Breaking the Video: Til the World Ends

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

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.

Glee Season 2: The Terrifying Story Thus Far

Episode One: Audition

Our heroes are euphoric following their performance at Sectionals. You know, where they came third. Out of three. They’re soon brought down to earth when they realise that they’re still bottom of the social ladder, thanks to a video depicting them as losers created by that creepy Jewish stereotype character. In other news, the black guy who only had one line in the entire first series has been sacrificed to appease the Goddess of Unnecessary Characters, leaving New Directions one mute ethnic minority short of a silent protest. In order to be eligible for whatever competition they plan on entering this season, they need to find a replacement. Finn and Rachel hunt down new students Sam (of the thunderingly large lips and rock hard abs) and Concubine. Or Sunshine. I can’t really remember her name, it was several months ago. Following a Lady Gaga sing-off in the toilets, Rachel feels threatened by Concubine, so she sends her to a crack house rather than the auditorium. Concubine is rescued by Vocal Adrenaline’s new coach, who whisks her away to Rivalry High to be Rachel’s nemesis. Meanwhile, Sam puts in an “impressive” audition of objectively awful song Billionaire, but refuses to join the club because everyone will think he’s a big pansy.

The B-Plot revolves around Schuester and Sue calling off their truce when Schue realises they’re being dicks to new football coach Ms Bieste, who is something of a hefty bird. Oh, and Tina dumped Artie for Mike Chang’s abs. We’re meant to care, I think.

Episode Two: Brittany/Britney

Emma’s new boyfriend, Carl the Dentist, stops by to lecture the Gleesters on oral hygiene, and discovers that Britney, Rachel and Artie apparently have awful teeth. I don’t trust his credentials. Anyone who thinks a bunch of people on American television have poor teeth clearly can’t be trusted. This convoluted set-up is the writer’s way of shoe-horning Britney Spears into the episode; so she can appear in Our Brittany’s nitrous-oxide induced hallucinations. For you see, Our Brittany has spent her entire life living in the shadow of The Other Britney, because her full name is Brittany S. Pierce. However, the power of hallucination leads her to discover her inner awesome, with a little help from The Other Britney. Our Brittany celebrates her newfound love of La Spears by inviting Santana to Carl the Dentist’s for a shared hallucination wherein they recreate the video to Me Against the Music and it is absolutely ludicrous and makes no sense at all but is completely awesome and totally hot. Brittany and Santana have more sexual chemistry than any of the legitimate couples on this show.

Having overcome her Britneyphobia, Our Brittany is ready to let go of her objection to the Gleesters performing the greatest hits of Ms Spears, leading to an awful take on Toxic with Schue on lead for some inexplicable reason. This leads to Annoying Jewish Stereotype having an orgasm and inciting the other students to a Sex Riot. Luckily, Ms. Sue Sylvester is there to pour cold water on it and deliver an amazing tirade on the truth behind the 1968 Democratic Convention: Hippies put acid in everyone’s bourbon; and when an updraft revealed Lady Bird Johnson’s tramp stamp and tattoos above her ovaries, Mayor Richard J. Daly became so incensed with sexual rage that he punched his own wife in the face, and spent the next hour screaming, “Sex party! Sex party!” into the microphones of all three major networks. I love you, Jane Lynch.

There’s also a Rachel/Finn plot in there somewhere that involves Lea Michele murdering Baby One More Time, but we won’t talk about that. What we will talk about is how the episode ends with Paramore’s mawkish whine-fest The Only Exception, presumably because of a bizarre contractual stipulation that says 75% of Glee episodes must end with Rachel singing a ballad regardless of the content of the episode.

Episode 3: Grilled Cheesus

The Gleesters want to do a bunch of religious songs but Kurt is having none of it because as a gay he hates God and religion. So he sashays into Sue’s office to get her support in preventing the dimwits from performing any holy numbers in a public school. Kurt’s dad has a heart attack when he sees his credit card bill from Kurt’s recent purchase of a mink-lined diamond studded fashion scarf, so the dimwits rally to his aid with various suggestions like “Let’s sing a hymn!” and “Let’s pray!” which goes down with Kurt about as well as suggesting that he consider missing an episode of America’s Next Top Model. Chris Colfer gets to demonstrate his power-of-acting in a Genuinely Touching™ scene where he sings a mournful rendition of I Want to Hold Your Hand over flashbacks of his childhood with Dad featuring an amazingly well-cast mini-Kurt. Kurt relaxes his anti-religion stance when Mercedes explains that their prayers come from a place of love or something equally Oprah-ish, and then he goes to Church with her and has a fabulous time because those sermons with the black gospel choirs are so damn fun when compared to your run of the mill Protestantism. Then his Dad wakes up.

