There’s a happy middle ground somewhere in between believing nothing and everything you read.  There’s also the happy ground I inhabit, where I conveniently believe the things I choose to believe if they happen to reinforce my existing beliefs and opinions.

If I read something derogatory or defamatory about someone I don’t like, I’ll probably believe it.  The opposite is equally true of someone I very much like.  For example, did you know that Brian Clough ordered his players to have a drink on the bus journey to Anfield immediately before a crucial European Cup game in 1978? You see, I want to believe that, because it’s a brilliant story about a brilliant man.  And if you say it isn’t true then I’ll stick my fingers in my ears and go LALALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING LALALALALA.

Also, did you know that X Factor’s Katie Waissel is a “ruthlessly ambitious schemer” and a “fame-obsessed sex maniac who’s tried to bed her way to the top”?  Well, so says self-confessed “celebrity” Michael Sophocles.  (You know, he made a real twat of himself on the Apprentice.  Actually I’m not sure that narrows it down.)

Michael Sophocles and an unusually feminine-looking Katie Waissel

I’m not sure whether to laugh in confused exasperation at the irony of Michael Sophocles trying to cash in on Katie Waissel’s five minutes of fame by claiming she tried to cash in on his five minutes of fame before dumping him to try and cash in on James Blunt’s five minutes of fame, or to weep cold, agonising tears at the mention of three of the biggest bell-ends of the twenty-first century in the same sentence.  And no, it isn’t too soon to consider Katie Waissel one of the biggest bell-ends of this century.

It saddens and sickens me to think that anybody anywhere thinks they can (and are prepared to try to) become famous by fucking James Blunt and Michael Sophocles, and it’s just as — if not more — saddening and sickening to think that someone can try to eek out a little more limelight from claiming someone tried to become famous by fucking them and so on and on and on ad infinitum.  It’s just a big fucking mess of annoying fucking nobodies trying to become somebodies by fucking or claiming to have fucked or claiming not to have fucked somebody slightly more famous or apparently more cultural relevant.  Except James Blunt, who would come out of this reasonably well were it not for the fact that he might have fucked Katie Waissel.  (If it weren’t for her big square manly jaw it might make me think he wasn’t gay.)

But I digress.  You see, the thing that really annoys me about Katie Waissel is that she doesn’t want to be a singer; she wants to be a star.  And the X Factor is the vehicle towards her becoming a star.  And the sad thing is that this is the case for most of the sub-karaoke singers on that God-forsaken show that for some inexplicable reason infiltrates my every waking thought.

No-one seems to say they want to be a singer or a performer anymore.  They don’t want to write songs, or be on stage, or even be acknowledged for being talented.  They just want to be famous and rich.  “I just want to be a legend,” Katie Waissel said to the camera during the audition stage.  Let’s break down the semantics of that statement.

I just (adverb (jəst, jĭst; jŭst when stressed): merely, only) want to be a legend (noun (lej′ənd): 1) a story handed down for generations among a people and popularly believed to have a historical basis, although not verifiable, 2) a notable person whose deeds or exploits are much talked about in his or her own time)

She just wants to be a legend.  That’s all!  A LEGEND.  A fucking legend, like Robin Hood or King Arthur or Elvis or Brian Clough.  She just wants to be a legend.

And this, I think is why people hate Katie Waissel.  It’s why I hate almost everyone who’s ever been on X Factor.  They want to click their fingers and be famous.  And for some of them — annoyingly — that’s what will happen.  It might be fleeting (Storm), it might be ironic (Wagner), it might (hopefully) bite them on the arse and make them regret it for the rest  of their days (Katie, please), but some of these cunts will become moderately famous.  And for what?  Being half-decent singers.  Half-decent singers with no creative control whatsoever, who have whored themselves and their talent out to the producers of a TV show in the hope of achieving fame.  If they had any real fucking talent — if they had any real fucking drive or motivation or fucking gumption — they’d have found a way to become famous.  They’d have fucking EARNED it.  No-one on the X Factor deserves to be rich and famous because none of them will fucking earn it.

