Righto, that’s it. Stereo Kicks, you are gone, but not forgotten. It’ll take at least until part two of Homeland to forget you.
Thanks, as ever, for reading and commenting and tweeting and all that. I genuinely don’t know what I’d do without you at this point. Come back and join me at 8pm on Saturday for the EXCITING SEMI-FINAL LIVEBLOG! Or, you know, just put this on auto-refresh and get drunk without me like you normally do. Follow me on Twitter! I’m @StuHeritage! SAUSAGE VICTORY!
But, hey, they might be the next Union J. That’s something, isn’t it? No? Of course it isn’t? I’m talking out of my flap? I should stop typing? FINE THEN.
That’s a good thing for all sorts of reasons. 1 - I’m bored of writing Erect Kiosks. 2 - I’ve taken against about three of them at this stage. 3 - Melb’s children love Stereo Kicks, and I like it when children are upset. 4 - Stereo Kicks is the worst name I have ever heard.
Oh, Stereo Kicks have been voted out.
Ah, no, he’s taken it to Deadlock. Again. It must be dead easy being an X Factor judge. You just have to shrug a lot.
Simon hasn’t spoken yet. I think he might be dead.
So now to Simon. If he sends Lauren home, that’s it. If he doesn’t, it’s deadlock. TENSION. No, wait, that’s not tension, it’s trapped wind. Sorry.
Now for Cheryl. She’s not going to send Lauren home. But she’s going to be all sniffy about something in a relentlessly off-putting way.
Melb’s next. She’s also sending Lauren home.
Louis first. He’s sending Lauren home.
Stereo Kicks out, surely.
It was pointed out to me earlier today that, whenever Stereo Kicks sing a song, they all make gestures like they’re grabbing someone else’s testicles. That’s all I can see now. It’s got nothing to do with that performance, but I just realised that this might be my last chance to point that out.
This, without exaggeration, is like listening to assisted suicide.
Oh, they’re doing that song I hate. You know the one.
Stereo Kicks now. They’re going to have to be pretty great to top that. They’d better really make their respective one-eighth of a song count.
That said, I have nothing to say about this at all. It’s competent. God, I hope Stereo Kicks are crap.
Well, this isn’t bad. It’s probably the best that Lauren has ever been, in fact, probably because Cheryl hasn’t dressed her up as a miniature version of her and asked her to bop around like a toddler trying to get a wasp out of its nappy.
Anyway, Sing-Off And Inevitable Deadlock time. Lauren’s up first.
Now an advert for The Post Office, which miraculously doesn’t consist of a tiny, crying, grey-skinned man repeating the phrase ‘I hate life’ over and over again. Seems like a missed opportunity if you ask me.
And now an advert for Now TV, which has Elf instead of Channel 4 again this year. Booo, Now TV. BOOOOO. BOEREWORS!
Paloma Faith is definitely singing ‘Take away my queef, by the way’. No wonder she wants it taken away. Nobody wants to fanny-fart in the middle of a song.
Just between you and me, I’d have quite liked it if X Factor junked all its contestants this year and just let Ella sing for a couple of hours. Even if she is a miserable coat-abuser.
That said, though, this is pretty great. Ella Henderson is brilliant, isn’t she? And she’s only 17. Only 17. She’s only a 17-year-old girl you know. 17. She’s only 17.
Why’s she so sad? She’s singing about wearing someone else’s coat. Perhaps the owner isn’t speaking to her any more because she managed to mash chewing gum into it while it was in her possession. And who can blame them? That happened to me once, and I still haven’t forgiven the perpetrator. YOU HEAR THAT, NATHAN? I STILL HAVEN’T FORGIVEN YOU FOR RUINING MY COAT.
Ah, it seems that Ella’s here to fill the Sunday Night Miserable Piano Ballad Quota, previously filled by John Legend, Nicole Scherzinger and Labrinth. Who’s picking these guest performances? Have they just been dumped or something?
Time for Ella Henderson’s guest performance. Just FYI, the next few minutes are going to be pretty bloody boring for you, because I won’t have a bad word said about Ella Henderson. Unless, you know, she’s wearing a funny dress or whatever, because then it’s open season.