The B-Plot is some horrendously awful attempt to balance the sombre tone of the Kurt plot with farce that completely misfires. Finn sees Jesus’ face in a grilled cheese sandwich and starts praying to it for favours. This eventually results in Rachel singing the Weekly Rachel Ballad, which is all the proof we need that God doesn’t exist.

Episode 4: Duets

Puck has been sent to Juvie so that 29 year old Mark Salling can spend a few weeks promoting his album rather than pretend to be 15. But despair not, Puck-lovers, as he’s being replaced by Thunderlips Sam who apparently is no longer afraid of people thinking he’s a bit fruity. Kurt makes a bet with Mercedes that Sam is a bit fruity based on his hairstyle. So nice that oft-misunderstood Kurt is so willing to accept diversity and avoid stereotyping.

The writers show us that they sometimes remember what happened in previous episodes by having Kurt’s Dad chastise him for being all creepy with Finn in the first series. Anyone hoping for Kurt to ever get called out for unreasonable behaviour again should not hold their breath given how the rest of the season transpires. Kurt realises he’s projecting his own loneliness onto Thunderlips, and sets him free to duet with Quinn. Because that’s Schue’s assignment of the week: sing a duet. Brittany bonks Artie, Rachel and Finn are obnoxious, Kurt is a martyr to loneliness, and Santana and Mercedes bring the awesome with their version of River Deep, Mountain High. So obviously, the offensively Aryan duo of Thunderlips and Quinn end up winning rather than the Latin American/African American explosion of sassiness.

Episode 5: Rocky Horror Glee Show

Schuester doesn’t like the fact that Emma is slowly making progress in dealing with her OCD and finding happiness with an understanding, patient and caring man, so he attempts to woo her by proving he’s an even bigger Rocky Horror fan than Doctor Dentist in a sort of poorly realised pissing competition.

Schue’s attempts to stage a sanitised version of the musical result in Mercedes, as Frank-N-Furter, singing about how (s)he is a “Sweet transvestite from sensational Transylvania” because apparently transsexual is a naughty word but transvestite is okay. What an awesome awareness of gender politics they have going on at the 20^th Century Fox Censorship playpen. The Gleesters generally murder most of the Rocky Horror classics, although Emma’s Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me isn’t too bad, aside from the knot in my stomach that seeing a shirtless Schuester causes. I just cannot reconcile that body with that head, dammit. Speaking of man-torso, Thundelips is awfully proud of his, which leads to the discovery that Finn has body issues, which he resolves by walking through the hallway in his underwear. Damn, these Finn plotlines are so challenging. Still, more tolerable than a Finn plotline involving Rachel. Or any plotline involving Rachel, to be honest.

In the end, Schue learns a valuable lesson about using the Glee club to woo Emma, which he will have forgotten by the next episode, and the kids give a horrible rendition of Time Warp.

Episode 6: I Wish The Glee Writers Put More Effort Into Episode Titles

The first of the Blessed Martyr Kurt episodes! Yay! BMK is displeased with Schue assigning a Girls vs Boys competition, because he feels more comfortable with the girls. So Schue adds a twist to placate the Blessed Martyr: the boys must sing songs by female artists, and vice versa. The boys quickly tire of Kurt’s plans for their performance, and send him to The All Gay, All Boys School for Gay Boys to spy on “The Warblers”, a group they’ll be competing against in Sectionals. Kurt is amazed by the culture of tolerance and diversity at the All Gay, All Boys School for Gay Boys, which has a zero-tolerance bullying policy because 90% of the students are the biggest queers who ever queered. Kurt immediately crushes on Blaine, who is gay, way out of his league and a Warbler. Blaine encourages Kurt to deal with a bullying problem he’s been having, which he does, prompting Meathead McBully to plant a wet one on The Lips Of The Blessed Martyr in a plot twist that no one saw coming. Meathead then threatens to kill the Blessed Martyr.

