X-Factor: Week Five

Week 5! OF! THE X-FACTUH! Previously: Katie Waissel saw off the challenge of Belle Amie in the second sing off for each. Waissel later murdered several infants and placed their corpses in a pentagram as offering to her favoured gods for seeing her through another week. THIS WEEK! American Anthems is the theme, which, given how seriously we’re taking themed weeks probably means any song that has ever been released on the same planet as America.

First up, after the ten minutes of padding that starts the show, is Cher Lloyd. Cher’s American Anthem is Empire State of Mind, meaning we’re back to familiar territory as she “raps” and does some ugly faces while the dancers lark about on skateboards in chav clothes from Penney’s. I’m sure we’ve seen the same staging and backing performance in just about every Cher Lloyd performance thus far. I guess this is what Cowell means when he continuously bleats on about how relevant and current Cher is. Judges! Louis thinks Cher will be in the final, Dannii thinks the song was written for Cher and Cowell didn’t like it because he’s playing a canny game and wants to encourage people to vote for Cher by badmouthing her himself.

Mary Tesco is up next, singing Faith Hill’s There You’ll Be, from Pearl Harbour. For those of you keeping track of the attempts at thoroughly modernising Mary, this song is from 2001, meaning Mary’s jumped forward in time by about three decades since last week’s performance. This week, she’s really struggling and it’s certainly the worst we’ve ever seen from her. She’s definitely missing something, and I think I know what it is – the devil horns. If they give Mary a prop to put on her noggin I bet she’ll be back to her power ballad belting self in no time. Performance finished, Mary looks devastated because she knows it was as awful as a pensioner coming to her checkout 2 minutes before she finishes work. Judges! All of them are aware it was awful, but look forward to seeing Mary back her usual self next week. A quick jaunt with Wagner will set her right.

Katie Waissel! The intro video shows Katie falling off-stage after last week’s sing-off and into Rebecca Ferguson’s arms as she wails “I HATE THIS!” and has a pretend panic attack. This week’s attempt to get the public on Katie’s side revolves around dispelling some of the myths around her – so we get 5 seconds glossing over her previous attempts to make it in the music biz without actually mentioning the fact that she was suspiciously released from her record deal to appear on the huge publicity platform that is the X-Factor, nor does it deal with her extensive ties to people behind the scenes of the show. Katie is singing No Doubt’s Don’t Speak... accompanied by a hilarious video of Katie having a breakdown with mascara running down her face in several rivulets. Hey Waissel, if you want us to feel sympathy for you, here’s an idea – don’t make light of your own well-publicised supposed breakdown. Also, judging by the performance in the video, Katie should definitely stick to the singing rather than the amateur dramatics. The performance isn’t great – Katie ain’t Gwen Stefani. Judges! Louis liked it, because Louis is slowly becoming Paula Abdul and likes everyone these days, even soulless amoral monsters like Katie. Dannii says she only likes Katie when she’s in the sing off, which I guess means Dannii likes the smell of desperation and Simon says it fell apart in the middle.

Aiden Grimshaw and his Amazingly Broad Shoulders have an intro video wherein himself and Dannii basically decide that they’re not going to attempt to de-intensify his performances, which I guess means that several thousand children will continue having nightmares about a broad shouldered teenager of ambiguous sexuality with hipster hair coming to murder them in the dead of night. Aiden is singing the Sinead O’Connor version of Nothing Comapres 2 U, but it was originally written by Prince so I suppose it remains thematically valid. Aiden peppers his performance with a few smiles which I guess means himself and Dannii were lying. Either that or he was remembering the brains and fava beans he has waiting in the fridge to reheat. Judges! Louis can’t find anything negative to say, because he has a crush on Aiden, Cheryl has accepted Aiden’s intensity because he probably sent her her mother’s little finger in an envelope, and Cowell is highly impressed by Aiden’s performance of a song he only decided to do 24 hours ago, presumably because they forgot to clear the rights to whatever he had intended to perform originally.

Big Gay Paije! Continuity error! As Paije is opening the door to leave his house in his intro video, his Big Gay Fashion Scarf is tied; but when we see him emerge from outside his house, the Big Gay Fashion Scarf is no longer tied. Oh Paije, is everything you say and do a lie? Or did you just collapse into a breathless mess from the exertion of opening the door and have to wait an hour to film the bit where you leave the house? You fat bastard. Paije is doing a mash up of I’m a Believer and Hey Ya. It’s probably his best performance to date, although he still runs out of breath from the effort of walking around the stage. One can only imagine the fun Brian Friedman has coming up with the staging for a Paije performance knowing that just getting him to lift the microphone might leave him wheezing near-death. Judges! Pretty much agree that it was Paije’s best performance. Louis also bizarrely compares Paije to a “young Lenny Henry”. Louis doesn’t have many black friends.

Rebecca Ferguson! Singing that song what Gamu sang at Bootcamp. The intro video is like Rebecca herself: nice but boring. Cowell was right, she really is the new Leona Lewis. The performance is good, but it doesn’t make Louis cry so we can only conclude that it wasn’t as good as Gamu at boot camp and that Gamu was robbed by the vagaries of UK immigration law. Damn you, law. Judges! They loved it, because they are determined to make us forget Gamu. But we will remember, damn you! Tiocfaidh ár Gamú!

WAGNER! Performing another mash-up, because no one song can ever contain all of Wagner’s brilliance. This week, Wagner is putting Elvis to shame with his own unique spin on Viva Las Vegas and The Wonder of You. Wagner redefines music yet again by showing that you don’t have to be in time with the music or even in-tune to be the embodiment of lyrical amazingness. It’s like that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa extols the virtues of listening to the notes that aren’t being played. The performance sees Wagner sing alongside a troupe of high-kicking, bunny-eared chorus dancers, before marrying one of them. It is truly Brian Friedman’s most accomplished routine to date, brought to life with effortless ease by the acting talent of Wagner. Presumably Wagner had the dancer playing the part of the minister officiating the ceremony replaced with an actual minister just before coming on-stage. I give it a month. Wagner could never commit to just one woman for the rest of his life. Judges! Dannii and Cheryl conspire to send Wagner to Vegas, presumably because they’re unable to deal with their lustful urges towards him. Cowell admits he likes Wagner, and the temperature in Hell drops a few degrees. Louis accuses Wagner of singing in tune on the 2^nd song. Don’t be ridiculous, Louis.

Matt Cardle! His intro video is fairly boring, all about his love of music and attempts to make it in the music biz and blah blah blah. Oh Matt, why won’t you try and emotionally blackmail us with a tale of when you had cancer as a two year old? Matt is singing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, which he first performed at boot camp (and made Nicole Sherzingdoll cry) and just like then he’s pretty flawless this time around, and probably makes half the female population watching the show fall in love with him, thus setting them on an inevitable course for all-out war with the other 50% who adore Bieber Squad because they’re sooooo cuuuuuuute. The judges’ opinions are pretty obvious when they rise to give Matt the first four-man standing ovation of the series – each of them thought it was excellent. Matt tells Dermot he feels weak afterwards, presumably because Katie Waissel is backstage using black magic to feed off of the emotion from that performance, while she scrawls “What is this thing you humans call love?” in blood on the walls.

Next up, is Treyc and her Massive Arse and Poor Spelling. The intro video features a hilarious moment where Cheryl Cole of all people advises Treyc on how to tap into the emotion of the song. Treyc is performing Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, from the soundtrack of Armageddon, a film about the only objects in the galaxy as wide and dangerous as Treyc’s massive arse. Given that the last time she sang a rock song she ended up in the bottom two this probably wasn’t the wisest decision. In light of the fact that she doesn’t sing it particularly well, it definitely wasn’t the wisest decision. Judges! Dannii thinks that when Treyc does rock she really sparkles. No Dannii, that’s just the expensive dental work Cowell makes every contestant undergo before letting them loose on the live shows. Cowell can’t fault it but wishes Treyc was a lion who would lick him. Or something. And Louis likes puppies and lollipops and sunshine and everything.