Here’s Dermot, telling us that the sing-off result changed four times in the last half-hour. Your vote counts, that’s the message here. Unless it doesn’t. It probably doesn’t. You’re not going to buy anything from any of these weirdos anyway, are you?
But before all that: more stuff.
Of these, the doing a wee bit is probably the most important.
Right. So. Lauren v Stereo Kicks. They’re both so bland that they may as well not actually exist. Based on the responses from the judges last night, I’d guess that Lauren’s going home tonight. But of course, what am I talking about? There’s going to be a deadlock, then three people in the comments will say that this is all a fix, then I’ll watch Homeland and forget about everything that happened tonight. Then I’ll do a wee. Then I’ll go to bed. This is the way of things.
Lauren’s really going for it. “I’m a farter” she tells Dermot. At least that’s what I think she said. Truth be told, I wasn’t really paying attention.
And Ben Haenow’s through. It’s a Lauren v Ibis Brothers sing-off tonight.
Next act safe is Fleur. CUT TO: Fleur’s sister manically jabbing pins into a voodoo doll shaped like Fleur, while crying pints of blood.
This just feels empty without ONLY THE YOUNG man.
Some acts are safe. The first of these is... Andrea.
It’s Almost But Not Really Results time!
And now an advert for a Queen Featuring Adam Lambert concert. They’re just advertising things that we’ve just seen onscreen. I hope this ad break doesn’t continue in this vein, otherwise Louis Walsh will pop up and try to sell us whatever he’s using as a bronzer tonight. I’m especially not keen for that to happen, because I think his bronzer might just be a handful of dog poo.
And now an advert for Morrisons. Apparently the primary selling point of Morrisons is that you can buy Union J’s new single there. I’m not a genius, but I think Morrisons might be screwed.
I’m not sure if repeating ‘You’ve got it all’ to a woman 400 times in a row is a particularly strong seduction technique. I guess it’s better than negging, though. I don’t know if I could deal with a song called I Hate Your Shoes. Unless they’re saving that for their next single.
This is the longest song I’ve ever heard. It’s what the Baywatch theme-tune would sound like if Baywatch was a programme about listless mounds of dust.
Also, it’s YOU’VE Got It All, you gormless twonks.
“Some people got drive, some people got passion, but you got it all” it goes.You know, I have a horrible feeling that this is a song about an Apprentice candidate. They’re going to compare the subject of this song to a shark next, I know it.
Well, this is dreadful. Whatever this song is, it sounds like a poxy Gillette advert. I’m assuming it’s called You Got It All, because that’s what these witless bloody Thunderbird puppets keep repeating every couple of seconds like an awful bag of gimps.
Anyway, now for Union J, who remain the band that Simon Cowell keeps alive purely on the off-chance that one of One Direction will require some sort of organ transplant.
End of recap.
ANDREA AGAIN: NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL. NOTHING.
FLEUR AGAIN: A BODYGUARD’S WRIST.
STEREO KICKS AGAIN: NO BODYGUARD.
BEN AGAIN: A BODYGUARD’S ARM AND NOTHING MORE.
LAUREN AGAIN: NO BODYGUARD, but I think I just saw Dermot O’Leary goose Louis Walsh.
ANDREA FAUSTINI: NO BODYGUARD. But Louis Walsh. Louis Walsh wins!
FLEUR EAST: BODYGUARD. A bodyguard who looked visibly annoyed by the presence of Louis Walsh.
STEREO KICKS: BODYGUARD. A shadowy, distant bodyguard who looked that bloke from X-Files who could fit through letterboxes.
LAUREN PLATT: NO BODYGUARD.
BEN HAENOW: BODYGUARD. A bodyguard dressed in a farmer’s shirt.
Anyway, now that’s over it’s time for the interminable recap. Another chance to scour the screen for bodyguards, hooray!
That was less a group performance, and more some people from X Factor wandering on three quarters of the way through a song and trying to keep out of the way of a waggly-tongued idiot and a couple of mad old cat ladies.
Oh shut UP Adam Lambert.
“Find me somebody to love” he sings again. And Stereo Kicks walk onstage. There are no words to express the disappointment that he must be feeling right now.
They’re doing Somebody To Love. Lambert sings ‘Can anybody find me somebody to love’ and the world replies ‘Yes, darling, just as soon as you’ve stopped making a noise like a dolphin being intruded upon by a broken bottle.