People think that being famous is some kind of achievement.  Well it isn’t.  Paris Hilton became famous for being “a socialite” (FFS) who made a sex tape with her boyfriend.  Abi Titmuss became famous for doing the same with John Leslie.  Amanda Holden.  Kelly Osbourne.  Jack Tweed.  All of questionable talent, all rode someone else’s coattails to fame.  Fame is not an achievement.  Not anymore.

This isn’t a rant about Katie Waissel, specifically.  Yes, she’s annoying.  Yes, she looks about as feminine as Desperate Dan.  Yes, there’s something very strange and elfish and pointy going on with her right ear, and yes, her face swells up like Mr Potato Head when she strains for that big note, but it’s important to remember that almost everything we’ve seen and heard from Katie Waissel has been edited.  The X Factor producers try to shape our perceptions of all the X Factor characters.  If, for ratings or publicity or through sheer malevolence they want us to hate Katie Waissel, they will (and have, to be fair) make sure we do.  She may have given the producers hours and hours of pleasant footage, where she discusses her tireless charity work and displays her affable, selfless nature, but they choose to show the clip where she says: “I just want to be a legend,” and it gets self-righteous grumpy old farts like me LIVID with rage to the point where they write a blog or comment on facebook twenty or thirty times during the course of an evening, all simply serving to spread the word, letting the X Factor brand permeate through the public conscience a little more.  I don’t hate Katie Waissel.  Well, maybe I do, a bit, but that’s because X Factor made me.  I believed what I saw.

Katie Waissel, looking both less attractive and less feminine than both members of Jedward

In the wake of the government’s spending review and the various controversial spending cuts, will people think twice this weekend before voting for their favourite X Factor character?  I highly doubt it.  I wonder if the people belly-aching about ‘unfair’ government cuts are the ones phoning up ten times to keep Wagner — a man with a similar amount of talent for singing as my talent for unaided flight — in the competition.  And for why?  For an entertainment show that’s as good as rigged.  They show us who to like, they show us who to hate, and above all else they make sure we keeping watching and talking about it.

I’ve always argued X Factor is not a singing contest but an entertainment show.  I don’t even think it’s that anymore — it’s anti-entertainment, it’s reverse-entertainment.  I watch it to get angry.  I don’t think I’ve derived any pleasure from spending three and of half hours of each of my last two weekends watching the X Factor, but it’s got me angry, it’s got me indignant, and it’s got me talking about it.  And I wonder if that’s the point.  Cowell is a salesman of the most despicable kind; he doesn’t care if we like what he’s selling, as long as we keep coming back for more.  It’s not entertainment, it’s untertaiment (a word, incidentally, I will be seeking to copyright).  (Edit — SHIT I’ve just looked online and I’m NOT the first person to use that word.  Bugger.)

Cher Lloyd doing a very passable impression of a blow-up sex doll

So, like me, watch the X Factor.  Get angry, get upset, feel alive.  Maybe that’s the point.  Even the banality of the judges comments make me angry now.  I used to love their barbed remarks and uncalled-for put-downs, but now they’ve all turned nice, like they constantly have to validate the ‘talent contest’ aspect of the show by saying how good everyone is all the time and how they deserve to be in the show.  Where once the judges were the ones dishing out the hateful comments and taking the flak, they’ve stepped back, and they’re letting the press make the hateful comments for them while they sit in righteous indignation saying, “Katie, a lot of the media attention you’ve been getting has been very unfair and you deserve a break…”

No, she deserves what she’ll inevitably get; and that’s being chewed up and spat out and washed away by the X Factor machine in time for next year’s show when another bunch of fame-hungry fame-whores come along for more of the same.

And I’ll be sat on my sofa watching.

The Haiti earthquake was and continues to be a terrible, awful tragedy, and the people of Haiti need our help.  They need our money.  What they (and we, the rest of the world) don’t need is a bunch of self-serving, back-slapping celebrity twats cobbling together a half-arsed karaoke version of Everybody Hurts (one of many songs that should be given *listed* status, preventing anyone from ever, ever recording a cover version, under penalty of death).  It fucking sickens me, it really does.

If you want to donate money to the Haiti cause, go on the official DEC site. 