Finally, we have One Dimension. Intro video highlight: Cheryl Cole, realising that Simon only has one act left, says “Simon has literally got One Direction. One.” And then she beams with delight and the most empty-headed smile imaginable as though she has just delivered the must devastatingly witty piece of wordplay since Shakespeare shuffled off the mortal coil. Bieber Squad will be performing Kids in America, written by... an Englishman... originally performed by... an Englishwoman... but it has America in the title so it’s an American anthem! And they’re kids! Oh, I get it now... that is surely as clever as Cheryl’s verbal onslaught from just a few moments ago. Anyway, the performance is the usual Bieber Squad nonsense – lots of screaming from the wet-knickered 15 year old girls in the audience drowning out the boys’ failing attempts to be in tune (though it is the MOST in tune they’ve been... never let it be said I do not give praise where it is due, even to acts that make me want to claw my eyes out with my vomit covered fingernails).

Results Show!

This week’s Horrendous Group Song is Pink’s So What, and let me tell you that there is nothing more terrifying or more believable than seeing Cher Lloyd threaten to “get in a fight” through the medium of song. The big fucking pikey. In fact, when Paije appears on stage he actually looks genuinely terrified, like a big gay rabbit in the headlights. Maybe he just remembered that he’d left his laptop unlocked while his mother was in his dressing room or something. Dermot congratulates Cheryl on her album going in at number one, and Cheryl’s happy grin says she’s really chuffed about it. And the fact that Nadine Coyle’s single tickled the charts somewhere around 26^th place.

Our first guest is “singing sensation” Shayne Ward, who X-Factor have remembered actually exists after about two years of invisibility and neglect during which they decided to keep him on contract anyway. He gets some Matrix-y staging and a fairly boring song that I fail to pay attention to because the excitable intro video featured many topless photographs that for some reason gave me a compulsion to Google Image Search for “Shayne Ward shirtless”. Shayne is thankful to be back on stage, which translates roughly as “I am thankful to be back in the public consciousness even if my single is doomed to go in at number 9”.

Our next guest is genuine singing sensation Kylie Minogue, who has a bit of a love fest with her sister before performing a boring song and having another love fest with her sister. RESULTS! Aiden, Rebecca and Matt are safe. So are One Dimension. Paije is safe! He quickly runs backstage to shut down his laptop. Cher and Wagner are safe. Mary Byrne looks like she’s having a small heart attack in the time it takes for Dermot to tell her she’s safe, leaving us with a Katie/Massive Arse sing off.

Katie sings a song called Don’t Give Up On Me, in an awkward and completely desperate performance. About halfway through it isn’t clear if she’s forgotten the lyrics or just having a Katie drama-strop but she decides to sit down on her arse and belt out the words “Don’t Give Up On Me” a few times. Basically it’s an accurate representation of Our Katie in song and performance – the lyrics she emphasises speak of the desperate fame whore who REALLY NEEDS TO BE FAMOUS and the performance demonstrates all the artifice and pretence that keeps landing Katie in the bottom two. Treyc and her Massive Arse sing Unbreak My Heart. It’s competent, somewhat bland but definitely better than Ms Waissel.

Judges! Simon is torn between his hard-on for curvaceous black women and his hard-on for publicity and money, but ultimately decides to go with the latter, knowing the amount of headlines and ratings that saving Katie will generate. Cheryl Cole refuses to vote, telling Dermot to come back to her so she can send it to deadlock, but Dermot brilliantly tells her that a judge refusing to make a decision means it goes to majority vote so it is now a best-of-three. Dannii decides to save Treyc and Louis, as Simon’s bitch, decides to save Katie. Treyc and her massive arse exit stage left, get wedged in the door and have to wait for the emergency services to extricate her. I shall miss her ample posterior. Join me next week for another exciting episode of the Save Katie Waissel Show, as Katie holds a bus full of orphaned children hostage in a bid to save herself from expulsion.

The X-Factor: Week Four

Excitable Voiceover Man: Last weekend! On the X FACTUH! THE COMPETITION REACHED! NEW! HEIGHTS! New heights of boredom, perhaps. I was LITERALLY too bored for words by last week’s show. Which means there was no blog. Because I did not have the words. But tonight we had a horny Mary Byrne so obviously I’ve found my muse again. Notable events last week: Katie Waissel was good (but still annoying) and John Adeleye went home. No one cared. THIS WEEK! The theme is Halloween. As ever with the X-Factor, they’ve decided to take the theme about as seriously as they did when Matt Cardle decided that his musical hero was someone with one song, but I’ll do my best to explain how songs like Shakespeare’s Sister’s ballad Stay, and that Venus Song From the Gillette Ads For Ladies With Hairy Legs can possibly be considered Halloweeny. On with the show!

Judges! Simon Cowell is wearing fangs. All the better to feast on the profits from the show, then. First up is Mary Boorne, whose intro video drama is that thus far she has failed to be contemporary with any of her song selections. Her answer to this criticism is to perform Barry Manilow’s 1973 hit Could It Be Magic (Halloween Link: Barry Manilow is a Vampire; that unnaturally youthful visage isn’t from plastic surgery, it’s from drinking the bodily fluids of lithe young men). Excellent strategy there, Louis. In fairness, as Queen of the Boybands, Louis was probably thinking more of Take That’s version. Released in 1992. Eighteen years ago. So yeah, very contemporary. I can’t believe I’ve gone 94 words into this paragraph without mentioning the fact that Mary is wearing SPARKLY RED HORNS. It is easily the most amazing thing on television ever, watching her sashay around stage with glittery devil horns. The performance is what we’ve come to expect from Mary – confident and vocally assured. She’s like what Susan Boyle would’ve been if she hadn’t been dropped on her head as a child and got laid every now and then. Judges! Dannii is positive, Cheryl is apathetic and Simon loved it. He also calls Mary a Horny Little Devil, at which point the imaginations of several million viewers inadvertently go somewhere they never thought it would and they suffer a complete mental shutdown. And their ears start bleeding. With little pieces of brain in the blood. Luckily, those pieces of brain contain the memories of what Simon said, so society is able to continue functioning.

Next up! Aiden Grimshaw and His Incredibly Broad Shoulders. And Serial Killer faces, but that goes without saying. He’s performing Michael Jackson’s Thriller, so points for being one of the few songs genuinely on-theme tonight. But I hope you weren’t expecting Aiden to come out and surprise us with an upbeat performance, because he has decided to reinterpret Thriller as a slow, piano-driven number with the usual constipated-looking facial tics, taking all the life out of the song. Which is actually a genius move considering this is a song famed for its video featuring THE UNDEAD. My god, Aiden and Dannii are musical geniuses. It’s kinda weird, but not very good and as we go on in this competition I really think the only future for Aiden is as my personal sex slave. It should also be noted that Aiden and Dannii have the same hairstyle tonight. Judges! Louis liked it, probably because he wants to be fucked by Aiden. Cheryl advises Aiden to smile for a change, which he does, badly. Oh Aiden, I could find ways to make you smile. Cowell calls it bizarre and indulgent and Aiden shuffles off-stage after some awkward non-conversation with Dermot.

Oh good, it’s Belle Amie. I can’t help but notice that their intro video has lots of shots of them being touchy-feely and demonstrating close body contact and smiling and high-fiving and it is about as convincing as when they do the same thing for One Direction. It’s a rather deliberate attempt to persuade the audience that Belle Amie don’t all hate one another, which seems rather stupid. Oh producers, don’t you realise that we might begin to be interested in these girls if you just played up the fact that they hate one another and put razor blades in each other’s tampons? Such is the collective lack of interest in Belle Amie that even Excitable Voiceover Man forgets to cry out their name at the end of the intro video. What IS interesting though, is the Hotness (official group term) of topless guys on stage for this performance, which is just about enough to make it bearable. The girls are singing the Bananarama version of Venus, which I guess is Halloweeny because it is frequently used in ads for women’s shaving products, and hairy women are scary? Jesus, this performance is rather tuneless indeed. They’re not even trying to sing in harmony any more. This is just going to make their flawless autotuned harmony in the results show group song all the more hilarious looking. Judges! Louis wasn’t paying attention because he was distracted by the underwear-clad dancers. Dannii rightly criticises the vocals. Cheryl avoids commenting on the vocals. Simon lies through his teeth to try and make Belle Amie seem like the second most interesting thing to ever to happen to music, after One Direction.

