And that’s that. Goodbye to Alien Uncovered - I didn’t get to know you as well as I’d liked, but I’m sure neither of us will lose that much sleep about it. I’ll be back here on Saturday to do this all over again. Will you join me? I won’t hate you if you won’t promise. Bye.
Updated
Cheryl just called Alien Uncovered fresh and hot. I think she might have mistaken them for a delicious bagel.
Either way, Alien Uncovered are OUT. This means more people will vote for 4th Impact, right? And they’ll win, right? Good.
Ooh, Simon’s sent Alien Uncovered home. And he called them Alien Nation too. This isn’t Alien Nation, you idiot. It’s A Lemon Nation.
I vote for the blardigan to go home. I vote for it to go home in a box of fire.
Nick sends Alien Uncovered home. If Simon does as well, they’re gone. If he doesn’t, it’s deadlock.
Cheryl sends Keira home. Rita sends Alien Uncovered home. This is to be expected.
Unlike Alien Uncovered, though, Keira does have a modicum of charm. And unlike Alien Uncovered, Keira doesn’t have a name that sounds like a National Geographic series. She’s definitely gone, but she wasn’t that bad.
Keira next, who is singing Everybody Hurts. I know I do, because today I saw a blardigan and that’s something I’m just going to have to live with with from this point onwards.
The question is not whether this is good. The question is not whether this is bad. The question is whether this is worse than the blardigan. And the answer is no. Nothing is worse than the blardigan.
Alien Uncovered are singing first. It’s a sing about having your back against the wall, because of course it is. If someone wrote a song called Please Don’t Vote Me Off Nick Grimshaw, they’d be able to feed their families from Sunday night X Factor royalties alone.
OLLY MURS INVENTS THE BLARDIGAN
And I am impossibly sad.
I mean, what sort of monster wears a blazer like a cardigan? What’s it even supposed to be called? A clazer? A Blardigan. Olly Murs. Olly Blardigan Murs. Olly Blardigan Murs. You created this, Britain. You created the blardigan.
I’ve just had a horrifying thought about Olly Murs’ lapel-less jacket. Is it SUPPOSED TO BE A CARDIGAN? Has Olly Murs invented a nightmarish blazer/cardigan hybrid? If he has, this cannot possibly be allowed to stand.
So the sing off will be between Alien Uncovered (who I don’t remember being very good) and Keira (who I don’t remember at all). I don’t care who goes. AND NOR SHOULD YOU. YOU’RE AN ADULT, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. YOUR PARENTS ARE SO DISAPPOINTED IN YOU.
Alien, Bupsi and Other Girl. And Bupsi goes home. No sing-off. Nothing. But don’t worry, because you can still see her manically repeating the word ‘nasty’ over and over again like her life depended on it at every single provincial nightclub in the country for the next four years.
And the spaghetti-mouthed wildcard is through. Who does that leave?
And 4th Impact are through. Finally, some good news.
Anton is through, as is Mason Noise. I know his cousin, Stopopen Ningyourmouth,
Max Stone is also through, because all people are universally terrible. Lauren’s through too.
Seann Miley Moore is also through. Does that mean I have to liveblog next week’s episode as well? Arses.
Reggie N Bolle also through, to taunt me with their despicable abbreviations. Louisa’s through too. I can’t remember who that is.
So. First act through to next week is... Che Chesterman, who reacts to the news like he’s seen a Gho Ghost.
I’m really looking forward to this double a lemon nation. I’m going to double a lemon nation ALL OVER THIS.
OK, we’re back. Let’s LOSE TWO OF THESE DIMWITS.
All X Factor presenters have to follow X Factor’s One True Law: always, always ask every single guest performer if they’re going on tour soon. Dermot O’Leary forgot to do this once, and look what happened to him.
“Can you command an entire stage all by yourself, Ellie?”
“Well, I can hop from foot to foot like I’m trying not to spray the squits all over the inside of my pants. Will that do?”
“Sure, it’s not like anyone actually watches X Factor anyway”.
“Great, thanks”.