Oh, wait, it’s Queen and Adam Lambert. He was on Americal Idol a few years ago, and if I recall correctly was most notable for having a voice like a witch trying to operate a theremin while riding a bike down a cobbled hill.
Now, upsettingly, it’s time for some of Queen to wander onstage, get their willies out and urinate wildly across whatever few scraps of dignity they’d somehow managed to keep intact until this point. I am not looking forward to this.
Dermot’s just saying a load of numbers. My theory is that this is exactly what’d happen if he got struck by lighting.
Even though I ran out of new ways to say ‘Louis Walsh is wearing a suit’ FIVE YEARS AGO, let’s meet the judges:
LOUIS! Louis Walsh is wearing a suit.
MELB! Melb is wearing a dress.
CHERYL! Cheryl is wearing a dress.
SIMON! Simon is wearing a full-body suit of gruesome chest stubble.
Dermot’s cowpunch today included a natty little leg-flick. This might go well tonight, you know.
No time for much of a recap at the start of the show. Why would there be, when the members of Queen who look most like Catweazel and a badger have a legacy to deface?
Is Paloma Faith singing ‘Take away my queef’ in that Talk Talk ident? Because if she is, bleurgh.
I know that the programme hasn’t started yet, but I just watched an advert for an HD oven and now I’m worried that I’ll be too busy punching myself in the face to actually do any liveblogging tonight.
SUNDAY RESULTS BIT!
Welcome back to the X Factor liveblog Sunday night results show fandango. If this is your first time reading, then it’s a lot like the Saturday bit except it’s shorter and not exclusively about sausages. I probably prefer it, all said.
Still, the remaining acts have it all to play for tonight. One last elimination stands between them and glory, and by ‘glory’ I mean ‘the semi-final of a singing competition that’s gone off the boil a bit’. Who’ll go through? Has Andrea won back our affections? Can Stereo Kicks maintain their momentum? Has Lauren proved that she has a personality? Has Ben grabbed all our hearts, minced them up and fed them into some sort of rudimentary cylindrical animal gut? Is Fleur still alive? Has anyone seen Fleur’s sister recently? Have we all got our doors and windows locked, just in case Fleur’s sister bursts in and starts stabbing us for being marginally more well-known than her? All these questions will be answered tonight, AND MORE.
Because lovely Ella Henderson is returning to X Factor to perform. And Union J are coming with her, although it’s not yet clear whether they’re performing or just carrying her luggage. PLUS Queen will be here, with their guest singer Adam Lambert. By ‘here’ I mean ‘on X Factor’ and not ‘in my house’. Because that really would be a terrible son of a bitch to have to deal with while I’m supposed to be liveblogging.
Right, let’s go. The show starts at 8pm, so we’ll all reconvene here then. You were all brilliant yesterday, so I’ve got high hopes for tonight. Hope the ONLY THE YOUNG man’s still in the audience!
Oh christ, the show’s still going. Well.... this is awkward. Anyone done anything nice recently? Ummm... pffffff... Oh, right, it’s actually finished for good now. OK. SAUSAGE VICTORY!
And that, proud faithful, is that. This time tomorrow - well, actually this time tomorrow X Factor will have been off-air for 45 minutes and we’ll have already forgotten anything that happened in it. But, look, someone’s getting kicked off tomorrow. That was my point.
As always, thanks so much for reading and commenting tonight - you remain an abnormally funny bunch. I got away with linking to my podcast last week, so I’m going to do it again. You should definitely give it a listen.
Also I’m on Twitter as @StuHeritage, but you’re all definitely sick of hearing that by now. Anyway, come back at 8pm tomorrow to see Queen refuse to die with dignity. And some other old X Factor contestants will be performing. I hope one of them’s The Conway Sisters! Bye! SAUSAGE VICTORY!
People aren’t booing or cheering Andrea. They’re just making a constant high-pitched ‘woooo’ noise at him. I think it might be a sarcastic comment on his singing voice. I don’t know any more. The whole sausage thing blew my mind, to be honest.
Ah, the sly fox. He used restraint. Only moderate pooface. This is a brand new Andrea. Sort of.