Rebecca Ferguson! Who is wearing a witch’s hat during her conversation with the camera in the intro vid, which I kinda love her for. “When it comes from the judges” she says of last week’s praise for the Jessica Rabbit song, “you have to believe it”. Oh Rebecca, so naive. I wouldn’t trust Simon Cowell to tell me the truth if I was asking him right from left. Rebecca is doing Wicked Game, which fits the theme because the word Wicked is in the title and Wicked is also a musical featuring Witches, which are Halloweeny. See, figuring out the logic of X-Factor song selections in theme weeks is just a matter of word association! It is rather good and she doesn’t seem as awkward as usual. Cowell goes on to contradict me by saying she seemed nervous, but it is really just a cunning ploy for him to point out what a travesty it was that his girlfriend Treyc Arse was in the bottom two last week. But he is so impressed by Rebecca anyway that he invokes the hallowed name of Leona, the patron saint of reality TV talent, blessings be upon her.

Trey Cohen! She speculates in her drama video that the reason for being in the bottom two was because Whole Lotta Love was “a bit too old for the younger generation”. Anyone who uses the phrase “the younger generation” is instantly out of touch with said generation anyway, so Treyc is doomed. She lives in a house with Belle Amie and Bieber Squad, why doesn’t she just do a poll of them on what their favourite songs are and perform accordingly? Granted, she might have to sing the theme tune to Ben 10 as a result, but I’m sure we could work that into the Halloween theme as subtly as all these other non-Halloweeny songs. But I digress. Treyc and her Massive Arse will be performing Relight My Fire, because Take That did a cover of this song in the 90s, and Take That released tickets for their tour on Friday, and lots of websites buckled under the strain of the demand, and that upset some people, and dogs and cats can get upset by bangers and fireworks at Halloween, which is Halloweeny. Treyc starts the song lying “seductively” on a chaise-longue , and for a brief moment I imagine her ending the performance by lifting her legs into the air, holding a match between her booyliciousness and farting her way into a fiery finale, but alas while there are gouts of flame in the performance, none of them come from Treyc’s posterior. I’m going to email Brian Friedman this idea, however, as I think it could make for spectacular television, plus Treyc’s massive arse is the most interesting thing about her. Judges! Danni admires Treyc’s bravery but criticises her lack of a signature style, or something. Cowell says she has no connection with Cheryl, which makes Cheryl pissy. Treyc decides to respond to Dannii and says being able to do various styles makes her versatile. It is officially the bitchiest 4 minutes of the show this week.

We return with Matt Cardle. And his designer stubble. And... oh no... he’s taking on Bleeding Love. Simon will not like this. Nobody does Leona songs but St. Leona, dammit, because all Leona songs are bespoke compositions crafted for the angelic voice of Leona only, and no other performer can follow the ebb and flow of her hundred-times sanctified vocal acrobatics. Also, they will eventually let Matt sing a man’s song, yeah? Bleeding Love fits the theme because the song is about an emotional serial killer who inflicts metaphorical cuts, wounds and scarring to the sanguine heroine of the tale. Like a Mike Myers of the heart. Judges! Louis wasn’t crazy about it which ruins the chances of getting a blowie from Matt but he has to be honest, because truthfulness is what we watch this show for. Cheryl meanders about the point but ultimately decides Matt was having an off-week and Simon thinks nerves got the better of Matt but appreciates that he tried to do something different with the song. Somewhere, in a palace of pure crystal, Leona Lewis smirks to herself as she bathes in the blood of children who could have grown up to compete with her vocally.

WAGNER! WAGNER! WAAAAAAAAAAGNER! Louis informs us in the intro video that Wagner will be performing something that shows off his proper operatic voice. Which means Wagner, dressed as the love child of Freddie Mercury and the Phantom of the Opera, opening his medley with Oh Fortuna, which all reality TV show viewers will know as the piece used whenever producers want to add a bit of high-drama to proceedings, before segueing into Bat out of Hell. Let’s just say Meatloaf has nothing to fear just yet. There’s an amazing bit where the camera focuses on a genuinely astounded Simon Cowell. No one can resist the allure of Wagner, not even the embodiment of cynicism. I believe, with this performance, Wagner has actually redefined music as we know it. Nothing will ever be the same again. Judges! Loved it, with Dannii and Cheryl fighting over which one gets to fellate Wagner first, while Cowell just malfunctions and doesn’t know what to say at all. Louis encourages us to vote for Wagner because he just sang in two languages. I love Louis logic. Maybe that means Mary should do Amhrann na bhFiann next week.

Big Gay Paige is next. Singing Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. The Halloweeniness of this is obvious – in 100 years the default appearance for most depictions of witches will probably be based on either Amy Winehouse or Katie Waissel. This week, Paije does not look like the 80s have vomited on him, and is thus 80% less interesting. The 20% interesting comes from the fact that he has again decided to lie to his mother and change the lyrics of his song to refer to the opposite gender. Needless to say this necessitates a change to the “kept his dick wet” line to “She kept her head”. Oh Paije, your momma loves you for being you, and that won’t change when she learns you’re on the down low, dawg. Except... he doesn’t change the line saying “you go back to her” which means that he has now changed the song so he is singing to a lesbian he was having an affair with? Oh Paije, see what a tangled web you weave with your lyrical changes? Judges! None of them call him out on his LIES. They liked it. Despite the LIES.

Katie Waissel! The Empress of Evil was actually quite good last week, which is unsurprising given she was doing a number that was all about performance and jovial facade and if there is anyone on this show who can pretend to be something she isn’t it’s Our Katie. Katie is going to perform the Bewitched theme tune, which it turns out had lyrics. Who knew? The performance is quite like last week – a bit of a show and a not-terribly-demanding vocal. It is perfectly adequate but I’d be expecting more from Katie at this point given all the virgins she has sacrificed to the God of Fame Whores. Judges! Blah de blah de blah love blah.

Fuck it, it’s Bieber Squad. They actually sicken me, and it pains me to hear they’re alternately the favourites and second-favourites to win. The intro video is bizarre in that there’s no attempt to create drama nor is there any rabitting on about difficulties they’ve been having this week... it’s just Dannii and Simon talking about how great One Direction are while Inferior Bieber Clone talks about how much hard work they put in every week. The little bastards are singing Total Eclipse of the Heart. Is nothing sacred? If Bonnie Tyler was dead, she’d be turning in her grave. As it is, she probably just got an irritating itch somewhere awkward she couldn’t reach. Total Eclipse of the Heart suits the theme because... well, it doesn’t, but One Direction suit the theme because four of them are Bieber clones and one is a Muslim so obviously they have no souls. They’re all remarkably over-styled. It’s like the stylists even decide which side of their t-shirts will be tucked in to their belts and which bit will hang stylishly limp. I didn’t think it was possible, but I think this is an act that may even surpass Herr Waissell in terms of fakeness. Judges! Louis proves he’s still with it by mentioning Twilight. I bet he’s Team Jacob. He also says how everywhere he goes girls ask him to tell One Direction they love them. Which begs the question why is Louis Walsh hanging around with 14 year old girls? The judges are effusive in their praise, probably because Cowell has warned them that if One Direction don’t win he’ll kill them all. If, as seems likely, these fuckers make it all the way to the final, I think I’m going to gouge my eyes out and stick them in my ears.