Ellie’s singing her new single You On My Mind which, as you’d expect, is a song about you being on someone’s mind that sounds like it was performed by Gollum’s little sister.
And now for a guest performance from Ellie Goulding, because the X Factor rolodex is looking pretty thin these days and it’s either this or Emili Bloody Sande again.
‘The vote is now closed’ says Olly Murs. Shut up, you lapel-less idiot. Is lapel-less the correct term, by the way, or would it more considerate to call him lapel-free?
“Ooh, this song sounds like Uptown Funk’ I just thought during an advert, so I Shazammed it. It’s Fleur East’s new single. Poor Fleur East. She’s doomed to release infinitesimally modified versions of Uptown Funk for the rest of her life until she literally has no choice but to release an entire concept album about The Really Wild Show, isn’t she?
Hang on, is Olly Murs wearing a lapel-less jacket? Now, I can forgive him a lot. I can forgive his stupid face. I can forgive that whole ‘double a lemon nation’ thing. I can even forgive his total and all-consuming pointlessness. But wearing a jacket that hasn’t even got any lapels on it? That’s a step too far.
Well, that was a song. I tell you what it wasn’t, though. It wasn’t THIS:
God, I could watch this video forever.
I don’t know what’s going on here. Little Mix all just stopped singing, then stared daggers at a woman who was kissing a dancer, then they pulled their skirts off and started sort of pulsating. This is exactly what I imagine the end of series Take Me Out wrap party to be like.
Oh, no, they’re doing a song. This song sounds exactly like the Girls Aloud song that sounds exactly like this song. On reflection, maybe they should have found someone with a bigger pop vocabulary to do this liveblog.
Interminable recap over, it’s time for a guest performance by Little Mix. They won X Factor several years ago and are apparently still well liked. I don’t know whether they’re going to do a song or just a loop of that Vine where one of them does an inexplicable Jamaican accent for a third of a second, but I hope for all of our sakes it’s the latter.
I’d forgotten about the wild card woman, too. She sings like she’s just been shoved onstage with a mouthful of half-chewed spaghetti.
An act did a Shaggy song last night. I’d forgotten about that. This is like waking up from a blackout alcoholic bender and realising that you’d been awful all night, but with none of the fun of actually being drunk.
In summary, in the cold light of day, everyone was slightly worse than you remember, but the judges are compensating by pretending that they were much better than they ever were. Same as it ever was.
And now for the interminable recap, which has already gone on for the entire history of time, and we’re only two acts in.
Oh christ, why won’t X Factor kill the group song? Here it is. They’re all apparently singing a song called Perfect, which is clearly an act of cruel irony on the part of an X Factor producer. Because here is a song being performed by about 25 people, in about 25 different ways. It’s like that BBC Perfect Day advert with Tom Jones and Gabrielle from the 1990s, except this time it sounds like it’s being performed by an all-star line-up of injured cats in binbags being pelted with shards of broken crockery by a gang of malicious street urchins.
That thing about Caroline Flack walking sassily with the squits meant that I couldn’t do the normal ‘meet the judges’ bit. But, look, they’re all there. More importantly, Olly Murs can’t say ‘elimination’. He says ‘A lemon nation’ instead. Bless his bloody little heart, eh?
I wonder if Caroline Flack walks with that much sass all the time. I wonder is she walks up and down the binbag aisle at the supermarket with that much sass. I wonder if she ever walks to the toilet like that, even when she’s got the squits? Someone should ask her.
Oh hang on, is tonight a double elimination? Bring it on. Let’s have a triple elimination next week, then a deca-elimination next week. Or just bin the lot of them today. Seriously, I’m missing Great Canal Journeys for this.
The X Factor studio audience giving Olly Murs a standing ovation for doing a whole sentence in a semi-convincing manner, there.
IT’S TIME! TO DISGRACE! THE MUSIC!
The most interesting thing about X Factor, on the basis of last night’s show, is the slow transformation of Simon Cowell. I think you could probably do a professional psychological study on his behaviour last night. My guess is that he knows that X Factor is dead on its feet, and this is just what he looks like when he doesn’t care any more. Then again, maybe he’s just really got into stoner films this year. If he quotes The Big Lebowski at all tonight, we’ll have our answer.