Great, he’s broken out of it now. That’s his cue to start doing the whole goat/silo thing. Oh, and pooface. This is a power ballad, so there’s bound to be some pooface involved.
Oh, sure, it’s fine now. But just you wait until Andrea breaks out of his laser-cage.
You idiots. You could have picked any song for Andrea, and you picked Hero by Mariah Carey. And now he’s singing it in Italian. You know what? You deserve to sit through this song. You need to learn that your actions have consequences. I hope your hearing never recovers from this.
This week, Andrea Skyped loads of his fans. For newcomers to this liveblog, Skype was something that existed before sausages.
Last to perform tonight is Andrea. He’s singing a Mariah Carey song. Somebody hold me.
That’s what this liveblog was always going to become, in retrospect. Just pictures of sausages. Just that. Sausages. Forever.
Man on Twitter sees your sausage calligraphy and raises you ABSTRACT SAUSAGE HIEROGLYPHICS
I wonder if @stuheritage knows the Hungarian word for sausage #kolbasz pic.twitter.com/IHs2LQicLO
— Attila Lengyel (@Attila_hun) November 29, 2014
If Fleur does go out tomorrow, I’d quite like to see her and her sister stage a national tour of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. I’d actually pay to see that.
Also, Simon just gave Jake Quickenden the subtweet of his life. Attaboy, Simon.
The judges are being slightly mean about Fleur’s performance. And hardly anyone is booing. According to my ultra non-scientific theory, Fleur’s going to be in the sing-off tomorrow night.
This is clever staging, at least. Fleur’s wearing purple and standing in front of a huge screen decorated like a peacock tail. She looks like a giant peacock! Next up: Fleur’s sister botches the theme by coming on dressed as Rod Hull and Emu and attacking Fleur while feigning surprised outrage about it all.
Fleur’s singing If I Ain’t Got You by Alicia Keys. You made Fleur sing an Alicia Keys song. You did. You people are abhorrent.
In the VT, Fleur goes back to her old school and the current pupils chant the word ‘Fleur’ and her sister makes a mental note of all of their faces so that she knows whose mouths to sew together in their sleep tonight.
Next up, Fleur East! Or, to be more specific, Fleur East with Fleur East’s sister lurking in the background of every shot like the murderer from Too Many Cooks.
I do not care for Stereo Kicks. But at least now I know who to cast in my upcoming Muppet Babies version of The Only Way Is Essex, so that’s something.
That was like a sing-off performance. I bet Louis is dying to somehow take this to deadlock.
You know which member I’ve taken against, don’t you? He’s the same one that you’ve probably taken against as well.
The member of Erect Kiosks that I’ve arbitrarily decided to take against has ruined this performance by yelling all his lines three times louder than anyone else. Also, he seems to think that the word ‘voice’ is pronounced ‘VWOI’ which is frankly unforgivable.
Erect Kiosks are singing Run by Snow Patrol, which means that nobody in the live finals this year has sung Run by Snow Patrol, which is perhaps the most insane thing I have ever heard.
In the VT, Stereo Kicks met some of their fans. What I’m taking from this is that fans of Stereo Kicks are genetically unable to modulate their volume.
Right, no more sausages. This is important. Stereo Kicks are singing next.
Oh, I just missed the ad break. I think one of them was for One Direction. Never mind.
That list has taught me that alternative punchlines for that Boerewors joke include ‘Rookworst’ (a sausage from the Netherlands) and ‘Som moo’ (a sausage from Laos). I think on reflection that my instinct was right and that Boerewors was the correct choice of sausage.
If anyone wants to know the source of my sausage-related knowledge, the answer is the exhaustive Wikipedia list of types of sausage. You’re welcome.
People are being mean to Hank, and the audience are booing them enormously. Either Hank is the frontrunner of this competition, or the audience was actually saying ‘Boerewors’ - which is, of course, a popular type of South African sausage.
For an Ed Sheeran song, that wasn’t bad. By which I mean ‘For an Ed Sausage song, that sausage sausage’. In summary: sausage.
Whenever I think that I’m just liveblogging to myself here, I like to wait until there’s a sausage on X Factor and then look at Twitter to see how many people have said the word ‘sausage’ to me. Now I feel like I’m really part of something.