Coveted Last Performance™ and a guaranteed place in next week’s show, because they only ever give the finale performance to someone who has been damn good in rehearsals, is Mini-Cheryl. She always seems like she’s on sedatives in her videos and this one is no different, as a Cher on relaxers promises us that she’s going to show us she can really sing. Which can mean only one thing: yep, the producer’s have allowed a contestant to step out of the niche they have imposed on them, and Cher is going to sing tonight rather than “rap”. They’ve reused the Throne of Winter from Aiden’s Mad World performance, and stuck a few twigs on it to turn it into the Throne of Autumn. Cher’s voice is very fragile/reed thin, so she’s not going to be troubling Goddess Leona any time soon, but it is still rather good, emotionally genuine and easily her best performance thus far. And the poor thing is in bits by the end. Quick! More sedatives! Presumably it is while Cher is under the influence of the cocktail of anti-depressants that Cheryl will sneak into her room and place her further in her thrall. The Judges loved it, and Cher bawls her way off-stage. I think I like her again, but if the producers think Cher is mentally up to the challenge of this show then I dread to think what Shirleena’s psychological evaluation was like to get her kicked off.

Results Show!

It’s a rather over-stuffed Results Show tonight, as we have Bon Jovi and his melted face, Jamiroquai and his futile attempt to be musically relevant, Princess Rhi-Rhi, and most terrifyingly of all, the group song. Actually. it seems that the group song and Bon Jovi’s performance have been smashed together to form some sort of horrifying guest act group song. Does that mean Bon Jovi isn’t singing live? Does it mean Bon Jovi is singing live but the contestants will do their usual autotuned miming? So many questions! Which are answered at the end of the performance when Dermot asks Wagner a question and it turns out his microphone isn’t even on. Although maybe that was just Wagner’s....

Jamiroquai! Is a prat and I’m not writing more than once sentence about him! I can however write about the song. Which is shit. Just like all his other songs. Which it also sounds like. And he also doesn’t want to shut up after the song ends and makes some noises about having had reservations about appearing. Probably considered himself too credible to appear, but in the end those 13 million people to promote your new single to just about outweighed your artistic integrity, didn’t they Jammy boy?

Next up, it’s everyone’s favourite victim of domestic violence, Rhianna. 25! MILLION! ALBUM! SALES! but all anyone will ever associate her with is a black eye and an umbrella. Rhi-Rhi sings live, which is nice of her, and a good tutorial for Cheryl Cole. Her backing dancers also DESTROY the place because their performance involves a food fight, and I do not envy the people who have the 3 minute ad-break to clear the stage. Then again they could always let Paige loose on it and I’m sure he’d have it all gobbled up in 90 seconds.

Bottom two are... Katie and Belle Amie! I wonder will Katie abandon the dark elder god Famewhoria and embrace Satanism instead, now that it is clear her tactics aren’t working. Belle Amie perform Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway. Which, like all other Belle Amie performances, is both mediocre and completely out of tune. Katie performs an Etta James song, which she is only okay at, and then collapses into a sobbing mess at the end. The sort of sobbing where you pull faces but don’t make actual tears, mind, and then proceed to wipe your eyes despite the lack of tears. Judges! Simon and Cheryl save their own acts, obviously. Danni decides to send Belle Amie home, and they look resigned to it, but then Louis the big drama queen decides to send Katie home, bringing us to the first DEADLOCK of the season. Dun dun dunnnnn. If Katie goes then there will be a bloodbath. She will literally tear through Britain in a frenzy of knives and blood-letting. To think, she gave up an actual record deal in order to appear on the X-Factor... The act with the lowest overall vote is... Belle Amie.

The X-Factor: Week Two

Welcome to the most boring episode of the X-Factor ever! “LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAST WEEK!”, excited voiceover man (who I fucking love) bellows, before recapping all the stuff that you know happened because you were paying attention to your friends Facebook status updates. Dermhot tells us that our Saturday night starts right here, unless you’re watching it on TV3’s iPlayer, in which case your Saturday night starts on Monday evening.

The theme for this week is “Musical Heroes”, which is about as loose and vague as the themes tend to be at this early stage when they haven’t quite decided what to shoehorn each of the contestants as. Dermhot expects us to believe that the singers will be covering songs by their personal musical heroes. And if you believe that, then I urge you to never open an email purporting to be from a Nigerian prince.

On with the show! First up in this two and a half hour advert-fest, we have Storm Lee, performing Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run. Upon hearing Storm’s song choice, alarm-bells immediately began to ring for me. This is a man already struggling with credibility (which is saying a lot on this show), and he’s going to sing a song that was lampooned, along with the entire concept of the reality TV show singing contest, by Peter Kay in spectacular fashion in Britain’s Got the Pop Factor not so long ago. “But”, I think to myself, “The X-Factor producers are canny individuals, coming as they do from the most devious, Machiavellian circle of Hell. Surely they would never be as stupid as to have Storm’s performance of this song revolve around him straddling a motorbike and rocking out?” Imagine my complete lack of surprise when Storm appears on-stage to perform something not unlike the first minute of this clip

The performance, already hindered by being nowhere near as epic as Geraldine’s memorable act (there’s no segue into Free Nelson Mandela, for one thing), is further hindered by being very karaoke. It is all a bit flat and uninspired and the smell of desperation wafting off of Storm is potent enough to be bottled and sold as Jordan’s next fragrance. Judges! Simon makes the very accurate point that Storm doesn’t so much come off as a rock-star as Louis Walsh’s vision of what a rock star is, which is probably the most succinct and apt summary of Storm Lee we’re going to get.

Massive Arse, and the large the growth attached to it, which I think we’ve decided to call “Treyc Cohen”, is next. Massive Arse is singing Purple Rain, which means that anyone other than the official X Factor UK channel on YouTube attempting to upload this performance will find themselves immediately sued by Prince Squiggle for 500,000 euros. Probably. It’s a good enough performance, if a little too glory-notey/shouty (I get the impression I’m going to be making this complaint about Arse Cohen fairly often...) but she’s no Ruth Lorenzo, dammit. Dannii Minogue calls Treyc petite. Clearly she’s never had to walk behind Treyc then. Simon loved it, of course. He concedes she lost the melody in parts but WHO CARES WHEN SHE CAN VOCALLY EXPLODE ON THOSE BIG NOTES, WOO!

Next up, we have Big Gay Paije. The Inevitable Attempt To Create Drama in Paije’s intro video is that he was sometimes out of breath in rehearsals. Because, they basically conclude in a much gentler manner- he’s a big fattie. Vocal Coach Evie Burnett’s solution is to plop Paije onto a treadmill to “increase his lung capacity”. Bless. Paije will be performing Alicia Key’s If I Ain’t Got You, clearly a very energetic song that requires lots of stamina and jumping around, like all of Alicia’s hi-octane, thumping hits. There are a couple of parts where it sounds like Paije has phlegm in his throat as he tries to glory note. Oh Cowell, you have so much to answer for with your big-note bias. Judges! Liked it. Mostly. Cowell has a rant about Friedman’s staging not being up to par or something, and it is at this point that I realise that most of Friedman’s choreography is actually meant to be good. Really? I thought it was meant to be terrible all the time, in a post-modern ironic way. Dannii tells Cowell that she thought the choreography was great and the audience erupt with applause. Because they’re fucking dance critics now.

Ah bollocks, the Bieber Squad. Can I not skip this part? I have decided they are my nemeses for this series. This is unfortunate as they’re probably going to make it all the way to the final. The Inevitable Attempt To Create Drama is to show us Curly Bieber getting a bit of a hurty tummy while rehearsing. Oh no! It’s stage fright! Will he get stage fright during the live performance? Let’s hope not! DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA CURLY-HEADED DRAMA! The boys come out to perform.... My Life Would Suck Without You... by their musical hero Kelly Clarkson? I see. Should their musical heroes not be JLS for reintroducing the concept of the boyband to an unsuspecting world? As I watch them sing, I am LITERALLY paralysed by not caring about whether or not Curly Bieber will vomit shit out his mouth from his stage-fright. Another reason I hate the Biebers: they do an awful lot of exuberant face-pulling to show how happy and loving it they are that’s about as genuine as Storm Lee’s rock-star credentials. The Irish one with the two-tone hair is particularly bad for it. Fuck off you little shits! The song is awful – I’ve rewatched it once or twice for scientific purposes, and it seems like the music is deliberately drowning out everyone bar Birth Mark On His Neck Bieber to mask the fact that they’re not particularly in tune. The performance ends and we’re treated to another round of arms-around-one-another fake chumminess from the boys. Judges! Louis points out that Kelly Clarkson is hardly their musical hero, an accusation that goes without answer.