THE SUNDAY RESULTS BIT
And we’re back. Hello everyone, and welcome to X Factor Liveblog: The Sunday Night Afterthought. Judging by how absolutely unchanged the format was last night, I predict that we’re about to witness a recap, a guest performance, another guest performance, a strung-out elimination process, a sing-off and then the cold sad moment that you switch over to watch Homeland and realise that literally everything in your life used to be significantly better than it is now. So that’ll be fun.
The show starts in half an hour. Let’s pass the time by discussing who we think will leave tonight? Will it be Reggae Mannequin, Wet Blanket, The Two One Pound Fish Men, the Oompah-Loompah or any of the others who I still haven’t memorised? All I know is this - if 4th Impact or Seann Miley Moore goes home tonight, I don’t think I’ll be able to continue this liveblog. What I’m saying, I think, is ‘please vote 4th Impact and Seann Miley Moore out so I don’t have to do this any more’. The show starts at 8pm, so see you then.
Well, that’s it. My 2015 X Factor cherry has been well and truly popped, and I feel just as used and consumed by self-loathing as I expected. Still, thanks for keeping me company.
Please don’t forget that I’ll be back here tomorrow at 8pm for the results show, where there will presumably be some musical guests and the whole thing will be shot through with the sense that the whole thing could have all be dealt with in ten minutes last night. I’m @StuHeritage if that even means anything any more. OK! Bye!
I’d forgotten about 85% of these songs, and I literally just wrote about them all for money. I hate X Factor and life.
Ah, my first interminable recap of the year. This is exactly the same, isn’t it? It’s exactly the same as every X Factor ever. Nothing has changed, except that Dermot O’Leary gets to go out and see his friends on Saturday nights now. I envy Dermot O’Leary.
Oh, Ben Haenow’s new single is out now. And his album’s out next month. And then he’ll do a Mother’s Day covers album next year and that’ll be the last anyone ever hears of him.
Hank’s newfound schtick involves shouting ‘Come on’ and ‘Let me see those hands’ and ‘Woo’ much more than he really should. And he looks like Chico now. You know what? I think the universe might be folding in on itself.
Oh wait, he’s singing behind a screen, like bands do in country and western bars when they know they’re going to get bottled off. My mistake.
Hank’s new single sees him trapped in that thing that General Zod got sent off to Earth in during Superman 2.
And now for Hank Kinsgley!
Everyone votes on the app now, but it’s X Factor law to make the hapless presenters spend two full minutes reading out phone numbers. X Factor hates its own.
AND WE’RE DONE. The vote is open, which had better mean nothing to you, because you’re better than this.
I think I like Seann Miley Moore because he’s got the same eyebrows as my dad.
This is... I’m not sure I could watch very much of it, but I think I’d take it over about 90% of this year’s contestants. It’s properly barmy. It’s like the musical interludes in American Horror Story. More of that please.
Seann’s singing Life on Mars. Because he’s a martian? Because he liked the TV show Life on Mars? Maybe we’ll never know. Either way, he’d probably feel better if his nails had dried before he started singing.
What I like about this guy is that he’s entirely unique, as demonstrated by the VT of people telling him exactly how to sing and move and dress.
Seann Miley Moore now, who appears to be this year’s Guy Who Dresses Weird. He also looks exactly like Robert Pattinson from Twilight, which makes me think his wardrobe is overcompensating for that.
I’m not saying that X Factor has gone downmarket, but I’ve just seen an advert for the stuff I put on my son’s scalp to stop him from getting eczema. Take THAT, John Lewis,
One more act left and then this episode is over. One more act and someone called Ben Haenow. Not sure who he is.
Simon just thanked ITV for letting Monica onto the show. I’m not sure what that means. Does ITV have final approval on the singers? I hope not. ITV keeps demonstrating faith in the career of Keith Lemon. You simply cannot trust its faith.
All her words begin with the letter H and the only vowel she knows is O. There’s always one of these contestants, isn’t there?
