Blog 14 - The X Factor 2010

The X Factor has once more bounded back onto our screens, no longer the adorable sparkly-eyed puppy it once was, but an older fully-developed mongrel, smugly expecting to be a family favourite as always. Trouble is that the family have tired somewhat of their preening pedigree pet. We know where the farty smell has been coming from on a saturday night and it's not Grandad.

It's been 4 days now since the first episode of the new series and already the show has had 2 scandals of which you sense, neither was a pre-planned publicity stunt. We're far quicker to look for the flaws these days and the press are spearheading the push. But more of these later.

We start with the same tired format. Dermot O'Leary comes on and makes us forget that he was ever a promisingly entertaining presenter in the days of Big Brothers Little Brother and instead flogs himself to the highest bidder and in return has nothing to say except the hackneyed offerings from a bucket of cliches more well worn than the square foot of carpet in front of Simon Cowell's mirror. Dermot perfunctorily showers us with news that "more people than ever before have shown up to audition for a life-changing blah-de-blah" over the ubiquitous crowd shots of cheering, arm-waving psychopaths, that has a more soporific effect on the synapses than a lakeful of Ketamin.

Cowell's back with whiter teeth, higher hair, and an increasing grumpiness bordering on melancholy as he realises his cash cow has peaked and he's just riding the last few gallons of milk out of it's pendulously sagging udders.

Louis the Laprechaun has popped back up as well, looking as happy as a dog with two dicks. (Well he did sign Jedward after all). I'm actually gaining some respect for Walsh, based solely on the fact that he's so obviously gleeful about the fact that he is in all self-awareness, getting paid shitloads to mumble crap, and he keeps getting work! Nobody has a good word to say about Walsh's incomprehensible musings, yet he's there every week, playing the role of Benny-The-Ball to Cowell's Top Cat and coining it in. Good luck to him.

Cheryl Cole/Tweedy/Geordie Princess Di is there at the moment although her imminent televised malarial collapse keeps being dangled before us at every "coming up" segment with an alarming relish. I dread to think what the producers would do with Tommy Cooper's on-screen death. "And as Tommy goes off to the morgue, what will this mean for the groups?" chimes Dermot in monotone.

Danni Minogue is missing this series as she's been pushing out a baby, presumably to the bemusement of the midwives who have never seen a woman grimace with pain whilst looking like a startled trout. This has given Cowell the excuse to replace her on a "temporary" basis with various other uglier understudies to Cheryl. This week it was the turn of octagenarian basket-case Geri Halliwell to flap her gums with the her trademark pretension of intellect that would fit in perfectly in the common room of an upper-middle-class 6th-form. With goggly eyes and a skeletal frame, Halliwell looks like a "Before" picture for thyroid medicine. Every contestant was treated to her nonsensical ponderings on how to make it as a pop star, although tragically she never embued the contestants with the secrets of her own personal route to musical success, having big tits.

And so on came the lunatics, like hopeful cattle playing "What's the Time Mr Wolf" by the abattoir wall, they clomped on stage, mooed, pawed and grazed at the floor whilst Cowell and co plundered their magic 8-ball of stock phrases to heckle at the disappointing bags of flesh that were littering their eyeline. 4 days on I can only remember 2 of them, both of which were skinny girls with big eyes who sung strangely. One of these has since been found to have serious mental health issues which has led Cowell to sling her off the programme quicker than you can say "She- wouldn't-have-made-as-much-as-Subo-so-she's-not-worth-the-hassle".

This is small beans however compared to the furore caused by Scandal number 2 which came out yesterday that, shock horror, X-Factor uses vocal techology to improve contestants voices. "Thank fuck for that" is my only response. We all know that if/when they release their solitary cover song post X-Factor their voices will be more heavily doctored than Typhoid Cheryl on her deathbed. With that being the case, why make us suffer their inept flailings every week when there's an option to make a poor man's Michael Buble from a rich man's Shane McGowan? I want vaguely entertaining, not a preposterous illusion that any of them are talented enough to have a career.

I shall of course, watch as always. It's like low quality weed. You know it's not good for you and will give you a headache, but when it's right in front of you it somehow seems like a harmlessly compelling way to spend an evening.