night Long, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Harpist, orPink Floyd’s Another Harp In The Wall. Needless to say, the song has beenstripped back to appropriate Janet levels and turned into a ballad. It’sinoffensive but not particularly interesting and Janet’s schtick might get abit boring soon. That said, she seems sweet so I can’t hate her too much.Judges! Tulisa chastises Janet for not rocking out and points to the X-FactorRulebook, Section 4, which states that what Janet did was not a rock song, buta rock song turned into a ballad. Tulisa forgets about Section 4 Subsection 1,which states that only an idiot takes an X-Factor theme seriously.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course. Except when thathorse, is Sami. Sami’s intro video basically spoils that she’s going to bedoing a Cher song, because her mentor is Louis and he’s a big fucking queen.Sami comes on-stage and oh dear, the fashion Nazis of the Style Team™ havestruck again. Sami is wearing leather and her stomach unfortunately looks likea tarpaulin stretched over two tyres. Tonight she’s singing If I Could TurnBack Time (I’d Wear a Poncho). Part-way through, the camera switches to Louis andhe’s singing along and loving it, the queerball. Judges! Tulisa admits it’s akaraoke song but that Sami did it well. Kelly says she sounded fantastic andasks her if she had a great time, for some reason. Gary Barlow decides he hasn’tchannelled enough Cowell and launches into a massive spiel about how boring itwas that sort of goes a bit too far. Also, it’s a bit rich to have Barlow goingon about performers being real when he chose fucking Frankie. Dermot speaks toSami who desperately implores viewers to vote for her despite the recession.No, she actually does that. I think I’ll get a t-shirt printed that says SPAREA POUND AND VOTE SAMI. Sami whinnies and canters off-stage.

Up next is Rhythmic Kandy Girl-Lash. As is typical with agroup at this stage of the competition, their intro video has now become allabout giving them easy to identify roles so that the public can point to oneand say “Ah, she’s the sassy one!” or “Ah, she’s the crazy one!”. It’s 90seconds of pure fakery that actually includes scenes of the girls saying “Rockit!” and head-banging. They’re so genuinely fun, I wish I lived with them. I definitely wouldn't kill them.They’re performing that famous lighters-in-the-air rock anthem Tik Tok. Yes,that Tik Tok. The one by Kesha. Just when my ears were adjusting, it all takesa Cher Lloyd style diversion into that other great rock song, Salt n’Pepa’s PushIt. No amount of dancers body-popping on-stage can distract from the fact thatit’s a pile of shite. Judges! Kelly says she wants the girls to be better thanthe last girl group that was here. LAY OFF OF 2 SHOES YOU BITCH. Gary and Louislay into Tulisa for giving them a pop song. Tulisa says they took a pop songand made it rock and then all the judges kick off on one and start shoutingover one another and it’s all terribly awkward and just like when mum and dadfight. Hold me.

Biscuitman is up next and he’s... what? I forgot someone?Sophie? Sophie who? Oh. Apparently someone called Sophie was up after RhythmicKandy Girl-Lash and performed a stripped back non-rock version of Livin’ on aPrayer. I vaguely remember an intro-video in which someone was upset at beingboring, so she decided to talk to the same bunch of Tamest Tabloid JournalistsIn The World that Janet faced down. Except the most interesting thing theycould find to say about her was “What a nice girl.” Sophie, infuriated, decidedto become more interesting by killing the journalists. Alas, her scheme wasover before it began as she had already bored them to death. The quest to benoticed continues.

So, Big Gay Biscuitman. This week, he tells us, he’s goingto be singing a man song. Fancy that. Craig is wearing a leather jacket thatbarely fits him. I should mention that he’s not the only one who has wornleather tonight. In fact most of the contestants have, because to the X-Factorproducers, leather = Rock. The same sort of maths that gives us Harp = Rock,really. Luckily, Sami eats three whole cows a day, so there was plenty of hideto go around to clothe all of the contestants. Craig begins his man song,Oasis’ Stop Crying Your Heart Out, and is immediately intimidating andsimultaneously camp as tits. I don’t know how he does it. Maybe it’s theleather jacket. He snarls. He scrunches his face up. He sings the song as aballad. He looks weird and vaguely scary. It’s Biscuitman by numbers. Rock weekis turning out to be pretty fucking boring this year. Judges! Gary Barlow voidshis bowels because his rectum is so bored of being attached to Gary Barlow.

Kitty is up next, and if anyone can save us from the tedium,it’s her. Her intro-video is only 90 seconds long and it’s easily the mostinteresting part of the show so far. It charts Kitty’s obsession with fame fromthe girlbands she was a member of until she slept with everyone else’sboyfriends and killed all the other members for not beng as amazing as she isto her theatre work and her thousands upon thousands of self-promotionalYoutube videos. There’s even footage of Louis rejecting some of Kitty’s ideasfor her performances such as swan-diving from the roof into a pot of moltengold. Kitty is singing Live and Let Die. There are jets of fire, high notes andgenuine head-banging and hair-whippin’. Eat that, Sophie Habibas. Tulisa saysit was actual rock. She is right. She lauds Kitty for being such a good performerand says some rubbish about her being a good person. Let’s not get too carriedaway, Tulisa, Kitty would still sell you into a sex-trafficking ring if shethought it would help her make an album. We’re now more than halfway throughthe show and Kelly Rowland has not once talked about puddin’ it dahn. I thinkshe used up her entire pudding quota last week. Either that or she’s working ona new, even more exciting catchphrase. I can’t wait.

And now, it’s Frankie. The intro-video is... well, where tostart. It’s a fucking mess. They’ve decided that whole cheeky chappie thing wasn’tworking, so they’re reinventing Frankie as the next nearest archetype; thelikeable bad boy. To this end, the video is all about how Frankie spent allweek drinking shots and luvin’ it and pulling “birds” and not listening to Gary.He’s so young, he just wants to have fun and not listen to that old coot Gazza!He’s such a rebel! It’s absolutely the most contrived thing we’ve ever seen onthis show in eight years and that is saying an awful lot. I guess it’s adifferent tactic to having Danyl Johnson or Katie Waissell shave their heads toshow how they’ve been humbled and it’s time for a new start. Then again, ifFrankie’s in the bottom two again tomorrow I wouldn’t bet against them doingthat... Frankie’s performance continues the fakery with monochrome shots of himmaking his way from backstage as though he was some sort of rock legend.Eventually he swaggers on-stage to sing Primal Scream’s Get Your Rocks Off. They’veturned the background music up to 11, to drown Frankie’s strangled-cat vocalsout. He seems to have toned down the over-enunciation a little bit, or it couldjust be that his vocal cords are slowly rotting away as a consequence of beingattached to such a toxic individual. JUDGES! Louis says he did the right thingin saving Frankie last week. Gary has an important announcement to make. Hesays he was lying last week when he said Frankie’s vocals were good. I take 5minutes out to come to terms with this, while Gary goes on to explain that thisweek, he’s not lying and Frankie was everything he wanted him to be. You wantedhim to be a hateable wanker? Mission accomplished.

Following that shit-storm is The Risk. As with RhythmicKandy Girl-Lash’s Intro video, this one is all about creating personas for themembers. So there’s Charlie the rat-faced lead-singer; the cute one, the otherone, and the black one. The video focuses on The Black One, to flesh him out asmore than just The Black One but also as The Black One Who Is a Ladies Man.We’re shown footage of the boys on a night out; The Black Ladies Man is pleasedwhen a girl gives him her number. I know, a young woman giving a z-listcelebrity her phone number. What a shocker. We see The Risk in rehearsal, wherethey’re shit, which segues nicely into the performance, where they’re also shit.They sing Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy. It’s actually better than when Cee-Lo fromGnarls Barkley was on the results show the other night, but that’s because hebasically vomited up his lungs on-stage. The judges chastise Tulisa again fortaking a pop song and making it rock. Louis, in a moment that is absolutely notscripted, prompts the boys to reveal that one of them has AIDS in his tonsils,or something.

Brace yourselves for Johnny Robinson. Johnny had intendedsinging a ballad tonight in order to impress his boyfriend Gary Barlow, butthen the producers changed the theme to Rock at the last minute to helpFrankie, so that scuppered Johnny’s plans. Instead of My Heart Will Go On,he’ll be singing I Believe in a Thing Called Love. Given how completely notseriously the other judges have been taking the requirements of the theme, I’mpretty sure that Johnny could’ve gotten away with singing a I Believe in aThing Called Love accompanied by a harpist. Or My Heart Will Go On with a2-second guitar riff at the start. It is both ludicrous and brilliant at thesame time. I think I genuinely like Johnny, if only because he makes GaryBarlow seem even more ridiculous every week. Judges! Kelly says that Johnny isher guilty pleasure. Barlow says he rather liked it, trying to emulate thosemoments where Cowell would cut the joke contestant some slack. Johnny gets thebiggest reception of the night. Backstage, Kitty Brucknell strangles a puppy indisgust.

Ad breaks! Did you know, that Pampers are giving out tetanusinjections to babies in third-world countires for every pack ofenvironment-destroying shit-rags you buy? That’s right, every time you don’tbuy Pampers, you are killing babies. You fucking monster.