Ah, Monica is the contestant who starts each word with the letter H and sings in a deep voice and looks like she’s being distracted offstage by a dog going through her rucksack. There’s always one of those, isn’t there.
Monica’s singing Make It Rain by Ed Sheeran, presumably because she wishes she was Eoghan Quigg too.
And now for the wildcard, Monica Michael. Some might suggest that there’s only a wildcard this year because none of the other acts could hit a tune with a bus from three paces. I’m not one of those people, though, because I literally don’t know who this woman is. And, frankly, I still don’t know anything about her because I was just buying some milk online.
Seriously, let’s just let this lot win and all move on with our lives. This is so well put together, and they actually sound like a group. Think back an hour and a half. You were watching a dullard do reggae Adele. This is leagues and leagues and leagues better. Yes. This lot to win, please.
4th Impact are singing a song called Problem that I haven’t heard because I’m a 35-year-old dad with a job. Holy christ, though, they’re good.
In other news, this year’s X Factor house legitimately has the worst chairs I have ever seen in my entire life.
Next up: 4th Impact. I remember this group from the first show, and I remember liking them. Can they just win, please? Just let them win now, and show cartoon for the next seven weeks. I wouldn’t mind.
The song ends in silence. The judges leave their feedback in silence. Bupsi reacts like she’s standing in front of a screaming crowd of millions, but there is nothing. Just silence.
Bupsi’s singing a Marvin Gaye song. I mean, she sounds like she’s singing it through a pillow, but that still counts. And, you know, this must be what it’s like to watch someone else’s kid perform at a school talent show, because I don’t care about a single second of it. But it still counts.
Now for Bupsi Brown who apparently did a lapdance for Simon Cowell in her audition, which might explain why Simon immediately grew the beard of a spooked Victorian maritime worker.
We’re back, although Olly Murs didn’t seem to know that at first. Can we do a Kickstarter to bring Dermot back?
Tesco’s new advertising slogan is basically ‘We’re rubbish, but at least you’ll be in and out quickly now’.
‘You’re just 17’ STRIKE ONE.
I wasn’t really paying attention, but did anyone clap that? I have a feeling that nobody actually clapped that.
Crap plinth, too. 4/10 plinthwork.
Oh no. Oh no no no. This sounds like the results of a committee meeting that decided that God Only Knows could only be improved if Carl Wilson was scream-masturbating into a metal dustbin while he was singing it.
Louisa’s singing God Only Knows, from that BBC advert where Lauren Lavern waggled her feet about a bit. Remember that advert? Good times.
At least it was brief. And now it’s time for Louisa Johnson. I read a thing this afternoon that said Louisa is 17 years old, so at least we know what the judges will say to her a billion times in a row right after she finishes bloody singing anything.
Oh, now we get to catch up with the judges. What this means for me is that people I don’t care get to say the names of people I don’t know.
Woah. One of Reggie N Bollie was wearing a New York baseball cap, and the other one was wearing an LA baseball cap. Guys, I think Reggie and Bollie might have just single-handedly ended the 1990s rap wars.
Very reggae-heavy tonight, isn’t it? Simon Cowell is growing a beard, quoting Office Space and getting into reggae. You know, I think that Simon Cowell might be 80% of all the people I ever lived with at university.
I mean, this isn’t GOOD, is it? It’s a bad song, performed incompetently. But if I have to watch X Factor until Christmas, it may as well have these people in it.
I think I know why they’re singing this. It’s because it was sung by Shaggy, and Shaggy was Scooby Doo’s friend, and Scooby Doo hunted ghosts and today is Hallowee- wait, there isn’t a Halloween theme tonight, is there? Fine, disregard.
Going purely by this VT, I want Reggie n Bollie to win. I want Reggie n Bollie to win more than anything. Especially since they’re singing It Wasn’t Me by Shaggy.
It’s Reggie n Bollie now, two people who have the sort of names that deserve to be iron-transferred onto the back of the commemorative polo shirts they’ll inevitably wear next time they go on a crap stag weekend in Riga.