Cher Lloyd is next. Doing Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Life. Funny thing happens during this – they amp the music up during the singing bits, as they’re clearly scared that Cher can’t do anything outside her rap niche (Cher being one of the contestants who the producers definitely have shoehorned, and woe be upon her if she tries to escape) but from what I could hear she honestly didn’t seem that bad at the non-rap bits. Then again, it IS hard to tell when you have the backing vocals and music cranked up to 11. Judges! Dannii didn’t like it. Everyone else did. No one cares what Dannii thinks. Simon declares that he “sees the future” and artists like Cher are the future. Cowell’s clairvoyance must be a skill he only developed recently, given that he wasn’t able to avert Leon Jackson’s album flopping or prevent Gay Joe from winning over Easily Marketable Cheeky Chappy Chosen One Olly last year.

Mr Cellophane is next, performing something obscure I can’t be arsed looking up, because I don’t feel like expending the effort on someone who is going to be out within the next 3 weeks. Performance is good enough, in an OH MY GOD I FEEL THE EMOTION IN HIS VOICE, WHO IS HE AGAIN? sort of way. Judges! All loved it. Yawn.

Next stop on the boredom express; Diva Fever! Singing... Barbra Streisand? This is, without a doubt, the worst song choice in the history of the show. I know we’re not meant to take Diva Fever seriously, but honestly Cowell, surely you could have extended your thought process a little deeper than “Hmm... they’re gay! The song is called Barbra Streisand! PERFECT!” Mistake number 2 is letting the Diva who can’t sing take most of the... well, to say vocals is a stretch. Let’s just say he takes most of the wailing and monicker-calling and even that much is pushing his abilities a wee bit. The choreography is also the gayest thing to ever happen on the X-Factor stage, which considering that Louis Walsh, Joe McElderry and Brian Friedman have all stood there, is saying something. Judges! There’s another bit, just like last week, where Louis tries to make a joke that falls completely flat and there’s an awkward silence. I hope this is a weekly occurrence. Maybe we’ll get a prize if we can remember which acts Louis’ lead balloons follow.

This show is painfully boring this week. I demand more spectacle and more ridiculousness from now on. And I want them adhere to the theme strictly, locking the contestants into doing something they don’t want to do. I want to see Katie Waissell come on stage dressed as a drum for a performance of My Chemical Romance’s Black Parade during Rock Week, watch the Biebers soar to new lyrical heights on Suicide is Painless for TV Theme Tunes week and see Mary Byrne become a hot mess to cover Take it Off for Kesha week.

Rebecca Ferguson! Singing Feeling Good. Her drama this week is that she can’t stick her tits out to seem sexy enough for her performance (which is ironic considering she has two kids at 20 but I guess there’s a difference between being sexy and being easy), or something. I dunno, I wasn’t paying attention because I was so fucking bored. She’s alright but a bit reserved. There’s something hard to put your finger on that stops it being a memorable performance; maybe it is actually a confidence thing like the judges keep saying. But then again that would mean they’re right about something and I refuse to countenance that.

Aiden Grimshaw and his Broad Shoulders, Dreamy Eyes and Serial Killer Facial Expressions are up next, singing John Lennon’s Jealous Guy. It’s kinda painful. He’s all over the place and his facial expressions aren’t so much I Am Going To Eat Your Brain With Fava Beans this week as I Am Puppy Who Has Been Kicked Please Hug Me, as he realises it’s going disastrously wrong. Dannii’s face as Aiden grinds to a squawking conclusion says it all. She looks something like this:

Other judges! For some reason, Louis loved it. I think I have some competition in the Aiden-crush stakes. Hiss. Cheryl and Simon are aware of how shit it was and say as much. Simon puts it down to nerves, which means we’re definitely getting an I-Have-To-Overcome-My-Nerves/I-Need-To-Prove-Myself-This-Week intro video for Aiden next week, then.

As if I wasn’t excited enough after getting Aiden in a suit, next up we have Wagner. Wagner’s intro video is an origin story – it explains how Wagner always loved to sing, but he was drawn to KARATE, because, as he puts it “I wanted to be an awesome fighter” (this is backed up with a picture of Karate Action Wagner roundhouse kicking Chuck Norris into orbit). Then, apropos of nothing, we are shown a picture of a topless Wagner holding a lion by the tail. I think the lion might represent the sheer unstoppable masculinity of Wagner. “I think I wasted my life without singing, and so I decided to sing.” Wagner informs us, with a saucy wink. You could substitute “singing” for just about any other activity and I bet Wagner would excel at it. Oh lord. I love the way overexcited voiceover man says VAAAAAGNER! I want it as my text message noise.

Nothing can describe this scene in all its glory, but I’ll try: Wagner. In a dinner jacket. With no shirt. Just rippling Wagner chest. Singing Tom Jones’s Help Yourself. Needless to say, there are a bevy of Wagnettes on stage cavorting flirtatiously with The Majestic One. They’re not acting. They’ve just fallen under his spell. A bunch of male Wagnettes appear on-stage to let us know that Wagner has enough lovin’ for both genders. It makes sense really. It would be a crime for Wagner to deprive anyone of the opportunity to sleep with him. The performance drives the dancers into such a hedonistic frenzy that at the end the men are groping the women’s boobies outrageously. Judges! Embrace the madness that is Wagner. “Are you getting it on with Mary?” Cowell asks, ignorant of the fact that Wagner could never give his heart to just one woman.

Ah! Sly X-Factor producers! Knowing that the audience will be so worked up into a euphoric daze following Wagner’s performance, they put Katie Waissel on next, so that we associate her with the release of the endorphins from the post-Wagner orgasm. You can’t fool me! The intro video tells us that Katie used to perform to Care Bears in her bedroom. I refuse to believe that. Were bears, maybe. But I cannot believe that the Empress of Evil ever owned Care Bears. Unless she scratched the symbols off their stomachs and replaced it with things like the Biohazard symbol, or a swastika. Hell, I have trouble believing Katie was ever a child. I think she just tumbled out of her mother fully formed following some Faustian pact, and immediately set about trying to become famous to fill the void where her soul should be. Katie is performing some Etta James song. She’s fairly good, but don’t let that fool you. She’d destroy you and send your loved ones to Hell in an instant if she thought it would get her a positive headline. Judges! Louis and Dannii both take credit for saving her. Don’t remind me, you two.

Oh vomit. It’s Belle Amie. They’re singing You Really Got Me by their musical heroes, The Kinks. *cough* It isn’t as awful as last week, but it’s still pretty awful. And they’re still really out of tune. If only they had penises and Bieber fringes and were called One Direction, then none of that would matter! I can’t pay attention to the performance, because I’m distracted by the backing dancer pretending to play the guitar and doing an utterly unconvincing job of it. But I’m going to take a wild guess and say that their performance consisted mostly of strutting about trying to look sassy while batting heavily made up eyelids at the camera.

Mary Byrne from Tesco, Ireland, is next. “Junno when yehr on a rollercoaster, and yehr nervous ? And yeh come to the end and yeh go “OH MY GOD THAT WAS BRILLIANT! And yeh get off and yehr shakin’? Magnify dat 60,000 times! Cos that’s the feeling yeh get.” It’s impossible to know for sure whether Mary is talking about the reaction she got last week, or what it feels like to fuck Wagner. Mary is singing You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me. As with last week, it’s pretty flawless, but maybe I’m blinded by my patriotism for Tesco. She gets another rapturous applause that goes on forever, and the producers are probably pissed off because if that continues every week they might have to drop one of the 78 ad breaks.