Back to the X-Factuh, and Misha Barton is closing the showwith Prince’s Purple Rain. She’s rocking a whole Tina Turner by way ofThunderdome look tonight. It’s a good performance but not particularlymemorable. Or maybe that’s because Ruth Lorenzo will always be my favouritePurple Rainer. NEVER FORGET! What is memorable however, is the huge kerfufflethat erupts between the judges when Tulisa tries to diplomatically suggest thatMisha might have a bad attitude back-stage and is possibly being mean to othercontestants without realising. Kelly Rowland explodes and says that’s somethingthat should be left back-stage, while Louis, like the little shit-stirrer heis, sticks his oar in and says that one of his acts is being bullied by Mishatoo. This makes me picture Misha back-stage throwing sugar cubes at Sami whileshouting “Are you still with Martin, Sonia? Neigh! Neigh!”. The show ends with Kelly Rowland roaming abouton-stage looking for the prop that fired the jets of flame into the air duringKitty’s song, so that she can turn it on Louis and Tulisa.

The X-Factor 2011: Week Two - THE RESULTS

2011-10-16T21:46:00.003+01:00

We open tonight, as ever, with a recap of yesterday’s show that goes on for about 3 hours, followed by the return of the horrendous group song! It is, of course, horrendous. Our heroes perform that Hello! song by Martin Solvig and Dragonette. As with all group songs, it is both lip-synced and auto-tuned. You’d imagine that auto-tune is meant to make someone sound better. Try telling that to Frankie, who still manages to sound like heroin needles being dragged across a chalkboard. They make the huge mistake of giving him one of the “Hello-oh-oh-oh-oh” parts, which results in patented Frankie vowel over-enunciation on each of the Oh sounds. Thanks for that.

Moving swiftly on, it’s time for our first time-wasting performance designed to pad out the show so that we can have extra time for voting money to come in and an additional ad break. Please welcome... The Wanted. Er... whatever. The Wanted sing and it’s all very bland and middle of the road. The judges respond with a standing ovation, because the Head Judge is Gary Barlow and if anyone embodies the qualities of bland and middle of the road, it is he. If you look closely during the standing ovation, you can see Kelly Rowland asking Gary who the hell The Wanted are. You can also see Louis asking which one is the inevitable gay one.

Katy Perry is up next. I love these intro videos. FIVE NUMBER ONES. FIFTY QUINTILLION ALBUMS SOLD ACROSS FOURTEEN PLANETS SPREAD ACROSS THREE GALAXIES. ONE ABSOLUTE PANCREAS OF A HUSBAND. Katy sings about the one who got away. “We made out in your Mustang and listened to Radiohead” she warbles. Katy Perry has never listened to Radiohead. “I was dreaming you were my Johnny Cash” she continues. Katy Perry has never listened to Johnny Cash. At no points do glitter, fireworks, cream or flames erupt from her tits, so I guess this makes it a subdued performance. Dermot and Katy chinwag and she tries to do a Liverpudlian accent. The impression is as bad as that impression of a singer she’s been doing for the past number of years. Confession time: I actually love her song ET. Fuck off.

Judges and Contestants line up for the verdict. I’m glad to see they’ve discontinued the stupid practice of having the contestants wear the same clothes they wore the night before. As usual, we get the contestants who are safe listed at a tediously slow pace and “in no particular order” except that designed to maximise shock. The Risk are safe. Tulisa’s risk paid off! She took a tisk on the risk and her risk was rewarded! Janet is dressed as though she’s in mourn... oh. Yeah. Janet is safe. Biscuitman is safe and contorts his face to indicate joy. It is frightening and I shall never sleep soundly again. Misha B and Sonia Fowler Horse are safe. Good, because Sonia looked like she was about to puke with worry. Rhythmic Kandy Girl-Lash are through, so I guess the curse of the girlband has been broken. Dull Sophie and Queen Kitty are safe, leaving us with Marcus, Frankie Headlouse and Nu Vibe. Marcus, who looks like he’s about to die, is safe. Nu Vibe and Frankie Skidmark are the bottom two! FRANKIE IS IN THE BOTTOM TWO. There is a god, and he did not vote for Frankie. Just like a significant portion of the public.

Ads and then we’re back for the sing-off. First up are Nu Vibe, “singing” Promise This. I’m told by a confirmed homosexual that tonight’s show is actually exactly one year since St Cheryl performed this tune herself on the results show. So let’s take a moment to remember Cheryl and everything she did for us during 3 years as a judge. Done. The first Nu Viber starts singing. Oh Jesus my ears. The second Nu Viber starts singing. Oh Jesus my ears. This is an insult to the memory of Cheryl Cole. It’s flat and horrible and out of tune and my brains are actually pouring out of my ears from listening to it. The audience applaud enthusiastically, because the audience are fucking morons.

Gary introduces Frankie Fleabag with “I can’t believe I’m saying this” as though Frankie were some world-class talent and this is a huge affront to music. This is the same Gary who last week was quite direct about the fact that Frankie CANNOT FUCKING SING. Tonight, Frankie will be slime-balling his way through Daniel Merriweather’s Red. You know how Daniel Merriweather has a pretty good voice, whatever about the quality of his songs? Well, Frankie doesn’t. He shuffles about on stage looking like someone who was on his way to a Noel Fielding cosplay convention and got lost. Words dribble out of Frankie, none of them particularly in tune, and then he concludes. Somewhere in the UK, Daniel Merriweather is suffering from a migraine and doesn’t know why.

Over to the judges so we can get to the foregone conclusion that they’re sending Nu Vibe home and saving Frankie Portacabin. Gary keeps going on about the shock that is Frankie’s placing in the bottom two. Fuck off, you plank. Unsurprisingly, Gary saves heroin-den-boy. Kelly Rowland doesn’t seem to realise that this part of the show is where Judges’ draw things out and spin things a certain way and instead just stammers variations on the words “Ah don’t know” and “Ah can’t” before eventually deciding the send Nu Vibe home. Tulisa obviously picks Frankie, and Louis, ever keen to make the most of his moment, eventually, after about 10 minutes of getting to the point, decides to send Nu Vibe home as well.

In discussion with Dermot, Nu Vibe don’t even try to pretend they’ll be sticking together after this, and save us all from experiencing that awkward moment where an eliminated X-Factor contestant says “this isn’t the last you’ll see of me!”.

The X-Factor 2011: Week Two

2011-10-16T03:45:00.008+01:00

This week on the X-Factor, IT’S TIME to embrace your democratic rights, as the producers have deigned to give control of the show back to the public after successfully getting rid of the pregnant-contestant last week. That’s right, IT’S TIME to return to more traditional methods of manipulating the contest such as ramming Frankie down our throats, ensuring the results show goes to deadlock or changing the rules of the semi-final to favour the Chosen One. And also, as ever, IT’S TIME. TO FACE. THE MUSIC.

Dermot introduces us to tonight's theme – love and heartbreak. It’s a little less broad than last weekend’s History of Western Music theme, but it does mean we won’t be seeing Janet Devlin cover Motorhead this week. Oh well, we can only cross our fingers and hope that next week will be Metal Week.

First up is Nu Vibe... I guess that means they’re guaranteed to be in the bottom two tomorrow then. Tulisa explains in the intro video that she wasn’t happy when reviewing last week’s performance. She has something in common with the audience, then. She tries to make Nu Vibe interesting by playing up the tabloid rumours of vicious fights and ego-clashes. She fails. Nu Vibe have decided to deface U2’s With or Without You this week. Remember that awful club song that sampled With or Without You from the mid-noughties? Take Me to the Clouds Above? Remember that horror? Yeah, this is somehow worse than that. They’ve basically taken the concept of music and violently assaulted it down a dark alley. I don’t know if it’ll pull through. Judges! Louis says they’re less like Nu Vibe and more like No Vibe. Ho ho! That scamp. Kelly Rowland risks undermining the currency value of her new catchphrase when she accuses Nu Vibe of PUDDIN IT DAHN. No, Kelly. They did not. Shame on you. Gary Barlow is boring.

Next to perform is My Lovely Horse. This week, Sami’s done something to her hair that makes her look even more like Sonia From Eastenders. I keep expecting random images of Sonia and Martin to float by on-screen as she warbles along to My Heart Will Always Go On Loving You or whatever fucking ballad she’s singing that’s already been done to death fifty-three times over the eight years this show has been on-air. It isn’t exactly what you’d call Sami’s finest moment, which is a shame because she’s likeable in a young-Mary-Byrne crossed with a Shetland pony sort of way. She could be in trouble tomorrow. Judges! Kelly says Sami PUT IT DAHN. Ms K, I think your catchphrase might just be in danger of premature over-exposure. Tulisa says something inoffensive and Gary Barlow is boring.

Oh look, it’s Biscuitman and his face of emotion. This week, Biscuitman has decided to sing one of those limp Beyonce songs from her most recent album. As was the case last week, Biscuitman displays a variety of frightening and frankly bizarre facial expressions throughout the performance. I dread to think what he’s going to do to us at Halloween. The X-Factor “Style Team” have dressed Craig in a leather jacket and red trousers. Why would you do that to him, you evil fashion Nazis? Facial contortions concluded, Craig submits himself to the judges for appraisal. Louis jumps up onto the table and proceeds to do the chicken dance for 90 seconds. Or at least that’s what my brain told me happened in a bid to stop a total cerebral collapse brought on by the sound of Gary Barlow’s voice.

Next up is Janet Devlin. In her intro vid, Janet reveals she was a bit of a goth at school. Devlin does Black Sabbath could yet happen, folks. Just imagine her stomping on-stage and announcing, “I AM IRON MAN.” Janet’s intro-video also reveals that something terribly sad happened to her this week; Betty from Coronation Street died. Janet is understandably upset, but decided to perform anyway because the producers own her now. She’s just glad that Betty got to see her perform live last week during the first show. Janet sings I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You and it’s a bit cold and flat and lifeless. Dear reader, you thought I was going to use the words “cold and flat and lifeless” to segue into a joke about Betty, didn’t you? You heartless fucker. Judges! Remind us that Janet has had a tough week. Dermot! Reminds us that Janet has had a tough week. When that doesn’t reduce Janet to tears, a montage of images of Betty throughout the years flickers by on the giant screen, and the producers sit Janet into a contraption like the one from A Clockwork Orange to force her to take it all in. But she perseveres, and doesn’t cry. Exasperated, Dermot punches her in the vagina. Her eyes water, and the gods of public grief lap at the beautiful, salty tears.