You people picked an Ed Sheeran song for Hank. What an anticlimax. You’re wrong. X Factor viewers, you are wrong at music. How’s he supposed to be presented with a platter of decorative sausages in the final with a song like this? This is not the thing with which to patrol around the stage of Wembley Arena while wearing an ostentatious sausage garland.
Oh, wait.
SAUSAGE CALLIGRAPHY!
Sausage calligraphy in Beckenham. I am DRUNK with POWER.
SAUSAGE CALLIGRAPHY!
SAUSAGE SAUSAGE SAUSAGE SAUSAGE SAUSAGE SAUSAGE SAUSAGE!
Hank Hey Now Big Package Sausage Widow Crap Me A Sausage Kingsley The Sausage-Eater again now. Yes, I just copied and pasted that. Waiiiiiiiiiit...
Simon just said ‘You’ve been ill recently’ to Lauren. And the audience booed him. That’s what it’s come to. Arbitrary booing. “Lauren, your hair’s brown”. BOOOO. “Lauren, you are wearing shoes”. BOOOOOOO. “Lauren, I quite like breakfast cereal”. BOOOOOO. BOOOOO BOOOOO BOOOOO!
This is the best that Lauren’s been for weeks. Not even that nebulous cloud of jizz floating behind her can take away from that.
This is much better than Lauren’s last performance, possibly because she actually seems to like the song. She doesn’t like the original version of it, though, because she’s made this one sound like the sort of thing that plays during the credits of a Hobbit film. Not a compliment.
In the VT, Lauren went back to school. Presumably to check out the floors she’ll be sweeping three weeks from now. I AM MAKING A CRUEL JOKE ABOUT THE TRANSIENT NATURE OF FAME.
Lauren’s next song is Don’t You Worry Child. I was hoping that she’d dedicate it to Lola Saunders, and change the lyrics to ‘Heaven’s got a well-stocked fish counter for you’, but that clearly hasn’t happened. Idiot.
I think Dermot just asked Simon “There are five acts left - can any of them win?”
I hope any of them can win. That’s sort of the point of the programme, isn’t it? Unless he was secretly asking whether Nonna Rita could win. In which case YES!
SOMEONE IN THE COMMENTS JUST REQUESTED A KEY EVENT
There Dragonella, happy now? Anything else I can do for you, your majesty? Jesus christ.
Now a Haribo advert about a megalomaniacal child who creates entire worlds out of jelly animals just so she can exercise her total control over them by crushing them between her fearsome teeth. I think Haribo’s new slogan might be ‘DIE! DIE! DIE! WHO’S LAUGHING NOW? DIE!’ because this is exactly how We Need To Talk About Kevin started.
So that’s the first round all done. Next up: we discover what songs the X Factor app-owning mouth-breathers wanted the acts to sing. I have a feeling that this is going to be the mother of all anticlimaxes.
Melb pointed out that Chandelier is literally the hardest song to sing that has ever been written by anyone in the history of the known universe. It’s not. You just make a quiet noise, then a noise like a goat trapped in a silo. Easy. Melb is talking out of her flap.
Everyone loves the song choice. Except for Simon, who basically just made the same point about the goat noise as me. Me and Simon, we’re like this.
Yup, I was right. Although in retrospect I should have written ‘makes a noise like a goat trapped in a silo’ instead of ‘yells as hard as he can’.
Sam Smith picked this song for Andrea. It’s Chandelier by Sia. It’s a strange one for him to sing, because he has to sing the first bit really quietly. Presumably this is to lend power to the bit at the end when he yells as hard as he can.
Updated
But it’s OK, because Melb’s got the perfect plan to push Andrea back into our affections. It mainly involves him wearing a Union Jack onesie. Top marks, Melb. Really well done.
Now for Andrea Faustini, a man last seen channeling some sort of nightmarish demon upon learning that he’d be in the sing-off last week. I hope he’s calmed down a bit this week, or that’s all of us effed.
We’re back! Dermot’s in the audience! This never ends well. Alexander Burke and Tamera from last year in the audience. They both wanted to stand closest to Dermot but Alexander was all like ‘AISLE SEAT DOT COM’ and that was that.
Imagine if ONLY THE YOUNG man turned out to be Nonna Rita all along. That’s exactly the sort of incredible twist ending that would save this series of X Factor.