Matt Cardle’s hat is in the washing machine this week, as he performs Just the Way You Are. So, after an intro video that tells us that Matt likes Nirvana, we’re supposed to believe that his musical hero is... Bruno Mars. Who released his debut single this year. Mkah, X-Factor. I totally buy it. We attempt to wring some drama out of the fact that he’s going to chance a note that only Mariah Carey and Kurt from Glee are capable of hitting but we all know he’s going to do it because they wouldn’t have put him on in the coveted last performance slot if he hadn’t already done it fifty times in rehearsal. Anyway, he’s pretty good, aside from one or two shaky bits and I’m sure he melted a few hearts in the process (and shattered a few windows) and further cemented his place as favourite.

Results Show!

I really appreciate that they’ve stopped doing that ridiculous thing they did last year where they’d make the contestants wear the same clothes they were wearing during the previous night’s show. I’m sure it would’ve been difficult for Katie Waissel to perform that ballad in her sing-off last week if she’d still been wearing that virtual reality headset from the future.

Oh fuck, the group performance. Since they introduced the concept of the Group Performance last year, there has never actually been a good one. Tonight, performing Telephone... that doesn’t change. Everyone does that thing where they hold the microphone diagonally upwards to obscure their mouths so you can’t tell they’re all miming the group song. It doesn’t help already shaky illusion when John Adeleye takes the microphone away and stops moving his lips while somehow managing to bellow “Cos I’ll be dancing!” We also know that it’s been autotuned to fuck because Belle Amie are completely in tune.

Moving swiftly onwards, we get performances from Diana Vickers (meh) and Katie Perry (meh) before the results (yay!): Storm Lee is unceremoniously ejected. He reminds us all to follow our dreams so that someday we can be 40-something wannabes kicked out of talent shows in the second week. This leaves Belle Amie and Diva Fever as our bottom two. Wow, this is going to be nail bitingly unpredictable. Diva Fever perform I Will Survive, showing that they understand irony at least. Belle Amie perform Big Girls Don’t Cry, by Herpie... sorry, Fergie. They’re better than normal, which is to say that they’re almost in tune. Big surprise, the judges save Belle Amie. I predict that they’ll either go next week, or avoid the bottom placing completely next week, and then go the following week. Or they’ll murder one another fighting over who gets to sing lead vocals. Whichever way it goes, the viewers win!

The X-Factor: Week One

And so it begins, from now until Xmas, another marathon of clever edits, leaks to the press, tears, tantrums and dubious themed weeks. Yay, the X-Factor is back to destroy music!

We open with DermHot revealing the worst kept secret in showbiz – the wildcards. To absolutely no one’s surprise, they are: Brazilian sex god Wagner, two-time reject Treyc, Blackpool homosexuals Diva Fever and Big Gay Paije. The scenes of Diva Fever being “surprised” by the news of their return to the show are made more hilarious by the bathhouse (the official group noun for homosexuals) of gays who fling themselves at them in a mixture of celebration and desperation to be on television for 3 seconds.

DermHot informs us that from now on we’ll be able to download the artist’s performances from iTunes every week after the show. I’m amazed that after 7 years they’re still finding ways to wring even more revenue out of this programme.

First up, we have FYD. Your chances of staying on the show are never good when you’re the first to perform on the very first show, and are presumably even worse when you’re the first to perform on a two and a half hour extravaganza. Your chances of staying on the show are at their absolutely lowest when you’re a group doing all those things. Fighting their fate, FYD sing Billionaire, one of those annoying songs where someone who isn’t particularly well known sings about being some sort of jet-set superstar with thousands of adoring fans and a huge back catalogue of hits despite being completely unknown. A fairly bog-standard performance; not particularly inspiring or memorable. Judges! Cheryl seems determined to say something positive about everyone tonight in order to reclaim her status as nation’s sweetheart following her role in single-handedly banishing Gamu Nenghu from Britain, so she applauds FYD on their singing and dancing, because it is hard to do two things at once.

Second performance! Matt Cardle the painter with the stupid hat and the incredibly emotive voice. But not as emotive as Gamu's. She made Louis cry. WE WILL REMEMBER. It is surprising that bookie’s favourite Matt is on so early. I guess they reckon they don’t have to place artists strategically until after the first few weeks. Matt sings... When Love Takes Over, originally by Kelly Rowland featuring David Guetta featuring Kelly Rowland featuring David Guetta. I'ts pretty good. Original, anyway, and he gets to be all competent with his voice and whatnot. Not the most charismatic performer though, as he awkwardly struggles around with his mic stand. Expect another few weeks of Matt intro videos going on about opening his eyes with exasperated comments from Brian Friedman about “connecting” with the audience.

Next up: Mr. Celophane. Or John Adeleye, as he is also known. His intro video makes a few noises about knowing he’s not the most memorable person in the competition and blah blah blah... so he comes out and sings One Sweet Day, one of the most predictable music competition show choices there is. In contrast to Dannii’s inspired song choice for Cardle, this is just the usual boring selection from Louis. Completely unremarkable and forgettable. Judges! Cheryl continues being nice in order to get us to love her again. She has a new album out in a few weeks and it isn’t going to shift otherwise! Simon and Louis have a spat over whether One Sweet Day was number one or not.

Rebecca Ferguson, the Compulsory Single Mother Contestant, is up next performing Teardrops. It is... middling. She’s nice and all... as a person. But the song is blah and doesn’t really suit her interesting voice (I mean that in a nice way) and is just completely lacking personality. She’s basically what happens when you take Stacey Solomon and take away the things that made her interesting like Judaism and mild retardation.

After John and Rebecca sent us all to sleep, we need something attention grabbing to wake us up and... Christ on a bike... it’s Storm Lee. Whose hair has been dyed red to symbolise his rising from the ashes like a Phoenix to be given his second chance. For someone so inherently ridiculous, he takes himself awfully seriously. He’s singing We Built This City on Rock and Roll, a song I cannot hear without thinking of Homer Simpson. Which is apt given how much of a cartoon character “Storm” is. Also: as an X-Men fan I resent having to type a capitalised version of the word storm without it referring to Ororo Monroe. Storm is fairly limp vocally and the “performance”, which involves Mild Shower dropping from a raised platform into the waiting arms of a bunch of dancers dressed as zombie gimp bank robbers, reveals the slight exaggeration from his intro video where he said he’d be “falling 15 feet from a plank”. Judges! Louis does one of his patented Cringe-Inducing Behaviours by reminding viewers in Scotland that STORM LEE IS SCOTTISH AND THEY SHOULD VOTE FOR HIM OUT OF BLIND PATRIOTISM AND NOT EVALUATE HIM BASED ON TALENT AND VOTE ACCORDINGLY BECAUSE LOUIS IS THAT DESPERATE TO STAY IN THE COMPETITION SO VOTE NOW SCOTLAND OR YOU’LL BE COMMITTING TREASON.

Next up we have Belle Amie, the hastily formed girl group named after Louis Walsh’s favourite Eastern European porn site. They’re doing Airplanes, that boring song by B.O.B. and that twat from Paramore. And they somehow manage to make it even worse, with a completely out-of-tune and disharmonious performance. The X-Factor run of abysmal girl groups continues unabated. At least Husstle had the girl with the brilliant mohawk. Belle Amie are so going tomorrow or next week. Judges! Make delusional comments about Belle Amie having a great image (they’re wearing clothes that even Cheryl Cole wouldn’t be seen in) and there being a gap in the market for a group like them. Yes, people are definitely clamouring for 4 girls who can’t sing in tune.

Mini-Cheryl is next. Singing... well, okay, singing is pushing it. There is rapping and some frail singing and... well, I want to like Cher for some reason, but she’s clearly only capable of doing one thing and that isn’t going to get her far when we get to themed weeks like 80s Power Ballads With 15 Second Long Glory Notes At The End Because Glory Notes Make Simon Horny. Unless she’s saved by a timely onset of the Diana Vickers strain of tonsillitis before a tricky theme week. Also, for someone who newspapers would have us believe is “fragile” and “falling apart” she seems confident enough. The judges are rather effusive in their praise, perhaps a little too much, but I guess the producers have demanded such in the wake of Gamugate.

Diva Fever. Only one of whom actually seems to sing. Only one of whom seems to appear onscreen actually. The camera blatantly ignores the chunkier one. They’re abysmal, and I have NO IDEA what is going on with the ill advised costume change halfway through. So bad it almost makes me wish for the good old days of Same Difference. Almost.