In the few minutes of this show dedicated to people who aren’t Kurt, we learn that the students of Fuckwit High have taken to imagining Coach Bieste in various states of undress in order to prevent them getting too carried away when indulging in some heavy petting of the adolescent kind. Bieste learns of this and is sad, until Schuester patronises her by going on about how it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Considering that the writers give us about three sequences in which we’re meant to derive humour from the ugliness of Bieste, I think they might want to consider whether they’re sending us some mixed messages.

Oh, and Puck returns and befriends Wheels, who rekindles his romance with Brittany.

Episode 7: Gwyneth Paltrow Saves Us All

Schue has the flu, so we get the delightful Gwyneth Paltrow instead. Yay! While Schuester is busy getting his sickly freak on with his ex-wife in an eye-ball disintegratingly horrific scene that involves Vicks Vapo-Rub, Schue’s hairy chest and baby-talk (yes, really), Gwynnie is stealing the hearts of the Gleesters by demonstrating her appreciation of songs written in the past 5 years. She even manages to win Rachel around by allowing her to be the centre of attention. Who knew that’s all it would take to make Rachel happy? Mrs Chris Martin encourages a culture of Do Your Own Thang, which prompts Mercedes to vandalise Principal Sue’s car to the tune of $17,000 as part of an ongoing dispute over Her Sylvesterness’s banning of “Tator Tots” which I presume are some kind of fat-tabulous US fast food. Principal Sue, I say? Why yes, I do. For La Sylvester is the source of the flu outbreak that incapacitated Schue as well as Principal Figgins, into whose shoes Sue selflessly steps. Such is the popularity of her reign of terror amongst parents that Figgins is fired and Sue declared Monarch of the School. As it should be.

Alas, Gwynnie suffers a crisis as a result of the Mercedes/Sue spat and is unable to continue teaching, as she’s a bit flaky and tends to run for the hills when the going gets tough. She helps reinstate Schue, and he enlists her assistance in modernising his song selections for the Glee club. At least until the writers decide that Schue being out of touch musically is a plot point they want to touch on for the 5^th time.

Meanwhile, Blessed Martyr Kurt is threatened by Meathead McSecretlyGay again.

Episode 8: Furt. It's short for "Fuckwit Kurt"

Oh lord, this episode of the Blessed Martyr Kurt cycle is painful. Kurt’s dad and Finn’s mom decide to get married, and just like any normal wedding, both the ceremony and reception revolve entirely around how awesome their gay son is. Rachel witnesses Meathead threatening Kurt, and tries to have Finn use his influence with the football team to get them to beat the snot out of Meathead. Finn refuses because he doesn’t want to be too closely associated with the Blessed Martyr. Papa Kurt finds Kurt’s Hannah Montana Electronic Diary, and discovers the torment he’s been suffering from Meathead. He brings the situation to the attention of Principal Sue, who expels Meathead.

The wedding goes according to plan, and Finn, feeling bad for not defending Kurt, spends much of his best man’s speech telling us how wonderful Kurt is. He then proceedings to sing Bruno Mars’s Just the Way You Are. To Kurt. With unchanged lyrics. So we get a verging-on-orgasmically-pleased Kurt standing in the middle of the dancefloor as Finn croons “Girl you’re amazing, just the way you are.” I hate you, show. But seriously, Ryan Murphy (Glee creator and writer of this particular episode) needs to stop using the Kurt character as a proxy for working through whatever issues he has left over from his no doubt troubled high school years. Having everyone fawn over Kurt and tell him how fantastic he is just makes me wish Meathead would kill him.

Speaking of Meathead, his expulsion is overturned due to a lack of evidence and the threat of legal action, which causes Sue to resign the post of Principal in protest. But not before she marries herself, because the only person good enough for Sue Sylvester is Sue Sylvester. And, as it turns out, the only person good enough to officiate at the ceremony joining Sue Sylvester to Sue Sylvester, is Sue Sylvester. I just like typing Sue Sylvester. Sue Sylvester. Meathead’s return leads to Papa Kurt and Step-Mama-Kurt deciding to forego a honeymoon in Hawaii in favour of paying the tuition fees to send the Blessed Martyr Kurt to the All Gay All Boys School for Gay Boys, where there is a slight possibility he might just fit in.