Oh god. I’m doing this until Christmas. I’m friends with Mason Noise’s cousin, Pleasebe Quiet. I’m friends with Mason Noise’s cousin, Letsall Shushnow. I’m friends with Mason Noise’s cousin, Keepyer Moufshut. Until CHRISTMAS.
I’m friends with Mason Noise’s cousin, Shutcha Face.
Well, that finished.
Also, I’m slightly distracted by the fact that Mason Noise is dressed almost exactly like Anthea Turner in those Health Lottery adverts.
Mason’s singing Sorry by Justin Bieber. I suppose both of them are currently most well-known for being unapologetic bellends, so at least the theme fits.
Good plinths, too. Good, but not great. 6/10 plinthwork.
All I know is this performance is going to involve plinths. Never leave me, plinths. Sometimes I think that you’re all I’ve got.
Now for Mason Noise, who I assumed was the joke act in that one half-episode I watched. But no, he was apparently one of the 12 best singers in the entire competition. This world is a cruel joke, and I am its punchline.
I love that X Factor ad breaks are rapidly becoming the place where big-name American movie stars come to debase themselves. First Kevin Bacon, then Nicole Kidman. I swear to god, by the final we’ll be watching Clint Eastwood advertise a Tresemme deep conditioning product with an animated goat.
I like Che Chesterman so much that from now on I want to be called Her Heritage. That’s a lie, by the way. Call me that and I’ll cut you.
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The bad news: there’s another ad break. The good news: there’s still an hour and half left of tonight’s show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Rita Ora just said that Che was ‘like a DJ’ because he sang a bit of a song and then a bit of another song. Nobody play Rita Ora a Jive Bunny song. She would straight-up cack her knickers.
Oh, this is odd. I think I actually like this guy’s voice. I mean, I hate this performance, and I could happily spending the rest of my life kicking the set designer square in the genitals, but I think I like his voice. I don’t know anything any more. And he looks like every singer that Lithuania has ever entered into Eurovision.
Che’s singing Tears Dry on their Own. This week’s theme is This Is Me, remember, which means that Che’s most defining characteristic is that his face is warm enough to evaporate liquid sometimes. Good to know.
And now I know that I don’t like Che Chesterman’s beard. It makes him look like he fell asleep in a bowl of honey and then got attacked by ants.
Che Chesterman now. All I know about this guy is that he has a name like a scared schoolboy trying to say the word ‘Chesterman’ in a haunted house. That’s all.
This just in: trick or treaters did not steal my dustbin. But I cannot promise that, at some point tonight, this will not just turn into a liveblog about bins.
And now a quick break, so I can go and check to see if some trick or treaters have just stolen my dustbin. Again, I am so old. So very old.
‘X Factor has changed my life’ says Anton. Well, yeah, mine too. I wouldn’t get too excited about it.
Oh, he’s THIS contestant. The older one who really needs this, but doesn’t quite get there and ends up doing West End musicals two years from now. I get it now.
This is... I don’t know what it is, actually. It’s like post-camp Rhydian, except we’re all so much older and so much more jaded now. I feel like I’m being kept on hold by Virgin Media.
Anton’s singing a Luther Vandross song, because this is how X Factor imagines that it can recapture the youth market in the year 2015.
Time for Anton Stephans. I think I know why Simon Cowell picked him. I think it’s because he doesn’t know how to do shirts up either. I think this is part of a weird Solidarity For People Who Can’t Do Shirts Up Very Well treatment group.
Oh, Anton used to be a backing singer. This is like 20 Feet From Stardom, except it’s Nine Years Since That Singing Binman.
STOP QUOTING OFFICE SPACE, SIMON COWELL.
And that’s that for Keira. About three people clapped the performance. She seems very nice and all, but that wasn’t very good. Also, did Simon Cowell just quote Office Space at her? What’s happened to Simon this year? He’s happy, he’s been bearded, he’s quoting Office Space. To be perfectly honest with you, I’m a bit worried that he’s going to turn up next week in tie-dye.
To be perfectly honest with you, I have no idea how well Keira’s doing, because I’m transfixed by the keyboard player in the pretend band behind her. He is taking his job of pretending to play the keyboards VERY seriously. He’s fake-playing those keys like his life depended on it. He’s perpetually one heartbeat away from an overbite. Can I vote for him? I’d totally vote for him if I could.