If this abomination of a single ends up retailing at — let’s say — £1.99, just donate two quid direct to the charity instead.  Or £3.99, which is what a single cost in my day.  Fuck it; donate a fiver, a tenner.  Twenty notes.  Do something but please for Christ’s sake don’t do it because Simon Cowell told you to.

Are you going to let this flabby worm tell you what to do? ARE YOU?

If you donate your cash to the Disasters Emergency Committee it will go to those who need it most.  The aforementioned £1.99 CD/digital download/whatever you kids call them these days won’t appear out of thin air.  I shudder to think what the ‘profit’ on a CD is these days, but I doubt the Haiti appeal will get more than half the price of the CD.

Maybe I’m being overly cynical.  Maybe the distribution, the CD press run, the artwork, the materials etc will all be donated for free.  But I’m sure in the current economic climate and with the music industry — according to that twat Bono — dying on its arse, no-one’s going to be falling over themselves to be involved for nothing but kudos and publicity (apart from the celebrities, who want to enhance their reputations, because reputation = future record sales).

Record Company Knob: “Hello?  Is that Bob’s CD making factory?”

Bob: “It is indeed.”

RCK: “Do you fancy being involved in the new Haiti CD?”

Bob: “Wow, I’d love to!  Anything we can do to help.”

RCK: “Excellent.  We’d like you to run a few copies of the CD for us, only, you know, it’s for charity so we won’t be paying you for the time, manpower and materials.”

Bob: “Hmmm.  Right.  Well, how many CDs do you think you’ll need?”

RCK: “We estimate we’ll sell two million copies in the UK.”

Bbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpppppppppppppppp

Bob Roberts, Managing Director, Bob's CD Making Factory, shortly before hanging up (that's what the Brrrrrrppppp is meant to signify above)

If this is one massive game of Simon Says, then why doesn’t Simon tell us all to just donate some money directly, instead of telling us to buy a single his record company will be producing?  Maybe because presumably the former option won’t make him look like a fucking saint, and won’t in the long-term make him a shitload of cash.

I really don’t want to seem bitter about this, but these useless cunts are falling over themselves to sing in this song, and they all just want to look good by being a part of it.  I agree that we should be raising awareness and trying to get people to donate, but for fuck’s sake it’s been on the fucking news for over a week now.  Anyone who hasn’t grasped that’s something’s kicked off somewhere in the ocean near America must have been living in a fucking cave.

Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe the only way for people to give money to charity is by releasing another sacrilegious cover version of a classic song.  Maybe we, the British public, really are that fucking stupid. 

What’s wrong with releasing the original version with all proceeds going to Haiti?  (Say what you like about REM or Michael Stipe, but fuck me Everybody Hurts is a great song, and part of the reason it’s a great song is Stipe’s haunting vocal.)  No glory-seeking celebrities would need to be involved, Simon Cowell wouldn’t get any glory (or a Knighthood, which he’ll now almost certainly get next year, the smug twat) out of it, and there’d be a lot less people making a nice pile of cash out of a global tragedy.

Am I wrong?  Tell me if I’m being a jerk here.

In the mean time I need to go and lie down for a while.

.

Last night I wiped away the tears as loveable, talentless goons Jon & Edward were finally eliminated from the X-Factor singing contest/talent contest/entertainment show/freak show (delete based on opinion).  In the immediate aftermath of their elimination, I saw a smile spread across one of their gormless faces.  Their relief was palpable.  No longer would they have to stumble around on stage looking confused to a chorus of boos and jeers (not until the X-Factor Live Tour 2010, anyway).  It was as if they thought the pain was finally over.  Well, sorry boys, but it’s only just beginning.  And here’s what will prove to be an eerily accurate prediction of how I think it will all pan out.

In the week or two after their X-Factor eviction they’ll move from magazine interview to TV interview to magazine interview.  They’ll make a bit of money out of it, too.  They’ll quickly become flavour of the month, touted as the new Ant and Dec.  (Privately, Ant and Dec will rightly find this hugely insulting.)  There will be rumours (entirely fabricated by the tabloids) of them wanting to record and release a novelty Christmas single, but — the papers will claim — their X-Factor contract won’t allow them.  Possible headlines:

JEDWARD FURY AT SINGLE BAN

SCARED COWELL VETOES JEDWARD SINGLE

EIGHT DIE IN JEDWARD PROTEST CARNAGE

In the first week in December Jedward turn on the Christmas lights in their home town of Lucan, as well as similar appearances in a couple of depressing-sounding places like Ramsgate, Liverpool and Cardiff.  A typically shambolic live medley of their X Factor songs performed live on the 2009 Top Of The Pops Christmas special becomes the most downloaded video in the history of the internet, when one of the brothers falls off stage and breaks his arm.