Dermot asks Fleur what she made of that song. Fleur says that she needed a challenge. She’s just been trying to keep a pair of white trousers clean in a backstage album populated by members of Stereo Kicks. Surely that’s challenge enough.
Tell that to Louis Walsh, though. He just stood up and shouted ‘WOWOWOWOWOWOW’ like a man trying to stop a basket of eggs from toppling off the side of a ship in the middle of a hurricane. In the world of Louis Walsh, this is high praise indeed.
It’s hard to tell which one of those is right, actually. I’d hoped for a full-on Tina Turner scream, but Fleur’s downgraded it to a throaty honk. Perhaps she can’t concentrate on the song because she’s being asked to twat around with a fan like the world’s most bored extra from the Christina Aguilera film Burlesque. Disappointing.
Emeli Sande has picked Fleur’s song, and it’s A Fool in Love by Tina Turner. This is either going to be really good or a sad sign that Emeli Sande only picks songs for people based on a complicated haircut-similarity algorithm.
Fleur’s sister is in the VT. Run, Fleur! It’s not safe any more!
Now for Fleur East or, more realistically given how egregiously she hogged the limelight last week, Fleur East’s sister dancing around the stage dressed in a costume of Fleur’s skin.
Apparently that performance wasn’t very good because it was changed at the last minute. They’re not going to complain about it, though. They’re just going to mention it once every two seconds with a funny look on their faces.
If Stereo Kicks make it to the final, who the hell are they going to duet with? McBusted? Blazin’ Squad? The Polyphonic Spree?
Melb is laying into Stereo Kicks something chronic. She agrees with me. Me and Melb, we’re like this.
Never trust a teenager who calls their mother ‘girl’, that’s what I’m taking from this. It’s time to get rid of Stereo Kicks.
Hang on... are they singing this song about their MUMS?
Oh god, this song’s got Christmas bells on it. First Black Friday and now Christmas. What tedious Americanism will be next? New Year’s Day? Eating food?
Tulisa has chosen Erect Kiosks’ song, and it’s The Way You Are by Bruno Mars. And not a self-penned song called Please Let Me Back On X Factor I’ll Do Anything Please, which is frankly a bit of a surprise coming from her.
In the VT, the Stereo Kicks boys persist in that awful Kicks suffix nickname thing. But this time they’ve got their mums with them. I don’t like any of Stereo Kicks’ mums as I liked Harry Styles’ mum four years ago. I don’t know what this says about anything, but it needed to be said nonetheless.
We’re back! Who’s next? It’s Erect Kiosks. I’ll level with you. I didn’t think Erect Kiosks would get this far in the competition, or else I never would have endured with this awful Erect Kiosks name. We’re lumbered with it now, though. We’re all lumbered with it.
I’ve just been reading the comments. I may as well just put ‘Indirect Alcoholism Enabler’ on my Linkedin profile and be done with it.
An advert for a charity now, where a singer goes “You give a little love and it all comes back to Hugh”. I hate Hugh. This is for charity, you greedy wazzock.
Obviously I cant mention the Little Mix accent thing without actually posting it...
Ahh, Cheryl gave Lauren the illness. And yet Louis remains on his feet. Perhaps we should extract his DNA and breed a news species of super-Walshes.
Louis Walsh said that Lauren has been ill, and she made a lot of mistakes, but she was ill, so it was a flawless performance. Several decades from now, scientists will still be hard at work trying to untangle this logic.
Three things have happened here.
1) Lauren’s approaching this melody like a drunk man approaching a urinal.
2) Lauren’s wearing a big wooly jumper and a little pair of shorts. Her ability to regulate temperature must be off the scale.
3) I’m a little bit worried that I just bought that jumper off the internet about an hour ago.
Little Mix have chosen Lauren’s first song, and they’ve picked A Song I Probably Heard At The Gym Once But Can’t Really Remember. Would it have been too hard to get Lauren to just do the official Little Mix Jamaican impression on a loop for two minutes? Apparently. Idiots.
Ah, this is how they’re trying to jazz her up - a sob story. Essentially her dad went away for a bit. That’s about it.
Time for Lauren Platt now. I’m interested to see how X Factor will try to inject some personality into her this week. I miss Lola Saunders. At least you could make fish jokes about Lola Saunders.