Big Gay Paije is next. Singing Killing Me Softly... with her song? Gender changed lyrics? Bwahahaha! Who do they think they’re kidding? He’s also wearing what appears to be everything that went wrong fashion-wise in the 1980s vomited onto to his considerable frame. I don’t know what the stylists are on tonight but it was clearly either past the sell by date or cut with too much rat poison. There’s a hilarious bit where he skips/stomps/lunges around the stage to the back of the judges and runs of breath mid-lyric.

Next up is Rita Repulsa, aka Katie Waissel. Katie looks sort of like a post-apocalyptic Artemis. I guess emulating the Goddess of the Hunt is pretty apt for someone chasing fame so intensely. Katie is doing Queen’s We Are the Champions, the song favoured by drunken sports fans worldwide. Not particularly difficult to sing, Katie does a serviceable if unspectacular job. The camera pans overhead at one point, revealing that Katie is limply moving her hands about the keyboard pretending to play, shattering the delusions of the 3 people who actually believed she was. DermHot asks her about her difficult week and she mutters something stupid while psionically absorbing the fame energy she needs to survive.

Big Mary Byrne is next. Did you know that she used to work on the checkout in Tesco? Did you? Well, she did. SHE DID. I know she’s never mentioned it before, but honestly, she did. They’ve changed Mary’s makeover shots and are no longer using the Dawn French ones. This disappoints me greatly. Mary performs This Is a Man’s World, and it’s pretty flawless. She gets a massive reaction, and it’s all very touching and emotional. Louis somehow manages to resist screaming EVERYONE IN IRELAND VOTE FOR MARY, possibly because he knows that after about 3 years of being unable to take part in the voting, the Republic doesn’t need any extra encouragement to exercise its newly reinstated franchise in what has been described as the biggest step forward in Anglo-Irish relations since the Good Friday Agreement.

Nicolo Festa and his intro video of judgemental stares, which all give the impression that if he ever deigned to notice you, it’d only be for long enough to deliver a crippling put-down. He’s doing Lady Gaga’s Just Dance, and alas, it doesn’t really work. Louis makes a joke about working with 3 divas that goes down like a lead balloon and is followed by 5 seconds of awkward silence. Fuck off, Louis. Cheryl Cole actually says something negative for the first time this evening, presumably having momentarily forgotten that Promise This is available to download on October 24^th. Mark it in your diary, folks, and then download something else instead.

We have the Bieber Squad now, aka One Direction. The intro video tries to create some drama (as the intro videos always do, by pointing out some failing, such as a throat infection, forgetting the lyrics, or inability to “connect” that the performer has had in rehearsal that could DESTROY EVERYTHING if repeated in the live show) by telling us that Zain, the stroppy one who refused to dance at Boot Camp, got his timing wrong in rehearsal. The boys perform Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, and they clearly didn’t have to worry about Zain getting his timing wrong because not one of them is in tune with the other. The cacophony of disharmony ends with the audience’s ears bleeding and Simon applauding One Direction for being so current and relevant.

WAGNER. The Brazilian Sex God performs a medley of She Bangs and Love Shack. You just know that at some point in his life, Wagner has been to a gentleman’s club called The Love Shack. Initially I reckoned that it was remembering the girls of The Love Shack that was fuelling Wagner’s unbridled sexual magnetism, but then I realised that no, it was all just pure Wagner. Such is the raw sexual dynamism on display that by the end of his performance, Wagner’s backing dancers have been impregnated through sheer proximity to the heaving mass of masculinity that is this Brazilian beast. There are bongos at one point. Wagner plays the bongos. I don’t care what the judges say, because Wagner was amazing and that is an objective, measurable fact.

The last of the boys: Aiden Grimshaw and his Amazingly Broad Shoulders. I’m just going to get this bit out of the way: I so would. After Wagner, obviously. Aiden sings Mad World in the style of Gary Jules. Despite his odd little jerky physical ticks and the ugly snarly faces he makes while singing, it’s pretty damn good. His performance consists of sitting upon what can only be described as The Throne of Winter, then getting up and staring intensely into the camera. Where does Brian Friedman get such creativity from? Sitting down and then standing up? Amazing.

Finishing the show, we have Treyc Cohen, who I don’t care about because she isn’t Gamu. She does U2’s One by way of the Mary J Blige cover version. The camera pans behind her and sweet Christmas, that is one massive arse. If you combined her arse with Aiden’s shoulders you’d get some sort of... 8 foot tall giant arse shoulder monster. The vocals aren’t perfect, but she hits the glory note at the end and that’s all Simon Cowell ever cares about in a performance from a woman so he decides that she was the best singer of the night. Er, where were you when Wagner was creating a modern fertility ritual on those bongos, Cowell?

Tomorrow Night: Double ejection! Bye bye Belle Amie, John or FYD!

Ireland: The Random Trivia File

-Shops were prevented from opening on Sundays in Ireland until the mid-1990s as the populace feared that their patron goddess, Ourlady, would manifest in the form of Sweet Mary of the Divine Vengeance and wreak unholy havoc on the nation for defiling her day of worship. After a protracted series of negotiations with Mary’s representative on Earth, Joe Coleman, it was decided that Ireland would increase its annual export of geriatrics to Lourdes by 30% in exchange for the right to buy goods between the hours of 12 and 6pm on a Sunday. Mary, happy with the arrangement, celebrated by weeping tears of joy from the idols dedicated to her in grottos across the nation.

-Ireland is run by a select order known as the Irish Mammies, to whom the moral uprightness of the state was entrusted when it became clear that the Catholic Church wasn’t as interested in keeping folks upright as it was in bending them over. The Irish Mammies in turn elect a council of 12 leaders, known as The Marys. It is from this pool of Marys that the President is drawn. The current Mary, Mary McAleese, ascended to the position of Mary Prime in 1998 and has steered Ireland through such tough times as the economic downturn, the death of St. Gerry Ryan and the war. According to the constitution, McAleese must be replaced after 14 years, 14 days and 14 hours. The next Mary will be David Norris.


-RTE is the state-funded, national broadcaster. As part of its remit, RTE is required to allocate a certain percentage of its programming to cover events outside Dublin. It meets this obligation through Nationwide and the Angelus – a series of short 1 minute science-fiction vignettes about people in north Wicklow looking skywards at an armada of invading alien spaceships. RTE employees can be recognised by their dialect – nowhere else in the country will you hear the name of the nation’s police force pronounced as Gore-Dee, except on Ore Tee Ee.



-The Gays. Ireland is full of gays. When a gay (or quare as they are also known) comes of age, his homosexual sense starts tingling and draws him inexorably towards Dublin where he is initiated into The Scene through a series of bizarre, demeaning and perverse rituals that mostly involve putting pictures of his bollocks online. If a gay survives these first few months in Dublin, he is accepted into the warm embrace of The Scene and gets to have his picture featured on gay photo-blogs and socialise with drag queens. If he fails to make an impression, he will be sent into exile outside Dublin, where he will have to survive on once-a-month gay club nights in the smaller cities that dot the Irish landscape beyond the Pale. For a gay, there is no punishment worse than being deprived of dancing in a cloud of dry ice to Britney Spears on a regular basis. Female gays simply join a camogie team to deal with their sexual urges.

-Ireland has produced a disproportionate number of literary and artistic giants. James Joyce’s Ulysses invented a whole new way for authors to be pretentious; U2’s Bono routinely saves the world and reminds us how uncaring we all are for not being as made of holy as He is, and Dana has charmed the world with songs such as “Sure Why Would You Want To Put That Up There When You Know Jesus Can See You?”, “The Ballad of Ronan Mullen” and “Smell Yo Incense”

-Ireland’s economy recently shrivelled away to nothing when it was revealed that the primary engine of economic growth – pretending things were worth a lot more than they actually were and then getting loans to sell them on – wasn’t sustainable. The Irish government is currently trialling a new engine of economic growth encapsulated by the buzz words The Smart Economy. No one is entirely sure what The Smart Economy will be, but we do know that it will involve Maths and Science and probably telecommunications, Information Technology and broadband. It’s a good thing that we sold our telecommunications network to an Australian company with no interest in investing in it then, isn’t it?