February 2010 sees Jedward release their debut single, a cover of Sam Fox’s Touch Me, which hits number one in the UK.  The brothers become red-top regulars as they’re photographed leaving various nightclubs in the early hours with high-profile female twosomes like the Cheeky Girls, Samanda and Mel and Martina from Funhouse.

Pat Sharpe from Funhouse. You think he ever, you know, with the twins? I bet he tried.

After being the undoubted stars of a hugely successful X-Factor Live Tour, Jedward begin working on their debut album.  The lead single — a duet with Lily Allen titled A Dog With Two Dicks — goes straight to number one, followed a week later by the album.  By the end of 2010 Jedward have completed their own sell-out World Tour and the album Our Dream is already the biggest-seller of all-time.  All fourteen songs from the album are released as singles, and all fourteen hit number one in the UK charts.

2010 also sees Jedward’s first movie, Two 4 One, released to huge critical acclaim.  The film becomes the first to make a gazillion pounds on its opening night, and goes on to single-handedly drag the UK economy out of recession.  Both brothers are given honorary knighthoods in the new year honours list.

The second Jedward album, Who’s Laughing Now, Hey? is another global smash, but with worldwide sales of only forty-five million units, there are fears that the Jedward star is beginning to fade.  After writing Jedward: The Musical — Our Inexorable Rise To Massive Fame And Glory And Riches, the brothers decide to take a showbiz hiatus, moving to California and marrying Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, or "Markshley", to continue the Jedward theme.

When a two year-old mobile phone video of Jedward ‘roasting’ a female student is sold to a British tabloid, The Olsen Twins file for divorce.  The grainy footage — filmed by the one of Jedward who’s taking her from behind — is found on a Sony Ericsson C902 which one of Jedward send to envirofone in exchange for a thirty pound Argos voucher.  Jedward are barely recognisable in the video until they start singing Oops I Did It Again whilst thrashing around clumsily, high-fiving each other and exclaiming, “We’re just trying our best and having the time of our lives here.”

Jedward return to the UK to find their popularity has nose-dived.  Soon, they find themselves in fifth position on E4’s 100 Thoroughly Detestable Celebrities Show, sandwiched between Gary Glitter and Robert Kilroy Silk (but behind Shirley Bassey).  By the end of 2012, Jedward are stripped of their honorary knighthoods, and flee to Ireland, begging for privacy.

Jedward, in case you had no idea who I was talking about

By 2018 the world has completely forgotten there ever lived a musical entity called Jedward, until a chance meeting with Louis Walsh when the smug music manager walks into a Dublin Subway restaurant to be offered jalapenos, gherkins or olives by one of Jedward (the other one is working on the till as he’s a bit more senior.  You know, the slightly less stupid-looking one.  No, I mean, if you look really hard, one looks slightly less stupid than the other.  Trust me.  He’s the one who used to fall about the least whilst ‘dancing’).

Jedward and Louis hit it off together instantly, and begin planning their comeback album, We’re Sorry Please Buy Our Records Again, which is released to a huge fanfare in November 2019, neatly coinciding with the ten year anniversary of the twins’ relentless shitness first being unleashed onto the British public.

A multi-million pound advertising campaign is launched to propel Jedward back into the public consciousness of the world.  At 9pm on November 22^nd 2019, exactly ten years after Dannii Minogue drawled the words, “The act I’m sending home is… Jedward,” images of the twins are simultaneously projected onto various landmarks around the world, with the words JEDWARD ARE BACK! written in whatever language is generally considered to be most prevalent in the country in which the image was being projected.  At once the whole world looks up at the towering image of Jedward (in their Ghostbusters outfit, probably).  They look up, and together, all the people of the world, united in one glorious emotion, merely shrug and carry on with their lives.  The comeback fails.  Louis Walsh, having thrown everything he owned into the Jedward reunion, is ruined.  Fortunately Jedward manage to get him a job being the one who asks what bread you want in Subway before cutting it in half.