HAENOW!
Everyone liked Hank’s song. Especially Simon, who compares him to ‘every working man who’s got a dream’. I’m a working man, and last night I had an anxiety dream about accidentally going to work naked. We’re the same! Me and Hank are the same!
Based on that performance, it would seem that the real theme of the night is Stretching Wobbly Song Choices Out To About Three Times Longer Than They Need To Be. So, you know, hooray for that.
Also present in this performance, a load of lady Beetlejuices. They’re not writhing about as much as they could be, though, because I’m still paying attention to this horrible horrible song, and that seems like a tragic oversight.
Right. So. Hank’s wearing a leather jacket, and there’s a wall of chains and some fire, because obviously whenever anyone thinks of Come Day they immediately think of a construction safety video from the mid-1980s.
In the VT, it’s revealed that Hank has a Nonna Rita. I want Hank’s Nonna Rita to win X Factor.
One Direction have picked Come Together for Hank to sing. I wonder which member of One Direction picked this. I’m assuming it’s not Zayn. Based on his haircut, Zayn only likes the music of Craig McLachlan now.
First up is Hank Hey Now Big Package Sausage Widow Crap Me A Sausage Kingsley The Sausage-Eater. I’m ready for whatever coded messages you want to send this week, Hank! I’m ready and waiting!
Nothing’s happening onscreen, so I’m not writing anything. Sue me.
For the trillionth time of my life, lets meet the judges:
LOUIS! No tie!
MELB! No centre of gravity!
CHERYL! No visible trace of humanity!
SIMON! No buttons!
Anyway, here’s Dermot. Is he dancing? It’s hard to say. He’s moving in the same why I do when I’ve pulled up my pants too quickly and caught my bits between his legs. Maybe he did that. I’ll ask him.
They are padding this out something rotten tonight. Why not just finish the show five minutes early and broadcast a nice cartoon instead, huh? Maybe a nice Tom & Jerry cartoon. Not one of the racist ones.
LAST WEEK: the viewers and judges conspired to make my job much harder than it needs to be. I will not forget this slight against me.
Ooh, a new Talk Talk sting, all about the weird faces that Paloma Faith pulls when she sings. If you missed it, it’s a lot of weird faces. Like, a lot. More than twenty.
IT’S TIME! TO ERASE! THE MUSIC!
Wait. NEW INFORMATION. Apparently the acts are singing two songs tonight, and the second song will be chosen by a selection of famous pop stars.
Remember, that’s famous pop stars and definitely not the put-upon personal assistants of famous pop-stars who are simultaneously acting under heavy direction from their respective record labels and perpetually wondering why all the decisions they ever made led them to this constant thankless nightmareland of an excuse for a life. Definitely not them.
If you haven’t already, you should read this very good interview with Melb by the excellent Simon Hattenstone from earlier today. The Louis Walsh interview is, I assume, forthcoming.
Hello proud faithful, and welcome to this week’s X Factor liveblog. It’s the big quarter-final week, which means all sorts of stuff. Off the top of my head, for example, X Factor quarter-final week means:
1) It’s nearly Christmas!
2) I only have to write liveblogs for three more weeks!
3) Perhaps we’ll start to figure out who’s actually going to win!
4) All the fun acts have gone home, and that means I have to spend the next few hours describing bland competency, and that won’t be fun for any of us, so you may as well just turn this bloody thing off now.
5) Please don’t turn this bloody thing off now. I need this.
Actually, tonight might be quite fun. Tonight, the viewers have decided which songs each act will perform. Admittedly, they’ve only decided from a very narrow range of options - which is obviously disappointing for anyone who wanted to hear Lauren Platt sing, say, Paranoid Android - plus the whole thing seems to be in service of a nightmarish X Factor compilation album that’s doomed to only sell about ten copies. But still, it isn’t Elton John v Whitney Houston night, and for that we all have to be thankful.
So, you know how this works by now. At 8pm I’ll start blithering on up here and you can start blithering on in the comments. Just like we always have. Hey, before the show starts, why not leave your fondest Only The Young memory in the comments? I’ll start. My fondest Only The Young memory was when that man in the audience yelled ONLY THE YOUNG. Remember that? Happier times.
See you at eight.