Up next is Frankie, this year’s Chosen One and shit-stain on the toilet bowl of humanity. Frankie’s intro vide reveals that he’ll be singing a Colplay song but – shock – he forgot the words in rehearsals just today, and isn’t feeling confident. Yes, that’s old X-Factor chestnut of forgot-the-lyrics to create drama. In the intro-vid, we meet Frankie’ parents, H1 and N1, who are actually wearing t-shirts with Frankie’s obnoxious face and the words “Cheeky Chappie” printed on them. Proof that Frankie’s folks are as big a pair of fuckwits as their son. Frankie butchers The Scientist but doesn’t forget the words so... success? Judges! Louis thinks that Frankie has lost his swagger.Kelly Rowland balks at Louis’ use of that word and reminds him that only her people may use it, or something. I dunno, I was only half-paying attention. I was busy washing my eyes out; they start feeling a bit gritty every time Frankie’s on screen.

Johnny Robinson, the man who fell to Earth straight out of a Carry-On film, tells us all about Twitter and Kylie Minogue and how he’s going to be performing Can’t Get You Out of My Head and... words fail me. I mean... it’s just... look at the picture. LOOK AT IT. A middle-aged gay man dressed as a geisha singing Kylie Minogue ON THE MOST WATCHED SHOW IN BRITAIN. How is this happening? The entire spectacle makes last week’s performance of Cher’s Believe look like a state funeral. It is actually the campest thing to EVER happen on the X-Factor and that is saying quite a lot for a show that once had an entire episode devoted to Mariah Carey. And to top it all off, Johnny ends the performance by mouthing “VOGUE”. Utterly, utterly amazing. Judges! Crickets chirp and tumbleweed rolls by. Kelly Rowland attempts to speak several times and fails. Gary Barlow criticises the performance and says Johnny looks like something out of Aladdin. Johnny responds with “Oooh, you can rub my lamp any time, Gary”. This is actually amazing.

Back to the boys and Marcus the Gay Hairdresser, who seems like the personification of alpha male following J.Ro’s performance. Marcus will be performing Rihanna’s Russian Roulette, a song about her abusive relationship with Chris Brown. Following on from last week, I wonder can I work in a reference to Chris Brown the violent misogynist in every recap? Anyhow, Marcus is mostly good but there’s something un-engaging about him. Judges! Louis doesn’t think Marcus was very comfortable with Rihanna, like a Northern Irish farmer yelling “Cover up, you hussy” in a cold and lonely field.

Next up is Rhythmix, the girlband. Their intro-video is all about “the curse of the girlband” and the fact that all-female groups tend to do shit on the X-Factor. See last week’s recap ref: teenage girls, middle-aged mothers and gay men making up the voting demographic for this show. We get clips of Kandy Rain, Bad Lashes and Girlband, and I conclude that the only curse girlbands on this show suffer from is that they all have stupid names. Rhythmix perform reworked, urban version of Nelly Furtado’s Like a Bird. It’s surprisingly not terrible. Tulisa explains to the voters that Rythmic Kandy Girl-Lash don’t want to steal their boyfriends and that women need to stick together and stand united and deconstruct the meaning of neo-queer cisexuality in the context of ongoing attempts to broaden the contemporary scope of normative biological identities. Who knew the X-Factor would be dipping into third-wave feminism this season? A VOTE FOR RHYTHMIX IS A VOTE FOR ALL WOMEN.

Up next, is Misha Barton. You might remember Misha from being awesome last week. Misha’s intro-video is all about the “Style Team”, the horribly attired bastards responsible for dressing the contestants in the fashion excrement they’ll be wearing all season. They’re also the ones who have helped transform her from the waifish, pallid star of the OC into a fierce, strong, big-boned young black woman. It truly is the role of a lifetime, Misha reflects. This week, Misha is performing Would I Lie To You?, a song you don’t know that you know but you definitely know. It’s good but it isn’t as awesome as last week. Still, she’s probably the most watchable contestant. Not least because she’s dressed like a Quality Street this week.

Now it’s time for The Risk. In the intro video, we’re subjected to further terrible play on words that I refuse to legitimise by recapping. They’re pushing the whole “these boys are fit” angle, which seems a bit silly given only one of them is in any way shaggable. And that’s really only if you squint. They’re no Henry Cavills, anyway. Although I suppose if you put them standing on a stage with Frankie Coccozza they become the most attractive men in the country. The Risk sing Just the Way You Are, just the way Matt Cardle did last year, except not as competently. Though they’re better than Nu Vibe, obviously. Judges! Louis says that they’re a boyband, they’re all boys, and they’re in a band. Gary Barlow is fucking boring.

Following the Risk is someone called Sophie. Who? Habibis? Oh! Sophie Habibis! The one with the memorable surname and unforgettable everything else. Hilariously, in her intro-video Dull Sophie discusses the fact that no one knows who she is. Tonight, Dull Sophie will be singing the Twinings Advert version of Wherever You Will Go. Its such a word-for-word appropriation that Dull Sophie even pronounces her Rs oddly to better match Charlene Soraia’s “Whewevw you wiw go” inflections. This song is so re-entering the charts. What was I talking about? Sophie? Oh yeah. Sophie. Er, it’s pleasant enough I guess. Assuming it actually happened and I didn’t briefly fall asleep and imagine it.

Closing the show tonight is the modest and ever humble Kitty Brucknell. Kitty’s video is all about what a martyr Kitty is for bullied children everywhere, or something. Shut up, Kitty. When you talk you make people hate you and I need you to stay on this show for as long as possible. Just stay quiet when you’re not performing. Tonight, Kitty is performing an Alice-in-Wonderland themed version of It’s Oh So Quiet, complete with Mad Hatter and PERSON IN MAD MARCH HARE COSTUME. Let me just remind you, that on tonight’s X-Factor we’ve had a person dressed as a hare, an actress from The OC masquerading as a black girl, a gay-sha singing Kylie Minogue, a horse with a fringe singing Whitney Huston and a fat bloke from a biscuit factory making faces in red trousers. This is truly the greatest show on Earth. Anyhow, Kitty is amazing and the judges agree and she wins the show.

Join us tomorrow when Kitty is crowned the new Queen of England by the Pope, and special guests “The Wanted” and “Katy” “Perry” rape our ears. Fingers crossed for a horrendous group song, too. I felt robbed last week.

The X-Factor 2011: Week One - THE RESULTS

2011-10-09T20:32:00.005+01:00

OH FORTUNA.

Dermot reminds us that last night, 16 acts sang to secure their places. I don’t need to be reminded, Dermot, my ears still haven’t stopped bleeding. Excited Voiceover Man outlines THE DRAMATIC TWIST which saw the X-Factor producers do away with the public vote to eliminate four contestants in one fell swoop, for nefarious reasons we’ll probably never understand. Or alternatively because they need to get rid of the pregnant contestant and will sacrifice 3 others to do it. The Machiavellian bastards. The judges plod on-stage. Kelly Rowland appears to be wearing several emus. Tulisa Athena Parathenaikos appears to have her own version of Our Cheryl’s famous salute wherein she raises her arm to show off her tats, or something. We’re forced to ensure a recap af yeaterday’s aural abuse. Hearing Frankie once was bad enough; I really didn’t need to listen to the cunt again, even if it was only for 8 seconds. Tulisa reminds us that The Risk are her risk. She’s very proud of that pathetic piece of shite word-play. Craig Colton and his EMOTIONS. Janet and her woodland animals. So many highlights! Louis tells us that he doesn’t know how the judges are going to choose an act to lose. Don’t worry Louis, I’m sure the producers will help.

It’s the first live show and that can only mean one thing – it’s time for the winner of last year’s final to come on and promote the timely release of their second single. So welcome back Matt Cardle, who’s here to sing a song written by Gary Barlow, apparently. It’s shit. You know you’re in trouble when both One Dimension and Cher Lloyd’s musical abortions are better than yours. Matt plays a guitar to prove to us all that he’s a credible musician and isn’t going to be dropped by SyCo in about two months, after his third single charts in the upper 30s. Song finished, Matt tells us that he’s spent the time since winning CO-WRITING HIS ALBUM. See? Credible musicians write their own music! Adverts!

Dermot chit-chats with the judges, and asks them how hard it was to make their decisions. Not hard at all, Dermot, they just learned some names from slips of paper handed to them by the production team. Dermot welcomes Cee Lo Green as tonight’s second performer. I think it’s meant to fit in with this yesterday’s UK (Cardle) vs US (Cee Lo) song-choice theme. You know, the theme that limited the contestants to only songs from the entire history of western music. Cee Lo comes and does his thing and is generally like a little Lenny Henry. Cee Lo’s thing consists of badly pronouncing his words, barely in time to the music. In the vein of little Paije Richardson from last year, Cee Lo runs out of breath about halfway through the performance, which doesn’t really help the difficulty I’m having in understanding a single word he’s saying. I recommend he take some classes with Frankie’s elocution instructor – he’ll be enunciating in no time. I think they booked Cee Lo in order to make Matt Cardle seem good. More adverts!