THE END

Dannii Minogue: yeah, I probably would

.

X-Factor — and brace yourselves now — is an ENTERTAINMENT show.  It has not nor never will be a TALENT show.  Simon Cowell cares less about how many records the X-Factor win sells than he does how many people watch X-Factor.  This is why he wants the aforementioned gurning idiots in his show, and this is why, last week, he handed them a lifeline.  They’ll tell you it’s a talent show, but last week pretty much proves it isn’t.

Cowell isn’t stupid.  He knows that people talking about X-Factor — be it good or bad — makes people watch X-Factor.  Front page headlines expressing outrage at Jedward (as I believe it’s cool to refer to them collectively) still being in the competition at the expense of a far superior singer and performer — the quite lovely Lucie Jones — can only be a good thing.  He doesn’t care if the public hate him for effectively keeping Jedward in the competition, if the haters keep watching his show.

Lovely Lucie Jones

The phrase “they’re so bad they’re good” has never rung truer.  Last night I almost cried with laughter when one of Jedward (I really don’t care which) tripped over as they burst through a paper screen at the start of their song.  And for once I thought they weren’t bad.  They weren’t especially good, but they weren’t especially bad.  They were, arguably, the highlight of the show.  

The other acts aren’t that great, and none of them are truly entertaining (arguably Olly aside).  That Sting last week referred to the stars of X-Factor as karaoke singers was something of a compliment.  Karaoke singers try to sing along to the actual song — our X-Factor ‘stars’ seem to have the song dropped a key or two to fit their range/not show up the fact that they’re not fit to lace the boots of the original artist.  Comparing the X-Factor finalists to Freddie Mercury (arguably the greatest singer of all time) would be unfair, but it was embarrassing to hear Danyl last night start singing ‘We Are The Champions’ what seemed like an octave below the original version.  It’s not just him — they’re all the same, all a bit samey.

Which is why Jedward are such a breath of fresh air in a show — and an industry — that seems to take itself too seriously, at least externally.  I do think Cowell’s insistence that he “did the right thing” last week by passing up the chance to dump Jedward out of the competition and instead referring to the public vote, is bordering on insulting to the audience.  But to let the façade slip would take away half the fun.  It’s a bit like WWE wrestling.  We all know it’s fake, we all know it’s shit, but somehow it’s entertaining to see people making idiots of themselves.

WWE: a grown man making an idiot of himself, brother

For every person who hates Jedward there’s a person who loves them, and therein lies the beauty of the voting process.  Let’s take Big Brother as an example.  If you hate a housemate you have the chance to vote to evict them.  Not so with X-Factor.  If you hate Jedward the only way to *evict* them would be to vote for every single one of the other acts.  If you’re really that bothered about booting Jedward out of the competition then it’s more money for Cowell.  The other great thing about the way the show works is that the judges always retain control of who goes and who stays.  And it’s Cowell’s show at the end of the day.  It means that a million people a week vote, but the judges ultimately decide who goes out of the competition.

So if you’re a member of one of these GET JEDWARD OFF X-FACTOR groups on facebook, then I think you’re an idiot.  You’re an idiot because you’ve missed the point.  It’s an entertainment show, and Jedward are, if nothing else, entertaining.  X-Factor is at worst, a modern-day human freak show.  Let’s laugh at the poor, deluded idiots who whore themselves out before the nation for a feeble shot at stardom.  It’s cruel, but it seems somehow acceptable to wheel out these idiots to make twats of themselves on stage.  It’s — as I said — entertainment.

So tonight, at the risk of looking very foolish indeed (because chances are by the team you read this someone — perhaps Jedward — will have been kicked off the show), I will be sitting, hoping Jedward get through.  They won’t win it, but I hope they’re dancing around out of time and singing out of tune for a few weeks yet.  And after all my ranting, maybe I’m the idiot.  I just voted for them.  GO JEDWARD. 

And, FYI, Lloyd should go this week, not least for admitting last night; “I’d never heard of Queen to be honest.”  I mean, FFS.

.