Keira’s singing Crying for no Reason. She’s trying to relate to us. I’m currently crying for no reason too. Well, no no reason. The reason is that I have to watch this pile of crap for work.
Next up is Kiera Weathers, who is literally just a woman with no memorable qualities and who will be voted off fifth. In the VT, just to prove my point, Kiera looks at some clothes and basically just says ‘I am looking at some clothes’.
Oh, they’re looking for a new Milk Tray Man. I think that, in 2015, all that the Milk Tray Man really needs to do is walk to the newsagents, pull a sad face because the newsagents is out of Miniature Heroes and then hope his romantic interest won’t be too disappointed to receive a box of Milk Tray, because as a chocolate, it clearly says ‘The newsagents was out of Miniature Heroes and I could be bothered to walk to the Tesco garage’.
Right. Another ad break. I can’t tell if X Factor 2015 is too much of a change or not enough of a change. I think that Nick Grimshaw got the rough end of the stick replacing Louis Walsh, because so far Rita Ora is CLEARLY the new Louis Walsh. I think that Caroline Flack could do her job better by herself, and I think she knows that, and I think that she’ll fire Olly Murs out of a cannon into a brick wall by November.
I’m so old. I’m so inescapably old.
Simon Cowell’s thing this year seems to be ‘unbridled enthusiasm’. It’s weird. I’m not sure it suits him. You know what suited him? That beard. You know what else suited him? Sighing for a living, which was basically his career between 2001-2011.
This is a little bit what Do It Like a Dude would sound like if it was being performed by five people who didn’t know how Do It Like a Dude went, but in dramatically different ways from each other.
Alien Uncovered are singing Do it Like a Dude. Which I’m all in favour of, because that’d make them a boyband and boybands always get voted off after a fortnight.
Alien Uncovered now. Today I read that this group used to just be called Alien, presumably they changed their name because they didn’t want to be sued by the producers of the film Alien. Now they’re called Alien Uncovered, putting them in direct sight of a lawsuit from the producers of that Alien porno parody I found on the internet when I was lonely.
Also, judging by this VT, I believe that these people think the defining characteristic of an alien is its access to Superdrug hair dye.
Oh good, Kevin Bacon’s still doing EE adverts. I interviewed him the other week, and he did a Paul Daniels impression for me. I’ll tell you about it sometime, by which I will say ‘I interviewed Kevin Bacon the other week, and he did a Paul Daniels impression for me’ out loud with my mouth, and then we’ll both just stand there in silence, and then you’ll puff out your cheeks, and one of us will go ‘Well, I’d better..’ and the other one will go ‘Yeah’ and that’ll be it.
Oh, now Caroline Flack’s doing the interview, but she still has to hold the microphone to the act’s mouth as well, while Olly Murs stands around like an uppity little duke. DAMN YOU PATRIARCHY.
Rita Ora has about thirteen simultaneous accents. I haven’t really noticed that before.
Max is singing Someone Like You by Adele, because it’s Halloween and he knows how scary the thought of him turning up unannounced on your doorstep is.
HOWEVER, he’s singing a REGGAE version of Someone Like You, which improves it by about a thousand percent. A sandblasted mannequin doing a lacklustre Adele cover in a weird patois that I think might actually be quite offensive. This is brilliant. Is Max Stone Joss Stone’s brother? Have we checked this out? If he isn’t, the pair of them need to get married. Their babies would be AWFUL.
That said, this is the clearest stitch-up I have ever seen. Max is going home tomorrow, and the poor sap hasn’t even sung a note.
Max Stone now. In every photo I’ve seen of this guy – so two photos – he’s pulled his watch all the way down his wrist and displayed it conspicuously, like arseholes in magazine adverts for watches do. We get it, Max, you have a nice watch. And we also get that you have zero personality and try to offset that by showing everyone what a nice watch you’ve got. I think I might hate this man more than anything right now.
Is this the post-song interview formula? Caroline Flack silently grinning while she holds the microphone to the act’s mouth while Olly Murs yelps non-questions at him? I am NOT A FAN.
