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Don’t believe everything you read.  That’s what I’ve read, anyway.  But I also heard a bloke called David St Hubbins (named after the Patron Saint Of Quality Footwear) say “I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn’t believe anything.”

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.)

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.

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.)

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.