What? We’re going right into the results? WHERE’S MY LIP-SYNCED GROUP NUMBER, YOU FUCKERS? I feel robbed. Anyway, Louis is first up, and they’re really going to draw this out because we’re getting the names of the contestants who are safe first. Sami is through! Kitty is safe! And gets booed. Fuck you audience, she was ten times better than Jonjo the plank. Speaking of, femme fatale Johnny Robinson is safe, which means Jonjo the soldier is going back to the Eastern Front, to protect the realm from the marauding Moors. Jonjo’s a soldier, you know. Jonjo mumbles a bit and then shuffles off back to the Crimean, as Dermot O’Leary ACTUALLY says, “He has to go back to the army now” to Louis Walsh.

Next up is Barlow and the boys, including everybody’s favourite junkie-chic spastic wankstain Frankie. I hate you. Gary says it was terribly difficult to decide whom to axe cruelly, with all the emotional conviction of an autistic person. Marcus the gay hairdresser is the first to be saved. Gary announces that Biscuitman is also safe, with all the enthusiasm of a stone. Finally, Gary monotones that he’s saving Frankie and sending James home. What a fucking shock right there – they saved the contestant they’ve been ramming down our throats since he first dropped his underpants to expose his diseased arse on the first show of the series. James sobs and tells us how he’s going to carry on with his music, just like every losing X-Factor act ever. And look at them all now!

Next up is Tulisa, who does a very convincing job of looking like she hates having to do this. She’s like the opposite of Gary Barlow, in that she has emotions. First group saved are Rhythmix. They’re gone next week, then. Then she saves The Risk, because they’re her risk, and she wants to continue taking a risk on them, so she’s taken a risk and saved them. Tulisa struggles to justify saving Nu Vibe, because they’re fucking terrible, but the producers have concocted this whole judge’s elimination scheme to get rid of the pregnant contestant, so 2 Shoes are going home. Tulisa says she can’t find a reason to explain why she’s getting rid of 2 Shoes. Because she’s contractually forbidden to say that the producers told her to.

Finally, it is Ms K and the girls. Misha looks fucking amazing. It’s like bonbon packaging factory vomited on top of her. Janet looks like a Victorian schoolmarm. And is the first one to be saved. Janet skips off to frolic with deer and wolfhounds. The next girl saved is “Miss Misha B” because she is amazing. So, it’s between Sophie and Amelia Lily. And Kelly sends... Amelia? Home? I love Kelly even more now that she’s the only judge to deliver an actual shock tonight. Amelia is in bits, and doesn’t even look like she believes it when Kelly says “Y’all are going to see this girl everywhere”. If only James had some of Amelia’s common sense.

The X-Factor 2011: Week One

2011-10-09T01:23:00.004+01:00

Are you ready? Are you sure? Do you have your ear plugs and a bottle of whiskey? Then you’re ready. Am I ready? Probably not. This mess is two and a half hours long after all. I actually think the producers are trying to fucking kill me. But here we go, on with the show, it’s another year and it’s time. To face. THE MUSIC. Ah Voiceover Man. You complete me.

We have a new, slightly modified theme tune. It's like a karaoke-machine version where they had to change it slightly to avoid paying for the rights to continue using the previous one. We’re reminded a few times that this is THE NEXT GENERATION of the X-Factor. For those not paying attention, this means that Simon’s pissed off to America because there are more millions to be made there; Dannii was basically fired and Cheryl Cole’s career imploded spectacularly in the course of about 10 days. The world mourned, picked itself up and welcomed Gary Barlow, Tulisa Constostavgreekname from N’Dubz and the amazing Kelly Rowland as our replacements. And if all these changes hadn’t already given you enough cause for a massive ego-shattering panic-attack, hold on to your fragile sense of reality, because Dermot O’Leary exclusively reveals that the widely reported shocking twist is indeed that the judges will each axe one of their own acts in tomorrow’s results show. That’s right, the X-Factor has officially axed democracy. For one week only.

Opening the X-Factor 2011 is 16 year old Amelia Lily. At some point, I’m going to want to see this girl’s birth certificate because she looks about 28. Voiceover Man pronounces Amelia’s name as though he knows a dirty secret about her. He sounds really smug and self-satisfied, like he’s blackmailing her into giving him head and loving every second of it. You pervert, Voiceover Man. Amelia sings Jacko’s Billie Jean because, well, why not? It’s a slowed-down, rocksome version and it’s a bit bland, but serviceable, just like Amelia’s blowjobs. Judges! Gary is indifferent; Kelly is proud and Louis is the same old Louis, offering massive insights such as “You’re sixteen years old” , “You look like a little Lenny Henry” and “You have two ovaries”.

Next up is Johnny Robinson. Johnny seems like a genuinely nice if eccentric person who would probably make a great host for “The Gay Show” on one of those naff TV channels you find in the deep recesses of the UPC digital TV guide. You know, where you find the religion channels and such. Every time we’ve seen Johnny until now he’s put his bizarre voice to task interpreting soulful ballads by dead or partially-dead divas. So of course, with Louis Walsh as his mentor, we’ve now got him emerging from a silver disco ball wearing shades and tinfoil and singing Believe by Cher. I have used the word bizarre already. I feel that when it comes to Johnny, I’m going to be using it a lot more. Judges! Gary decides to try out the Simon Cowell/Mr Nasty role and fails. Louis reminds us three times that Johnny is living his dream. I don’t think it was ever Johnny’s dream to be wrapped in tinfoil and forced to screech the last hit song of a zombie tranny queen, Louis.

The first of the groups to perform is Rhythmix. If the X-Factor producers hadn’t decided to abandon democracy, Rhythmix would definitely be going home tomorrow, due to X-Factor voters’ traditional apathy towards girlgroups. Well, what do you expect from an electorate made up of teenage girls, middle aged mothers and gay men? Rhythmix perform some travesty by Nicki Minaj. See, Rhythmix are young and hip, so by doing a performance with the rapping and the singing they’re proving how relevant and current they are. You may remember this line from when they tried to use it in relation to Cher Lloyd last year. For those who aren’t aware, THIS is what SyCo thinks relevant and current is. Truthfully, we’d be doing Rhythmix a favour if we sent them home tomorrow. But we can’t, thanks to those fascist dogs in the production office. Judges! Tulisa tells us that Rhythmix are the best girlband ever, and they’re a great example of strong women doing it for themselves, and other women should support them. She will revisit this theme. Unfortunately.

Next up is Frankie Cocozza. Frankie, in case you haven’t gathered from the inordinate amount of screentime he has gotten thus far, estimated by TV scientists to be somewhere in the order of 46% of the entire series thus far, is this year’s Chosen One. Kinda like how One Dimension were last year. Frankie is a monster. When the producers relinquish their emergency powers and decide to let the viewing public vote again, we must join together to collectively ignore Frankie. Frankie sings The A Team, which is one of those insipid, vacuous, guitar-led ballads that attempts to masquerade as the deep and meaningful lyrical poetry of a thoughtful young man with a troubled mind. He continues to over-EN-unci-ATE ev-ERY few syllables, with an EMPH-asis on VOW-el SOU-nds. and sounds like a spastic David Bowie, generally. Without a tenth of Bowie’s charisma or talent, it goes without saying. JUDGES! Tulisa asks if there’s a cure for the strains of gonorrhoea and syphilis she’s contracted from being in the same room as Frankie. Gary reminds us that he didn’t pick Frankie for his tissue-paper-thin voice, for some reason. I think we’re meant to assume from that comment that Frankie’s supposed charisma makes up for his shit singing. It doesn’t. Louis says that Frankie has “got something”. Insert your own STI joke.

SOPHIE HABIBIS. Voiceover Man really likes that one. He says it very playfully, like he’s thinking “I wish I had a dirty secret to blackmail you with, too”. The cad. Who is Sophie Haggis? No, seriously, where did she come from? Amelia, Misha Gaga Stefani and Janet I can remember. But Sophie? Is not going to be here next week. And to think that the amazing Kelly Rowland chose her over Fat Jade the Scottish Adele. GAMU! Speaking of Special K, Ms Rowland introduces Sophie by saying she’ll be singing a song by one of the biggest British artists the UK has to offer. Naturally, this means Sophie is singing Teenage Dream by the American Katy Perry. I don’t know what planet Kelly Rowland lives on but I want to live there too. Sophie Habibis is completely forgettable and boring. Sophie Habibis. Habibis. It’s a damn good surname, I’ll give her that much. Judges! Have all fallen asleep and have nothing to say.

Next we have Jonjo Kerr; the distinctly average singer who will probably survive much longer than he should because he’s one of our lads fighting for Queen Victoria against the Boers in Bahrain, or something. Jonjo and his massive ears sing You Really Got Me by The Kinks. The way the light shines through his massive ears is rather distracting. It’s all a bit rubbish and his attempt to exude attitude is more like a constipated snarl. Judges! None of them like Jonjo and his massive ears. Gary remembers he’s meant to be Simon Cowell and tries to say something mean, then The Fabulous Ms K explodes at him like a landmine from the Ottoman Empire, where para-squaddies like Jonjo risk life and limb to defend the borders of the Blessed Empire. Or something. I’m not really clear on what Jonjo does for a living. They haven’t really mentioned the fact that he’s a soldier at all.