Episode 9: Special Education

Now that the Blessed Martyr Kurt has ascended corporeally into Heaven, the Gleesters are yet again down one member, and with Sectionals upon them , having mysteriously moved from May (as in the first series) to November (as in this episode) desperate times call for desperate measures. So hefty bird Lauren is convinced to join the club via the magic of Puck’s lips and a few tonnes of free treats. One crisis averted, another arises in the shape of Schue’s predictable set-list. Emma convinces him to ditch the Finn/Rachel-oriented 80s soft-rock retinue he had intended having the kids perform in favour of some Quinn/Thunderlips crooning, and Santana having a solo-run on Valerie accompanied by Mike Chang and Brittany’s awesome dance-skillz.

Meanwhile, at the All Gay All Boys School for Gay Boys, Kurt is discovering that the price you pay for a life free of terror is the loss of your individuality, as he finds himself subsumed into the All Gay Hive-mind, stripped of his hipster-lite couture stylings and frowned at for not knowing his place within the Warblers. The Warbler philosophy seems to be that you do your time, support the status quo and get rewarded, sort of like how Irish political parties work. Unfortunately, this leaves Kurt at the bottom of the musical pyramid. Blaine tries to get him to perk up, but that’s easy for Blaine to say when he’s at the apex of said pyramid and thus gets a Big Gay Solo all to himself at the competition. The Gleesters and Warblers draw, and both move on to the next stage of the competition, which they probably won’t mention again until the second-last episode.

All is not well in Rachel and Finn land, as the former discovers the latter’s dalliance with Santana Lopez from the first series (ah, writers, with this awareness of previous events you are truly spoiling us) and is very much displeased. She decides to suck face with Puck as revenge, but Finn doesn’t quite see it as getting even, given that he and Rachel weren’t together when he lost his V-Plates to the luscious Ms Lopez. Finn and Rachel break up. No one cares in the slightest. The episode ends with a somewhat tolerable cover of Florence and the Machine’s Dog Days Are Over, lead by Asian Tina. That’s right, Asian Tina got to sing lead vocals for possibly the first time ever, in the 31^st episode of the show. Oh, and Emma and Doctor Dentist get married.

Episode Ten: A Very Glee Christmas

The teachers of Fuckwit High hold a Secret Santa, which is rigged by one Sue Sylvester so she receives all the gifts. Schue visits Kurt at the AGABS4GB to enquire of a gay what gift one would get for a Grinch like Sue. Kurt, as he is a gay, is of course deeply knowledgeable in the mystical art of shopping, and is able to tell Schue exactly what to get her, before confiding in Schue that he has fallen in love with Blaine. Shock.

Rachel stalks Finn in an attempt to rekindle their romance. For some reason she thinks that singing Last Christmas by Wham! will help her in this endeavour. Alas, it only drives them further apart, as any fool could have told her. You never try to repair a relationship with the music of George Michael, you stupid woman.

Meanwhile, Brittany still believes in Santa Claus, and Artie, finding this worrying display of delusion endearing, concocts a plot to ensure her belief in Santa survives another year, so he and the Gleesters escort Brit-Brit to Santa’s Grotto so they can overhear what she wants for Xmas. Unfortunately, what she wants for Xmas is for Artie to be able to walk again. Brittany is spared having to face the cold reality of a world without St Nick however, thanks to the intervention of Coach Bieste, who spends around $700,000 buying a pair of these experimental, unreleased robo-crutches, so that Artie can begin the journey to becoming an android. In other news, Sue predictably discovers the meaning of Christmas so the audience can have warm fuzzies, and Hefty Lauren is still in the club. Yay! DON’T COME BACK, Kurt.

X-Factor: The Final - Part Two

PREVIOUSLY: Cast your mind back, so long ago, to the first part of the very drawn out finale to the X-Factor 2010, when the following events may or may not have happened: Cher Lloyd went home and didn’t have a massive diva-strop on-stage thanks to the influence of powerful horse tranquilisers! Rihanna and Christina Aguilera literally tried to outstrip one another! Robbie Williams appeared on the show for the fifteen millionth time! Outside broadcasts from the contestants’ home towns made us lose the will to live because I don’t think any of us give a fuck what Melanie the hairdresser who once walked within two feet of Rebecca’s nan thinks about her chances of winning! Katie Waissel held the producers hostage with a shotgun and a demand for another wildcard round giving former contestants the right to a place in the final two!