Oh, I forgot. They barely get to sing any of the songs in the first episode. I think I prefer it this way. Cheryl - dressed as those black-eyed children that The Daily Star got worked up about a few years ago – said nothing of substance. Simon led the audience of a chantalong of his catchphrase (which is a clear death for the show if ever I saw one). The new judges said nothing.
Front of the stage: Lauren does a passable karaoke version of a song she could sing in her sleep. Back of the stage: exactly what I usually see 20 minutes before I have a migraine.
Lauren’s singing I’m Every Woman, which is weird because I’m fairly certain that she’s actually barely any women. She’s one woman, tops. From what I can tell, her makeover involved making her look as much like Nicole Scherzinger as possible, in the forlorn hope that it’ll trick viewers that X Factor is still in any way watchable.
Lauren’s VT is literally just the word ‘Tresemme’ a billion times in a row, until all that’s left is dust and broken dreams.
First to sing tonight is Lauren Murray, who looks like a Timehop update from that time you unsuccessfully attempted to make friends with a department store perfume assistant in 2012.
Apparently someone called Monica is this year’s wildcard. I genuinely don’t know who she is. She may as well be an egg on a stick for all I know.
When I said that Simon’s shaved, I obviously meant his face. His chest is still all over the place.
I guess this means we should meet the judges, then…
NICK: Like the high school yearbook photo of a concussed muppet.
RITA: Or, to be more accurate, Jo from S Club 7.
CHERYL: Otzi the Iceman.
SIMON: Oh thank god he’s shaved.
Nope. It’s still Murs and Flack. They walk out on stage. No dance. No cowpoke. Just the unsettling underlying sensation that Olly Murs is being fed his lines syllable by syllable by the world’s most patient producer.
Hang on, the shouty voiceover man is back. I thought he quit at the start of the series. Does that mean that Louis Walsh will be back as well? Does it mean Dermot will be back? Please say it means that Dermot’s back.
Right, here’s where I catch up. Apparently Olly Murs, Cher Lloyd and Harry Styles are all finalists this year. I can’t say I was expecting that.
IT’S TIME! TO FACE! THE DISAPPOINTINGLY CYCLICAL NATURE OF MY CAREER!
Before X Factor starts, let’s ease back into the swing of this by doing a one-paragraph Strictly Come Dancing review.
This shouldn’t be called Strictly Come Dancing. It should be called Strictly Come Weathergirls Woodenly Walking Backwards And Forwards In Awful Costumes Accompanied By A Dreadful Cover Version Of A Bad Song Right Before Tess Daly Rotely Observes That Some People Are Standing Up.
More biting satire like this next week, if I can be bothered.
Hello strangers, and welcome to the very first X Factor liveblog of 2015. You probably thought that I wasn’t going to liveblog X Factor this year, didn’t you? You probably thought that I’d outgrown it, now that I have a child and a house with stairs. Well, you’re wrong. Nobody watches X Factor any more, but here I am anyway. This will never. It. Will. Never. End.
I’m happy to be here, too, because this is easily the best series of X Factor so far. Admittedly I’m only saying that because I haven’t actually watched any of it yet, so I don’t know who any of the finalists are, or what they sound like, or if this is a theme night, or what the judges are like, or anything, but that’s exactly why I’m enjoying it so much. I tried to watch the first episode, but then I realised I wasn’t getting paid to do it, so I checked out completely until about three o’clock this afternoon. I haven’t had time to start hating X Factor yet, and it’s almost November. This is a record.
Obviously that’s bound to change tonight, because tonight’s episode is two and a half hours long, and I’m coming into it cold, and I’m having an abnormally crap day, and I’ve just eaten enough ice cream to make me fully hate myself and at some point before I’ve finished all the lights and noise and colours and idiocy will make me legitimately lose the will to live. But let’s hold onto this feeling while we still can, shall we?
Tonight’s show starts at 8pm – and doesn’t finish until half past poxy ten – so I could really use your company. Join me, won’t you? This will be fun. Or spectacularly awful. Who can really say?