Live Nude Euroblog

It’s that time of year again, when we choose a song to represent us at that event which we pretend we totally don’t care about, but which we’re secretly completely incensed about our lack of recent success in. I join the show at ten to ten, when we’ve dug Johnny Logan up out of his grave for his annual showing. Johnny is, as ever, talking about the Eurovision as though winning it results in a celestial being made from pure gold descending from on high to piss crystal urine on the winning nation for their creative endeavours. Johnny is near tears at times, as he discusses the importance of his contribution to the world of Irish artistry, which surely puts him up alongside Yeats, Joyce and Heaney.

At this point I learn that I apparently missed Dana performing a mash up of All Kinds of Everything and I Kissed A Girl; I Kissed All Kinds of Everything. Now available on iTunes.

We get a quick recap of some recent winners; Lordi and their Happy Smiling Demoness Drummer, Serbia’s lesbian pride parade, Russian bloke with his torso, and the Eurotwink and his fairytale.

Smugman explains the voting procedure, which sounds more and more like the process that picked My Lovely Horse every year.

Our first song is called Does Heaven Need Much More and, oh lord, is written by John Waters. Who goes two seconds without masturbating his ego by comparing himself to Elvis. The sad thing is you just know he’s not being tongue in cheek. John explains that it is a techno disco dance infused song that will appeal to the yoof, as represented by Leanne Moore, the 25 year old singer.

In the middle of Leanne’s performance, the tinker she lost to in the final of You’re a Star runs on stage and clubs her to death with a shillelagh. The dance routine accompanying the song is a complex number that would put the best of Rachel Stevens’ choreography to shame. Strange lyrics conflating ecstasy with heaven. I think John wants the drugged up homo vote. Doesn’t he know we’ve moved on to ketamine and meth?
Judges comments! Dana doesn’t want to influence the public... er, what’s the point of your judgement then? J. Log makes a meandering series of comments, the ultimate point of which is that he is great and wants us to recognise his genius. Marty likes it. Marty also likes warm socks and porridge.

Second song! My, we’re moving along at a blistering pace. The songwriter is a jovial German man, possibly the Norse god of prolific Eurovision songwriting, flanked by a strapping Valkyrie I shall call Brunhilde. Our singer is a Lee Bradshaw, leading us up the Rivers of Silence. Or something. Its terribly bland and Lee has a creepy vibe that makes him seem like a PlayTV presenter who was fired for snorting cocaine from the arse crack of Bulgarian hookers and is now doing anything he can to make the money that feeds his terrible habit. Boring.

Judges! Marty thinks Lee looks great. Considering the crack habit and all. Marty says it is a nice song but not exceptional, like toast with nothing on it. Songwriter Odin has to hold Brunhilde back to prevent her from ripping him to shreds with her enchanted halberd. J.Log starts his comments with “When I won the Eurovision in 1980 with What’s Another Year...” and then qualifies his second with “And when I won the Eurovision a second time in 1987...”. Just in case we’d forgotten his amazing successes. Dana tells us that she feels awkward giving an opinion in case it affects the vote. I feel awkward watching Dana refuse to give an opinion, WHICH IS THE REASON YOU WERE ASKED ON THE FUCKING SHOW.

Third Song, and the one that is destined to win; it’s Mikey “Boyzone” Graham with Baby Nothing’s Wrong. How long until we get an “I’m doing it for Steeeeeeeooooo”? Remember folks, this is Mikey Graham. One of the Boyzone members with the non-speaking role. Mikey has something of a Jedward fringe going on. Oh god, there’s a craptastic Saxophone bit in the middle. That almost made Lee Bradshaw’s performance charismatic.

Judges! Dana really likes Mikey’s voice. It makes her wet. We kind of skip over J. Log, for which we are thankful. Damn, we haven’t skipped over J. Log. He tells us he’s going to Oslo tomorrow to perform. The relevance of this is unclear, aside from to let us all know that Johnny is still performing.

Fourth song! Our songwriters are primarily from Austria. Apparently Austrian songwriters have all been rounded up and sent to concentration camps ever since the country ceased participating in the contest. The writers of this tune, Fashion Queen, were among the ones lucky enough to escape before the borders were locked down. It immediately wins the award for gayest choreography of the evening. At this point it is clear that the backing tracks being used for every performance are incredibly limp and lifeless, which doesn’t really help in judging how good a song is going to come across in a massive stadium with thousands of people in attendance. Continuing the theme, the song is pretty boring, but she’s probably the most competent singer we’ve had thus far. Which means she’s going to come last because she’s not a member of Boyzone.

Judges! Dana thinks it was catchy. Fuck off and have an abortion, Dana. J. Log thinks it sounds like Beyoncé but the Germans had a song like it two years ago, as we all no doubt remember. Marty points out that the multinational flavour of the songwriters and performers might net us a few points. Oh Marty, you cad. Johnny tries to hijack proceedings again by launching into a huge spiel about the necessity of imagining what each song is going to sound like in front of an audience of millions.

Last song! Written by.... people with names I didn’t catch. Oh, he wrote last year’s entry, Et Cetera. Cough. It’s called It’s For You and is a big ballad, performed by a big bird, Niamh Kavanagh, former Eurovision winner. Within 5 seconds, Niamh has established herself as the best singer of the night. Which isn’t that difficult an achievement, but credit where it’s due. WE HAVE TIN WHISTLE OF CULTURAL AWARENESS. When we reach the glory notes near the end it all kinda falls apart as the backing singers end up caterwauling over Niamh, but overall it is quite likeable and seems to get a good reception from the crowd. It’ll come second, then.

Judges! Dana waffles, Marty loves it and J. Log attacks some of the technicalities of the song-writing process, as he is an artiste who notices these things.
When Smugman is doing the It Is Okay To Vote Now recap of all 5 songs, the audience only applaud Niamh Kavanagh’s. Mikey Graham makes a fist and thinks “Fuck it, I should’ve mention Gately.”

Smugman ventures into the audience to talk to such sparkling Eurovision alumni as Donna McCaul, who shares many words of wisdom about discovering vagina in Europe, and Yer Wan Who Sang Et Cetera Last Year, who tells us how important it is to seek treatment in the early stages of syphilis. Then we have a guest... Michael Ball. Who was battered by Linda Martin’s crusty vadge lips in 1992, it seems. At this point I fall asleep for a few minutes.

Oh God, J. Log performs What’s Another Year. Mute! J. Log is wearing a jacket with sleeves covered in sequins, it seems. He is as daring in his fashion choices as he is in his singing. With no sound on I am free to appreciate Johny’s performance aesthetic in a whole new way. The lifeless manner in which he shuffles about on stage, the way he bobs his head emotionally, the way he thrusts his left hand forth in a stab of pure drama... there can be no doubt that this man is a once in a generation talent. Why Bono has never worked with him is beyond me.

The lines are closed and Tubbers asks the judges who they think should win now that there is no chance that they can influence the vote of us weak-willed viewers. We have unanimous Niamh-love. J. Log tells us that he is uncomfortable passing judgement as he knows all the people involved well, and then immediately and hilariously demonstrates just how well he knows them by calling Mikey Graham “Mickey”. Dana thinks Niamh’s song sounds too much like My Heart Will Go On, and asks if she can have Donna McCaul removed from the audience as the stench of muff coming from her is making Dana queasy.

Judgement time. Panels from the metropolises of Cork, Limerick, Dundalk, Galway, Sligo and Dublin award Kavanagh top marks each time. We cut to the green room where Mikey Graham looks confused and slightly constipated. Full marks from the public go to Kavanagh as well, giving her the unanimous win and a ticket to the Eurovision semi-finals, where she will have the honour of leading us to an 11th place finish.
Though given I predicted that Mikey Graham would win perhaps I should hold off on playing Cassandra.

Boxes of knickers.