LAST NIGHT, THE FINALISTS GAVE THE PERFORMANCES OF THEIR LIVES, Voiceover Man booms. NOW, FROM THOUSANDS JUST THREE REMAIN! Yes, I do have to retype everything he said. He completes me, and I’m not going to hear his voice again until August. Or until the next tongue-in-cheek E4 advert. We’re reminded that tonight, one of the 3 remaining finalists will win the X Factor and with it, a life-changing record deal. Life changing in the sense that they’ll get an Xmas number one (unless you’re Joe McElderry, in which case expect a campaign to get a song by a different act from the same global music conglomerate to number one, because showing Simon Cowell his influence is so powerful that he can inspire people to push a song to the top of the charts that would otherwise never have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it there is really going to show him who’s boss, isn’t it?) a less successful follow-up single and a mediocre album. For the last time, Voiceover Man reminds us that IT’S TIME. TO FACE. THE MUNICH!

We begin with... oh balls, a group performance. At least it’s only our three finalists and at least they’re actually singing live. We’re treated to Take That’s Never Forget. You will be shocked and amazed to learn that this segues into an appearance from Take That themselves, in what must be their 48^th appearance this month. Just in case you were starting to get bored of Take That, what with the fact that they are literally never off our TV screens these days with appearances on Strictly Come Dancing, any chat-show on after 8pm, and even their own bloody documentaries (such as David Attenborough’s Emmy nominated series on the mating rituals of the Mark Owen after 15 pints and a bottle of vodka), they’ve decided to shake things up by letting one of the ones who never sings take the lead. I think his name is Howard or Jason, but I’m not sure which one, so let’s just call him Howson. Howson does an admirable job of making himself noticed for the first time in 20 years, but Robbie Williams doesn’t take too kindly to having the spotlight diluted so he makes sure that he bleats out his parts as loudly as possible, sounding something like a sheep being raped with a chainsaw. Just in case we hadn’t noticed Robbie enough, he shows up another 24 times in the recap of last night’s performances, desperately trying to sup from the cup of One Direction’s fame like a showbiz vampire.

We have to endure another round of cover versions before the first elimination and then the winner’s songs, and Matt Cardle is up first, with Katy Perry’s Firework. Matt singing a woman’s song? Nice to see them doing something different in the final show. At no point in the performance does Matt wear a bra that fires sparkles into the air, which I guess is something we can all be thankful for. Boom boom boom falsetto boom. His performance is less manic than the one Perry herself gave us a few weeks ago, and his desperation to win is much less grating than her desperation to be noticed and given a judging role on the forthcoming televisual apocalypse that will be the American X-Factor. It isn’t as flawless as several of his other performances, but that’s the stubborn Waissel strain of tonsillitis for you. JUDGES! Louis and his ever-darkening hair say that Dannii and Matt have done a great job. Funny, I didn’t see Ms Minogue up on stage painfully squawking through ever tightening vocal chords for the past 3 weeks. Cheryl says something dense and Simon would prefer if Matt wasn’t wearing neon trousers. We travel via the magic of television to Essex where Stacey Solomon talks to woman who made a pizza that looks like Matt (but doesn’t really). And they say TV is dumbing down.