Just when things were getting ridiculously boring, it’s time for the duo who make the name Rhythmix seem like a good choice – it’s 2 Shoes! In their intro video, they explain how 1 Shoe will become 2 Shoes in a few month, as Blonde Shoe is Pregnant Shoe, making a total of 3 Shoes. Shoe. 2 Shoes will be singing Something Kinda Ooh, dedicated to the memory of Our Lady of Newcastle, Cheryl Cole, RIP. It is something of an overproduced mess but there are lots of abdominal muscles on display (from the dancers, not the shoes – 2 Shoes’ abdominals are very visibly protected by a layer of thick foamy padding. Called fat.) so I’m happy. Judges! Everyone loves 2 Shoes because they’re Essex girls except Gary Barlow who tries to be mean but can’t do it in that acceptable way that Cowell always managed. I think Gary is just going to get frustrated at trying to fill Cowell’s niche (there’s an image...) and just say “You’re a cunt” as his critique at some point. Tulisa reminds Gary that Essex is “current”. What with it being an actual place that exists at the present moment in time.

Following 2 Shoes is James Michael, the male equivalent of Sophie Habibis. Actually, it’s worse than that, he doesn’t even have a memorable surname. For some reason James Michael’s staging involves projecting an image of Coronation Street onto a screen while he ineptly hits a guitar in a poorly realised simulacrum of actually playing one. He sings Ticket to Ride. It’s rather boring/terrible. He’s going home tomorrow. Judges! Gary heaps praise upon him because after all, “who would DARE take on a Beatles song? ONLY YOU!”. How about every contestant who was on this show for Beatles Week last year, Gary?

Next we have Misha B. Yep, following years of inactivity, Mischa Barton has decided to rejuvenate her sagging career by gaining a few pounds and reinventing herself as a feisty rapper-cum-songstress. Also, she is now black. The former star of The OC performs Adele’s Roling in the Deep. It is equally manic and sublime. Much of which is owed to the staging and costume – Misha is seated in a throne, wearing an outfit made from newspaper that’s all right angles and pointed edges, with a tiara atop her noodle. She looks like a cross between Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani’s solo career. It is absolutely ludicrous and amazing. Judges! Kelly Rowland tells her that she PUT IT DAHN. Apparently this means “put it down” and it is Ms K’s catchphrase because she only says it about 50 more times in this episode. And still I love her. Maybe it’s because she’s the only judge with a hint of personality.

Nu Vibe have the unfortunate task of following the first decent performance of the night. Needless to say, as a group hamfistedly thrown together at Boot Camp made up of individuals widely reported to not like one another, they don’t do the best job of Chris Brown’s Beautiful People. That’s the Chris Brown who beat up his girlfriend Rihanna. I mention that apropos of nothing; it’s just a fact always worth remembering. And it wasted a few sentences because Nu Vibe certainly aren’t interesting enough to warrant putting finger to keyboard for. Judges! Kelly says that Nu Vibe have a lot to live up to – Take That and Boyz II Men, and that they have to learn to PUT. IT. DAHN. I love you Kelly. If PUTTING IT DAHN continues I’m developing a drinking game based on how many times Kelly says it and the degree of sass employed in doing so. Tulisa and Gary have a spat and blah blah blah.

Marcus Collins is up next. Marcus is a gay hairdresser from Liverpool. In his intro video they confirm his gayness because none of us guessed when he said his occupation was gay hairdresser. Marcus decides to sing Moves Like Jagger, a bad song that decided to make itself even worse by uniting the twin annoyances of Xtina Aguilera and Adam Levine from Maroon 5, the band that cured insomnia. Marcus is competent enough and there’s neither anything terribly objectionable about the performance nor is there anything remarkable. He is also rather pretty. Judges! Louis says he likes Marcus because he’s always smiling. As in he’s happy. Happy as in GAY. Louis isn’t the most overt flirter in the world. Lock your door though, Marcus. Lock it well.

Next up is hefty bird Sami Brookes, the secret lovechild of Peter Kaye and Sonia from Eastenders, conceived and raised in a stable. Sami is the replacement for all genuine, no artificial Goldie Cheung, who Louis picked for his final four because he’s a gobshite. Anyway, Goldie saw sense so Sami is back, she’s had a makeover and now has beautifully conditioned fetlocks and is ready to blow us all away with her performance of Ultra Naté’s “Free”. It’s pretty good for about 30 seconds until it gets all club-anthemy but then gets all awesome again. Judges! Kelly compliments Sami for tapping into the “abundance of PUDDIN IT DAHN” on offer tonight. I wonder how many calories are in a Pudding It Dahn. Gary Barlow issues an ultimatum to Louis – if he axes Sami tomorrow, Gary will quit the show. I’m torn. I like Sami but if she’s the sacrificial horse to get rid of Gary...

The last of the groups (thank God) is The Risk. They’re called The Risk because Tulisa took a risk by putting them together all by herself with absolutely no input from the producers, as she likes to remind us over and over again. The Risk do that song She Said by Plan B; aka that white British rapper dude who isn’t Example or The Streets. It is terrible, but not as terrible as Nu Vibe. Then again, AIDS is less terrible than Nu Vibe, so that isn’t saying much. The judges, bizarrely, seem to like The Risk. Whatever.

The last of the boys to perform is Craig Colton, aka Biscuitman. Biscuitman is now reduced-fat Biscuitman as Gary Barlow’s put him on a diet because if he wins it’s hard enough to succeed when you’re a male artist signed to SyCo (see: Steve Brookstein, Leon Jackson, Olly Murs, Joe Babygay and Shayne Ward) without being fat on top of it. Biscuitman sings Christina Peri’s VERY EMOTIONAL song Jar of Hearts VERY EMOTIONALLY. Like, seriously, he goes completely over the top with his EMOTION FACES. It looks like someone is punching him in the kidney. Or perhaps it’s John Wilding, sitting at home pushing pins into his Craig Colton voodoo doll, thinking “That should be me up there instead of my biscuit-eating clone!”. Sing sing sing emotion emotion emotion – it’s like a carousel of overwrought facial contortions and ridiculous gurning. The judges loved it, because regardless of who is sitting in the seats, you can always be assured that an X-Factor judge will appreciate something that’s as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Hey everyone, IT’S KITTY! Remember Katie Waissel? Remember how desperate Katie was to be famous; going so far as to summon fiendish demons from Hell, make deals with the Russian mafia, and eventually forcing her own grandmother into prostitution in order to cover the costs incurred in voting for herself? Well Kitty Brucknell makes Katie Waissell look like a shy, retiring wallflower. It’s like God saw Katie Waissell and decided to make an even worse human being in order to teach Katie a lesson. Kitty is, in short, utterly amazing. Except tonight, when she does a fairly low-key performance of Queen’s Who Wants to Live Forever? Granted, low-key by Kitty’s standards means singing on a platform that’s gradually elevated overhead the stage as wind machines blow her floaty costume manically about, but still, I expect bespoke light-up catsuits and jumping into swimming pools from my Kitty. It’s all rather intense and there’s muted applause as though the audience are frightened that if they encourage Kitty too much, super-heated gases will erupt from her nostrils and incinerate them all as she literally becomes a star. The judges say they want Kitty to be more insane in future because that’s why she’s on the show, goddamit.

Our last contestant is wee Janet Devlin, aka Diana Vickers crossed with a wood elf. Janet somehow seems more Irish than ever. Oh Janet, you don’t need to do anything to play up your nationality – Louis Walsh is going to do that for you every damn week, whether you like it or not. Janet sings Coldplay’s Fix You. She has some affectations going on, but they’re nowhere near as bad as Frankie Syphilis’s Oh-VER e-NUN-see-ay-SHUN. It’s a charming and pleasant performance, I suppose, but nothing we haven’t seen her do before. AND IT’S ONLY THE FIRST SHOW. I can’t wait to see her reed-thin voice during Big Gay Disco Anthem week, or its equivalent. The judges loved Janet – she’s unique and wonderful and Louis reminds us that SHE IS IRISH, FROM COUNTY TYRONE IN IRELAND.

FINALLY, two and a half hours later, we arrive at the conclusion of the show. For anyone who managed this feat without resorting to alcohol or narcotics, I salute you. For those who managed to sit through the show without resorting to alcohol and who managed to retain your sight and hearing, congratulations indeed. Let’s see how you fare tomorrow when our 16 contestants revive the amazing X-Factor tradition of the execrable autotuned group song; and four of them go home in a series of decisions that will not involve the producers at all.

Diary of a Queen: Berlin Pt2

2011-08-09T21:17:00.001+01:00

Dear One’s Diary

Arrived safe and sound after a somewhat turbulent flight yesterday – I calmed my nerves by getting jolly on overpriced vodka. They’re fucking robbers, those Ryanair bastards. But I can’t stay angry at Michael O’Leary for long. I find him oddly alluring. Philip and I occasionally role-play; him as Michael, me as the anthropomorphic embodiment of the concept of profit. Oh, those are passionate nights. Checked into my hotel and in my drunken state almost gave the game away; momentarily forgetting that I’m here as Lois Carmen Denominator and not HRH Queen Elizabeth II. I covered my tracks by heavily tipping the young Aryan bell-hop who was taking my bags. I really shouldn’t have brought my tiara and sceptre with me, I suppose, but that’s what happens when you pack in a hurry, isn’t it?

I slept soundly, and arose early to see some sights on a walking tour. Well, I say walking, but I actually rented a Segway scooter. I’m not quite as young as I used to be and I don’t want to have my corns flare up at me on the first day of my holidays. We took in many a location; the Brandenburg Gates and the statue of Victory over Paris almost brought a tear to my eye – nothing touches me more than anti-French sentiment. Fucking frogs. We visited the largest stretch of Berlin Wall still standing – it’s surrounded by barriers to prevent people taking chunks as souvenirs but I reckon if I head back in the early hours of the night that I can hop the barrier, bash a chunk off with my sceptre and take cover in a nearby pub in no time at all, especially with the increased mobility and speed the Segway gives me. I think I’ll invest in one for home. Should make traversing Buckingham Palace a whole new experience. Among other locations, we also stopped by the site of Hitler’s death. Ah, diary, the nostalgia at revisiting the Fuhrerbunker brought me back to that glorious day in April 1945 when, incognito as Eva Braun, I surprised an amorous Adolf in the bunkerbedroom with a lady-magnum and brought his reign of terror to an end, single-handedly. Those were good times; I didn’t have as much fun after that until I brought the Cuban Missile Crisis to a close.