Fresh from the Disney cloning vats, it’s One Direction! In their intro-video, Curly Headed Bieber explains that if they won, their lives would change forever, and they’re ready for that. Yes, with an average age of about 16 and three-quarters, Bieber Squad have already lived through enough hard times to want out, and if they don’t get that through the X-Factor then they’re going to get it from the barrel of a gun. Do you want that on your conscience? Do you want Bieber Squad to escape their world-weariness with 5 bullets? Do you? That would be like seeing 5 Andrex puppies sitting in a basket in the middle of a motorway and not doing anything to save them from an oncoming truck. Don’t save one life this Christmas. Save five. Vote One Dimension. Tonight, the boys are murdering Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn, which has many layers of meaning for them as it was the first song they performed after being cynically put together as a band by the producers. Okay, that’s one layer of meaning. It actually isn’t a terrible performance. It’s completely in tune for one thing, and I think they even manage to avoid any bum notes tonight. Curly Headed Bieber and Superior Bieber take lead, as ever; Muslim Bieber continues in his established role as the human echo; Inferior Bieber pulls faces in the desperate hope that someone will notice he exists, and Irish Bieber stares into the camera with the cold, dead eyes of a serial sex offender. JUDGES! Louis does the thing Louis always does, where he just basically states material facts of reality: You’re One Direction. You’re five boys. You’re a boyband. You have Y chromosomes. You’re in the final. You could win. I’m Louis Walsh. Fuck me hard. Dannii expresses her belief that the boys will have a career whatever happens, as does Cheryl. Simon says the boys should win because they’d give us something we’ve never seen before. He’s right. We’ve never seen 5 young men sing together before. Except for when Take That did it 10 minutes ago. Or when The Wanted did it 3 episodes ago.

Rebeccabot expresses her amazement at being in the final. And not much else. It’s a really, really short intro video. She probably needed the extra time to sit in her regeneration alcove absorbing electricity. This is the final, after all; she’ll need the extra juice. Rebecca is singing Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), because since upgrading her Operating System, she has begun to experience the randomness of what it is like to dream. Like the other night, not long after she entered hibernation mode, she saw the usual string of Ones and Zeroes but could swear that at several points she saw the number two. On the strength of this performance, it seems a pity that Rebeccabot decided to play it safe(mode) for so long with twee balladry, because she completely knocks this one out of the park. Which is easy when you have a pneumatic, motorised, reinforced titanium skeleton, but still. The dancers are wearing binbags and I think the aesthetic is probably inspired by the apocalyptic future that Rebecca comes from. JUDGES! Louis goes insane and practically begs us to vote for Rebecca. Dannii says it was a fantastic performance and Simon compliments Cheryl on the song choice. Cheryl smiles stupidly and tries to remember if she’s wearing any underwear.

IT’S TIME! TO WATCH! SOME FILLER! We get about five minutes of footage from the audition stages, all of which we have seen countless times before, over and over and over. But just in case you’d forgotten, all your favourites are there: Michael Jackson, Stonehenge Hippie Granny and her long grey hair, that prostitute they sent to Boot Camp, the guy who fell trying to hug Cheryl, the Wicked Witch, the unforgettable Gay And Straight, the Aul Wan in the Blonde Wig who did Pink’s So What, and of course, the pair of teletubbies who started punching one another on-stage. This all leads, inevitably, to most of these rejects making an appearance live in studio performing Bad Romance, concluding with Chavstitute, dressed in Ann Summers’ cheapest dominatrix outfit, descending from the ceiling in a pair of lips trying her best to belt out the chorus and failing miserably.

The voting lines are frozen and we prepare to say goodbye to either Rebeccabot, Matt or Fuckwits United. Dermot wishes all the finalists the best of luck and then proceeds to wait around 40 seconds before announcing that Matt is through. Matt does that annoying fist-biting thing and runs excitedly off-stage. Dermot then announces Rebecca is safe, and we get the absolute highlight of the series as five teenage faces sink in the sort of utter dismay that can only mean one thing: they totally thought they were going to ace it. Crestfallen visages watch as the montage of One Direction’s best bits goes by. Well, four crestfallen faces do. Niall looks more like he’s just realised he left his sketchbook of drawings of Victorian-era European Royalty fucking wallabies with knives in plain sight in their dressing room and desperately wants to get there before anyone else does.

We’re in the home stretch people. It’s time. TO FACE. THE WINNER’S SONGS. Matt’s is a cover version of Biffy Clyro’s Many of Horror, because Simon Cowell actually wants to antagonise the demographic that put Killing in the Name to number one last year. They’ve changed the title to When We Collide, because we can’t have a potential Xmas number one with the word horror in its name. The primary difference between Biffy’s original and Matt’s version is the loss of Simon Neil’s always puzzling mid-Atlantic drawl (always puzzling because he’s Scottish) and the inevitable addition of some high notes. It isn’t the musical abomination many outraged Biffy fans would have you believe – just a straight up cover version by a guy with a decent enough voice with no emotional connection to the song. Measured evaluation not being the Judges’ strong point, they laud it as though it is Matt’s best performance of the entire series, when it is clearly about seven hundred kilometres away from being such a thing. We get some further padding in the shape of a retrospective on Matt’s “journey”, because if it is one thing the X-Factor editors (and indeed all reality tv show editors) love, it’s showing us footage of contestants journeys. Look, there’s Matt singing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face at boot camp. And look, there’s Matt singing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face in November. Hasn’t he come so far?