Following my walking tour, I visited the Zoo to lay a wreath for poor Knut, then made my way back to the hotel for a rest. Night fell, and I spent the evening whizzing about on the scooter visiting various pubs and clubs. I berated some ladies of the night who approached me offering their services; asking them what their mothers would think in perfect Deutsche. Things got heated and I gave one of them a whack with my handbag. Alas, I forgot my sceptre was in there and fell to the ground like a sack of herpes-riddled potatoes. I made a speedy getaway and settled in for the night at a pleasant little bar. I may have gotten slightly tipsy, as I awoke this morning back in my hotel room with no recollection of the journey back, no sceptre and no sign of my scooter. I think I’ll miss that more than the sceptre, which was getting a little bit worn looking. And there's plenty more where it came from, anyway.

I have lots of plans for the remainder of my holiday, however I see things are quite fraught back home in London. If that twit Cameron and bumbling oaf Boris can’t set things straight I’ll have to head back and sort it out myself.

Ich Bin Ein Lizzie

Diary of a Queen: Berlin Pt1

2011-08-08T00:12:00.003+01:00

Dear One’s Diary

The flight and hotel have been booked – I’m heading to Berlin for my Summer sojourn. It’s always nice to visit the motherland, and to do so in disguise, as one of the common people, affords a wonderful opportunity to experience a different side to a place; one that normally eludes me as I am forced to march through a procession of formal events, pomp and pageantry. I first hit upon the notion of using a disguise back in 1998, when I desperately wished to visit Brazil during Carnival but couldn’t afford to be discovered parting hard in the streets of Rio given that I was meant to be showing restraint following the death of Diana. Ironic that I had to go to such lengths to avoid scandal given the amount of it she generated during her public life. And doubly ironic that her “death” should inconvenience me so at the time when I actually have her chained up in the Tower, alive and mostly well. But I digress. Over the years I have carefully refined my disguise into a distinct alter ego – Lois Carmen Denominator. Married seven times to various multi-millionaire hotel magnates and entrepreneurs who died suspiciously, Lois is an eccentric and profligate woman-of-means, a refined and sophisticated culture vulture and occasional party animal. She is an enigma, wrapped in a guessing game, stuffed into a blender full of questions and smeared all over the playing pieces of Cluedo. She has become a dear friend to me, this persona I adopt, and I slip into her as easily as I do a pair of scarlet crotch-less suspenders.

I plan to take in several sights, and I may perhaps slip out of the Lois Common Denominator disguise to share some tea with Angela and give her some more advice on how she could appear more feminine. Though she didn’t take kindly to my previous advice on hemlines and lipstick and promptly deleted it from her Wall. Perhaps I'll share with her my ideas on sorting out this European debt crisis instead, or have a laugh or two about that insecure toad Nicholas.

Ich Bin Ein Lizzie

Diary of a Queen: July 04th

2011-07-04T23:08:00.003+01:00

Happy Independence Day, former subjects! The door is always open to return should you ever tire of being run by Biblical literalists who marry their cousins. I know, I know, I’m one to talk about in-breeding, but the offer stands.

I realise that I never finished blogging about my experiences in Ireland. Well, I can’t be fucking arsed finishing it now and even if I wanted to, I went off my tits on Salvia Divinorum and can’t remember much of the last 3 weeks. I think I forgot to feed Diana, too. Whoops. Oh well, it's not like starving for 3 weeks is a new experience to her. I think she once survived for 2 months on nothing but dust and the smell of roast beef; just to fit into a John Galliano.

William and Kate are having a smashing time in Canada. They’re terribly popular. I wonder, for the sake of the future of the monarchy, would it be possible to abort Charles at this late stage?

I'm off to do some Yogalates. I find it makes me nice and limber for my tantric sex sessions with Philip.

TTYL

Lizzie

Diary of a Queen: May 19th

2011-05-19T23:28:00.004+01:00

Dear One’s Diary,

Following yesterday’s rather packed itinerary, today was meant to be a rather more relaxed affair as I visited the National Stud to inspect the quality of Irish horses these days. However, it had completely slipped my mind that Philip and I were attending separate engagements after the visit to the Stud, so I spent most of my time extremely apprehensive, convinced that he was going to go on a rampage, barking accusations at the natives and taking yesterday’s gift of a hurley to the heads of those he suspected of being involved in the death of Lord Mountbatten. I need not have worried, however, as he was perfectly well-behaved and didn’t do anything to upset the apple cart. My beautiful speech from last night must have convinced him that it was time to let bygones be bygones and move on in unity. I wrote most of it on my iPad on the flight over from London, you know, and still had time for a few levels of Angry Birds. It’s even more impressive when you consider that I was off my tits on Xanax to quell my flying nerves.

Despite being preoccupied with thoughts of what Philip might get up to, I did enjoy my time at the National Stud, although some of the horses had the look of Camilla about them, so I was careful to be on my guard in their presence. I must admit to reaching into my knickers to pat my lady-magnum a couple of times, which drew one or two strange glances. But fuck ‘em, I’m the Queen. I can do what I want.

So I had the afternoon off while Philip attended his engagement, which, as I mentioned, went surprisingly well. I relaxed at Farmleigh and spent a couple of hours reading Twilight: New Moon and drinking sherry. I'm determined to finish the series before the last film comes out. Then I downloaded a few episodes of Jersey Shore and put my feet up in my Snooki slippers to stare, aghast, at the latest adventures of those vile creatures. I really don’t know why I put myself through the torture of watching that show – it is possibly the strongest case for forced sterilisation of the vapid ever made. But it’s like a car crash in a Parisian tunnel – you can’t help but keep watching. I took 40 winks after that, then readied myself for my evening engagement.

I met Philip at the National Convention Centre where the British Ambassador was holding an Indoor Garden Party for us. And 2,000 other invited guests. I was curious as to what exactly an “Indoor Garden Party”, held in a giant corporate glasshouse, meant. It means lots of potted plants. There was a fashion show, which was terribly tedious. Nothing bores me more than fashion. I don’t need to see a parade of waifs suffering from malnutrition to tell me how to dress. I know I look fabulous all the fucking time. After the stick insects had scuttled off to vomit backstage, I had my auditory canals raped by the massive, throbbing penis of shit music, in the shape of Westlife. Clearly the Ambassador did not get the memo informing him that I was more in the mood for a bit of Epic Doom Metal or Swedish Industrial Techno Trance. I had 15 e-tabs in my handbag and not once did I feel like popping them. Mary Byrne and Eimear Quinn do not make one want to get loved up and lost in euphoria.

Tomorrow is my last day in Ireland, and I shall be visiting the Rock of Cashel and the English Market in Cork. I hope they sell souvenirs there. I promised Harry I’d get him one of those oversized Leprechaun hats.

Is mise,
Banríon Éilís a Dó

Diary of a Queen: May 18th

2011-05-18T23:38:00.003+01:00

Dear One’s Diary,

Terribly busy day today; one is absolutely knackered. I was rudely awoken at an ungodly hour by Philip poking me in the back with his cock. He always gets randy when we’re sleeping in a foreign bedroom. He once joked about keeping a list called “Places I’ve Had Sex with the Queen” but I’m not sure that it’s a joke any more. After dealing with him, I had just about enough time to shower and shave my legs before we were off to the Guinness Storehouse. I’m not much of a stout person; I prefer vodka, gin, brandy, whiskey, whisky, bourbon, absinthe, wine, tequila and my old favourite Sambuca – so I declined the opportunity to taste some of Ireland’s famous tipple. Philip was quite tempted though, until he saw me glowering. What with his tenacious desire to apprehend Lord Mountbatten’s killers on this trip, I thought it best to prevent him imbibing anything that would contribute to increased rambunctiousness on his part.

Following our tour of the stoutery, we were off to the imaginatively titled Government Buildings where I was shown around by that Pinocchio fellow I met yesterday. Sweet divine mother of Christ, he is extraordinarily dull. I can’t recall a single word he mumbled other than the fact that he repeated the phrase “Ireland is open for business” a few dozen times. He may have also mentioned a 5-point plan, but I was too busy admiring the handsome man in the portrait overhead us. Michael Collins, or something. He looked tall. I like my men tall.

Next up was the War Memorial Garden, where I laid a wreath in honour of the Irish who died fighting the Krauts in both wars. Visiting such memorials is necessary to keep people off my family’s deep, dark secret: that we are actually of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Goethe. Mercifully, no one has ever found that out. My family is very good at keeping secrets. For example, I’m still amazed no one has yet discovered we have Diana locked up in the Tower. The skank.

Following that we visited Croke Park, where the Irish play some of their traditional games. I had no idea they had so many original sports – Irish Hockey, Irish Hockey for Lesbians, Irish Football and something called Handle-the-Ball. I was quite interested in the Irish Hockey Stick, as it was quite similar to the shinty stick I used to beat Charles with when he was a lad. And still occasionally do. I was quite tempted to take it to the protestors outside but Philip reminded me that it wouldn’t be good PR to have the monarch herself slaughter a handful of natives 90 years after a similar incident by overzealous constables acting in Grandpapa’s name. A different time, a different place and I would have bashed their fucking heads in, I can tell you that much.