Rebeccabot will be drawing the competitive stage of X-Factor 2010 to a close, with her cover version of Duffy’s Distant Dreamer. That’s certainly one way to make Rebecca a more exciting, relevant singer – have her do a cover of a song by what must be one of the most vibrant, colourful and exhilarating acts of the last 5 years. Oh. Wait. Rebecca looks stunning, probably because she’s aware she’ll have to return to the future soon and wants to look her best for her reunion with Data, Alpha 5, the T-800 and the other members of the Android Collective dedicated to saving us from that dreadful future depicted in that documentary, The Matrix. The performance is nice, just like Rebecca’s dress, Rebecca’s hair and Rebecca herself. I could never see anyone in the world excitedly remarking “I simply cannot wait for the Rebecca Ferguson album”. Actually, I can’t see anyone ever saying that about a Matt Cardle album either. Oh well. JUDGES! Louis pleads for Rebecca one last time, Dannii turns her critique into a statement on Matt, Cowell liked it and Cheryl Cole is a moron. We then have to sit through the story of Rebecca’s journey, which omits the interesting stuff like the struggle of the resistance leaders in the year 2145 to steal the prototype Rebeccabot from Robotnik and send it back in time. The story of Rebeccabot reduces her to tears, proving that even an android can cry. Cheryl says that she really can’t say enough about Rebecca, because she wasn’t aware Bex existed until almost 24 hours ago when Cher got the boot. We head to adverts with a promise from Dermot of a very special guest act...

Which turns out to be Take That. Again. Performing The Flood. Again. That’s right, the celebrity performer for the absolute, honest to goodness last episode of this series of the X-Factor is a band we’ve already seen about 4 times this year, performing the same song they did on the results show broadcast on November 14^th. I can only conclude that a very special guest star was booked and then murdered by Katie Waissel in one last desperate attempt to ruin the show and prevent anyone other than herself being crowned champion. Their new album is the fastest selling record of the century, Dermot announces, asininely. It’s the space year 2010, O’Leary. That sort of hyperbole stopped meaning anything ten years ago. Performance over, Robbie Williams enters attention-seeking mode; he starts chanting for “Wagner”, runs around the stage disrobing, then places a firework between his arse-cheeks and does a backflip as it goes off. On the Williams’ scale of public irritation, it registers 5.5 Rudeboxes.

RESULTS TIME! At fucking last. The lights dim. The audience quietens. The fingers of hundreds of Biffy Clyro fans hover over their keyboards, waiting to register their disgust. “The winner of the X-Factor 2010, is...” Dermot says, at 1 hour, 28 minutes and 40 seconds into the show. At 1 hour, 28 minutes and 58 seconds, Dermot announces that Matt has won. Rebecca and her mine-shaped jewellery hug Matt and offer congratulations. Cheryl briefly wonders which of the acts on-stage is hers and if this means she’s won again. Dannii kicks Cheryl in the vagina, universally acknowledged as the only way to inform someone that their hat-trick has been denied. Danni is thrilled – Matt is her big beefy apology to the world for Leon Jackson, after all. Matt is obliged to sing When We Collide again, just to make those Biffy fans mentioned earlier write their letters of disgust to NME even more furiously. The former contestants join him on-stage, and he starts to sob when my boyfriend Aiden throws his arms around him. It better be platonic, is all I’m saying. We get the hilarious moment where Matt punches Dannii, which I watch again and again, pretending that it’s Cheryl Cole instead. And then, just like that, after all the tears, tantrums, Brazilian sex gods and the Irish Shirley Basseys who loved them, chavtastic wannabe Feminems, product placement for Sony Music artists, failed attempts at manipulating public sentiment and more appearances by Robbie Williams than any TV show should be capable of withstanding, it is over.