The final event of the day was a State Dinner. I was seated near that bore Cameron but at least Hague was nowhere to be seen. The shiny-headed bollocks was probably innocently sleeping on the floor of an aide’s hotel room, no doubt. Speaking of sexual impropriety, I also noted the presence of Iris Robinson, the scarlet woman of Strangford. I made sure to grasp Philip tightly when she was nearby. One can never be too cautious when one is in the presence of a wanton woman, as I learned that terrible Christmas when Diana attempted to get over-familiar with one’s Philip. The skank. I delivered a well-received speech; I made the joke about Stephen Hawking and the vibrator which always goes down a treat at these sorts of gatherings, and quickly retired to my chambers before Cameron could grab me for some photo opportunities. I honestly never thought I’d miss Gordon Brown, or Blinky as I liked to call him.

We have a much more sedate day planned for tomorrow; we’re to visit the National Stud to meet some of Camilla’s distant relatives. I’d best be on my guard though; they might be in cahoots with Charles.

Is mise,
Lizzie

Diary of a Queen: May 17th

2011-05-17T23:15:00.001+01:00

Dear One’s Diary,

Well, I think that went rather swimmingly actually. Philip and I arrived in Ireland just before noon. I had a quick sip or three of some sherry to steady my nerves before we disembarked and were greeted by their version of Nick Clegg, some fellow named Gilmore. Pleasant enough chap, though Philip almost ruined the occasion by accusing him of murdering Lord Mountbatten. I should’ve known bringing Philip would cause problems – he has an awful habit of accusing anyone with the tiniest drop of Irish blood of being involved in his Uncle’s death. I managed to brush it aside as one of his trademark gaffes and an example of his queer Greek sense of humour.

We were escorted to Aras an Mary to meet Mary Something, the current Mary of Ireland. Later on, I visited Trinity College where I met Mary Robinson, the previous Mary. Naming conventions in this country confuse me so. It must be a Catholic thing. Regardless, I had a lovely light lunch with Mary and her husband, Dr. Mary, before changing into my white gardening outfit so that I could plant a tree. A strange reversal of position; the Royal at work in the Irishman’s garden. It’s usually the other way around. I also met the Irish version of David Cameron, a strange little fellow named Edna who appears to be made of wood. For the briefest of moments I thought I was being shown an incredibly lifelike carving in the likeness of a bland looking man. I think I shall call him Pinocchio. I’m the Queen. I can do that.

Onwards to the Garden of Remembrance, where some citizens of Eire had gathered at a distance to celebrate the Royal Presence and chant for me to wear my Black and Tan outfit for some reason. Then they released some black balloons in a measured gesture to reflect the solemnity of the visit. Lovely people; I really can’t see the need for such a high security presence if all Eirefolk are as welcoming as those, aside from the possibility that Charles would take advantage of the situation to try and do me in, obviously. So nice of the Irish to provide security to protect me from my son’s machinations, when I think about it. But it’s not necessary, I do have a black belt in Tae Kwan Do and a small magnum in my knickers at all times, after all. Still, I said nothing, as they’re spending a lot of money that they don’t have just to keep me safe so I wouldn’t want to embarrass them.

Finally, we visited Trinity College where I was shown the Book of Kells. Turns out I had misread my itinerary; I’d originally thought we were going to be viewing the Book of Kelis, which I assumed would be a collection of illustrated lyrics to such hits as Milkshake and (Let’s Get It On) In Public. While I was distracted by the 1200 year old doodles of angels and harps, Philip accused a young woman of killing Lord Mountbatten. Mercifully, she was deaf, and no one else overheard him thanks to the harpist playing nearby. He’s such a fucking dildo sometimes. If he wasn’t such a fantastic ride I would’ve ditched him years ago.

Super Sovereign
Banríon Éilís a Dó

Diary of a Queen: May 16th

2011-05-16T23:31:00.002+01:00

Dear One’s Diary,

It’s time for another holiday at my subjects’ expense but this one is a little bit more interesting than most – I’m going to Ireland! It’s one of the few places I’ve never been before and they’re really splashing the cash on the security operation – truth be told they’re spending a lot more on keeping me safe than they are on Obama for his visit the week after. One is pleased by this.

The visit was arranged by their President, Mary Something. To be perfectly frank, I can’t tell any of these Irish heads of state apart. They’re always called Mary something or other. The current Mary lives somewhere called Phoenix Park, where they have a charming cricket ground and some deer. I’d love to shoot at some of them with Philip but I’ve mislaid my shooting spectacles. Anyway, I’m quite looking forward to it; though I’m still completely fucked from William’s recent wedding. It was the party that wouldn’t end – my hands still start jittering every time I see a bottle of Sambuca. I just don’t have the constitution for these weeks-long benders since Margaret died.

I have a larger entourage of hangers-on trying to bask in my reflected Queenly glory than usual due to the importance of this particular trip. That limp-dick David Cameron has insisted on accompanying me, as is that faggot Hague (don’t get me wrong, I love my gays – they don’t call me the original Lady Gaga for nothing after all, but Hague just rubs me the wrong way. I think it’s that grating voice) and there’s some Northern Irish dude I have no idea about; I’ll have to get my Private Secretary to make me some cheat sheets with the names and pictures of some of these people I’ll be expected to recognise. Or I could just do a doddery old woman routine on it if I can’t be arsed. I am 85 after all. And the Queen. If I can't remember someone's name they'll just have to get the fuck over it.

That reminds me, I nearly broke my hole the other day at dinner with Charles – I did the whole pretending-to-be-a-bit-Alzheimer’s thing again (my current favourite practical joke) and then started complaining about a sudden sharp pain in my head. Then I slumped forward, held my breath and started drooling my sweet mango chutney salsa. I swear that the sudden avaricious look on the bastard’s face as he thought he’d finally got the Crown just reinforced my desire to not die until after he does. I’d best be careful during my trip to Ireland, actually, what with scumbag Provos having a bounty on my tiara-topped noggin, it’d provide the perfect cover for Charles to mount yet another attempt on my life. I do so tire of the boy; I really thought he’d get over all of this when I allowed him to marry the horse-woman.

Anyway, enough about the disappointment that is the abortion that got away; I’d best get to bed. I’ll have an early start tomorrow if I want to go over those cheat-sheets.

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor
Super Sovereign

Breaking the Video: Til the World Ends

2011-04-18T21:15:00.020+01:00

Modern music videos are as artistic and complex now as they were back in the day when Olivia Newton John used the cinematic experience of Let's Get Physical to explore gender norms of the 1980s. From Lady Gaga’s 7-minute epics to Katy Perry’s exploding firework nipples, it can be quite difficult to tease out the story of many modern videos from beneath the many layers of meaningful imagery draped atop one another. But don’t despair, I’m here to help. Let’s take a look at the magnificent storytelling at work in Britney Spears’s latest masterwork, Til the World Ends.

Setting is very important. The opening to Til the World Ends is designed to let us know that these events take place in the future. And that in the future there will be lens flare.

And shoes. In the future there will also be shoes.

Shoes belonging to Britney Spears! But what hip and happening venue is the reknowned party-girl and trend-setter cavorting in on this fine December evening in the space-year 2012?

Heavens!... It's a sewer! What on Earth is Britney Spears doing in the cavernous underground resting place of mankind's post-dinner leavings?

Ah! The answer lies in the heavens themselves. A gigantic asteroid, the size of Texas is breaking up in Earth’s atmosphere, and has driven the ethnically diverse population of this city underground. Aside from the fat or ugly ones, obviously, as there is no sign of any such people in the doomed world depicted in this video. Perhaps Britney convinced her followers to sacrifice the unattractive in a bid to placate the great asteroid God.

With the end of the world at hand, Britney is partaking in a sex orgy with those who weren’t eligible for her failed attempted at preventing the doom of the Earth through ritual genocide of the ugly. No doubt forgoing the use of condoms as one last fuck-you to the cruel fate of this world, Britney presumably chose the filth and disease-riddled sewers for her sex party to extend the middle finger even further to the cruel and uncaring God who has cast his people aside.

Further evidence of Britney's anger at God can be seen when she leads her followers in crossing their arms, as if to say "No, God. I will not pray to you. I will not ask for divine intervention. I will not ask for mercy. I will fuck in the sewers instead. You cunt."

A sad Britney and some man-friends take a break from the shagging to despair at the fact that they will all die with such terrible hairstyles.

The sexcapades are interrupted as a sudden burst of light floods the subterranean chamber...

...from the window. Yes. This must be one of those famous sewer-windows.

Ah! The asteroid has passed harmlessly by. What a pity for all those ugly people Britney massacred.

An agape Britney momentarily regrets taking refuge in an underground network of shite-encrusted tunnels, home to millions of disease-carrying rats and birthplace of her ex-husband Keven Federline.

But she feels much better when she emerges from the manhole to a bright new day in a world where her record company and parents no longer exist, giving her the choice to experience what life is like for those who aren’t hyper-medicated puppets of record labels, forced to listlessly shuffle about on stage miming tracks fed to them by a a heartless machine determined to extract profit regardless of the toll taken on an already frail mental state.

Full of hope and joy, Britney wonders where she can take her newfound love of emerging from holes in unexpected places...

Live Nude Euroblog 2011

2011-02-12T00:54:00.005Z

What a day for music. First, Lady Gaga gifts us with her least compelling single thus far (I retain the right to change my mind after multiple listens) and just a few hours later we have the competition to choose who shall represent Ireland in the ultimate contest of champions: Eurovision. I shall be interspersing this live-blog with some random quotes from the website of Mr. Johnny Logan - equal parts national treasure and national embarrassment, presented absolutely apropos of nothing and without context. I think you’ll find that devoid of context, The Lord Logan’s self-aggrandising web-copy reads almost like a Homeric epic exploring the concept of ego and delusion in art. Placed in italics, these snippets will spin an account of an artist out of touch with reality who needs to constantly assure himself and anyone stupid enough to visit his website that his is a once-a-generation talent that has gone tragically unrecognised. Where does Johnny Logan get his inspiration? And where did he find an alcoholic dyslexic to write the text for his website?

Johnny Logans wrote and sund the theme song Angels Dont't Hide for the German television show Blue Blood

Amazing.

God I hate Ryan Tubridy. Especially in that League of Gentlemen inspired ad for 2FM. Just the way he raises his eyebrow in it makes me want to decapitate him using one of Johnny Logan’s many thousands of platinum discs. Ryan pimps out some car they’re giving away as a prize tonight, for the first person to correctly guess how many times Dana has had a good riding up the backside in the last 12 months. I lie. The question is actually “Who sang All Kinds of Everything? – Dana, Dana or Dana.”. Ryan welcomes hefty bird Niamh Kavanagh to resurrect the ghost of Irish Eurovision glories past with a performance of In Your Eyes. Niamh looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards. Maybe the rowdier members of the audience (and there seem to be a few of them) beat her for doing so shit last year. Niamh is delivering a jazzy sexed-up version of In Your Eyes with a filthy glimmer in her eyes. Losing weight must’ve increased her libido. The dirtbird.

Ryan introduces poor-quality Willie O’Dea clone Marty Whelan for a bit of “humourous” banter and to retread the conversation they had last year when Marty was a guest on this very same show. Should we withdraw? No. Is there tactical voting? Somewhat. The next guest for our panel of judges is some woman from Buck’s Fizz. Cheryl something. Scraping the barrel already and we’re only halfway through the panel. It seems that we won’t be getting Dana this year, because she has discarded her physical form and ascended to become the answer to tonight’s competition question. That’s right, Dana has left the world of flesh and blood behind in order to become a concept. She’ll be delighted. She’s getting more and more like Jesus every year. Brian Kennedy is next, representing the pink vote. He informs us that when you get up on stage, you actually become Ireland. Jesus, what is it about tonight’s Late Late Show and Irish musicians transforming into concepts. Our final judge is some woman from the Ray Darcy show, but the important thing is that she isn’t Ray or Ray’s partner, so we won’t be forced to endure a lot of talk about what funny thing their stupid fucking child did yesterday. This is a disgrace. No J. Log? No Dana? I am disgusted. I need to read from the Blessed Book of Logan to centre myself.

Johnny Logan did not only perform for Pope Johannes Paul II, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, but also appeared with the top of the international music industry such as Montserrat Caballé, Helen Shapiro or the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

That’s better. We get a recap of recent winners and then Ryan runs through the voting procedure, which is EVEN MORE COMPLICATED THAN EVER. There are thirds and halves and quarters and the important thing to note is that it’s all a conspiracy to prevent Jedward from winning because RTE don’t want a repeat of the Dustin fiasco, despite the fact that that was all their fault in the first place. The voting is being overseen by an evil man from KPMG who looks like the Grinch and caused the recession.

Our first song is “an uptempo, pop-flavoured rock track” according to the Songwriter, who looks like Eamon DeValera. Have we really gotten so bad at Eurovision that we had to resurrect Dev to save us from embarrassing ourselves again? The singer is Don Mescall, who also co-wrote the song with Dev, kinda like the way Dev co-wrote the Constitution with the Catholic Church. Don Mescall is one of those guys of a certain age dressed like he’s half that certain age. Basically, he’s about 40 but looks like a Topman exploded next to him, right down to the shitty chunky jewellery. He does a fist-pump, stage-kick thing that would look less ridiculous if he wasn’t 68. You know that scene in The Simpsons where Luke Perry appears and scrunches up his face and it gets all wrinkly? That’s what’s happening during every part of this where Don is singing. I didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics because I was so distracted by Don’s amazing guitarist, who looks sort of like a cross between Dani from Fade Street and Rosie Webster from Corrie when she was having her Goth phase. Judges! They like it. They also like the colour beige, and flat Coca-Cola. The judges are really pushing a REAL SINGERS and REAL SONG and PLAYING INSTRUMENTS vibe that totally smacks of hatin’ on Jedward. Conspiracy!

Speaking of, they’re up next. .. Lipstick is a terribly catchy song. As usual with Jedward, one of them is slightly more into the whole thing than the other one. He kicks higher, head-bangs with greater enthusiasm and is obviously the top in that relationship. I don’t know what else to say about this one other than it’s a good song which might have benefitted slightly from being sung by actual singers. But then it wouldn’t be half as awesome. Judges! Brian Kennedy tries to be funny by referring to Britney Spears as “Broccoli Spears”. Needless to say, this fails terribly. Unless you’re 5 years old in which case it is probably the funniest thing ever. The girl from Today FM didn’t like it and tactlessly tells us as much. Ad break! Time for more words of wisdom from His Loganess.

A good deal is written about singers with an exceptional talent. Many long to be exceptional in the vibrant and ever faster moving music business. Johnny Logan is! His extraordinary success aside, his talent as a singer is outstanding. Those who ever saw him perform live, can't get over the amazing qualities this ever humble 'lad' carries in his voice.

Dear RTE, no matter how much you advertise it, you are not going to get me to watch RAW. When we return, Ryan reminds us that the opinion of the panel is just that – an opinion. He reminds us of this because Dana isn’t here this year to do so. Our next song is Shine On. Written by “Mahoney”, who is Ireland’s answer to Red One (probably) and performed by Bling. Bling are a hastily put together group of nobodies who were initially touted as a “mystery act” which had everyone thinking for a brief moment that we were going to get someone genuinely exciting. Instead we get 2 guys and 2 girls who look like a group from a Christian Youth talent contest. The song is very inoffensive but ultimately quite boring, just like all the other hundreds of Eurovision/Eurosong entries there are every year which feature the word Shine in some way. Judges! This was Cheryl’s least favourite song when she heard it earlier but she likes it live because she got to watch the boys perform in tight trousers. Brian Kennedy agrees.

The fourth act are the Vard Sisters and their massive noses, with Send Me an Angel (to bless away my nose), which, the songwriter informs us, is inspired by the recession and the way it has left lots of middle aged women bereft of the disposable income they had in previous years for procedures like rhinoplasty. Because if the Eurovision song contest is about anything, it’s economic misery and austerity. The song, he continues, is a universal message of hope, because sometimes we all need someone (i.e. an “angel”) to help us out. Amazing. If the previous group were like someone from a Christian talent contest then these three are their mothers. It’s all a bit dour and lifeless and instead of recapping what the judges had to say, I’m going to paste another gem from Johnny Logan’s amazingly restrained and modest website.

But Johnny Logan is far more than a Eurovisions-Icon. The exceptional singer and composer has shown world format with numerous other songs and albums of Evergreen quality and considerably influenced the pop scenery.

Our final choon is called Falling and is performed by Nicki Kavanagh, who was a backing singer for Niamh Kavanagh (no relation) last year. The songwriter assures us that Nicki is a singer, who can sing. Live. Because being able to sing is important, he explains. Hmmm, I think he might be trying to make a point, but about what I have no real idea. Luckily, he goes on to spell it out by lambasting Jedward and Ireland for not taking the competition seriously in previous years (i.e. Dustin) because it is such a huge international musical extravaganza. Backstage, John Grimes falls tearfully into Edward’s manful embrace. Falling is a fairly catchy song, but as with Lipstick, you kinda feel it would’ve been better with a stronger singer. So much for your assurances about Nicki’s capabilities, Mr. Cruel Songwriter Man. Judges! Brian Kennedy takes this opportunity to holla out to his “Eurovision Queen” grrlfreen’s somewhere in the audience, who will be hosting a Eurovision Party followed by a trip to The George followed by a Meth Orgy back at their apartment on May 14^th. Bring your own poppers.

Voting lines open and we are treated to a brief reminder of all the performances. And this coming just as I had almost managed to forget the horrors of watching a pensioner prancing around wailing “Talking with Jennnnnnifer” accompanied by the very definition of a Middle of the Road melody. Tubridy then welcomes on Cynthia ni Murchu and Mary Kennedy, for reasons beyond me. WHERE THE FUCK IS JOHNNY LOGAN? Maybe he’s busy promoting one of his million-seller evergreen hits in Europe. Speaking of Johnny, here’s another piece of sterling information from his website, which is the 3^rd most popular online destination in Montenegro.

Johnny Logan, the artist, is much more than Mr. Eurovision Song Contest. Johnny Logan stands for crafted music of many different shades and styles, unlimited friendship and life by the bucketful.

Results! The regional juries account for 66% of the overall results, while the viewer votes account for 33%. CONSPIRACY ABOUNDS! The regional juries come from Waterford, Limerick, Galway, Caaaaaaaark, Dublin, and the Mecca of the North-West, Sligo. The majority of them award 12 points to Falling and 10 points to Jedward, with the exception of Limerick (12 points for the twins, w00t) and Galway (8 points for Jedward, because they’re all about credibility in the city of the Tribes). It all comes down to the public vote... and they make the right decision, with Jedward topping the poll and ultimately just scraping enough points to overtake Falling. Oh noes. Real music has lost again. We should hang our heads in shame.

I’ll let Johnny Logan’s webmaster have the last words.

Many artists live on their past success for decades but Johnny Logans star today shines brighter than ever.

Truer words, mysterious illiterate. Truer words.