The X Factor: Death Throes

[machotrouts]

The Normal Civilian Scum X Factor is taking "a year" off, because I was the last person who still watched it, to be replaced this year by two mini-series: "The X Factor: Celebrity" and "The X Factor: All Stars" (a series of just returning contestants). I didn't put in brackets what the celebrity one is but, to clarify, it's celebrities.

The one that's on now is The X Factor: Celebrity, a series where the contestants are celebrities who the show repeatedly insists are NOT known for singing, I repeat NOT known for singing. The celebrities who are not known for singing are as follows.

The cunt in the wheelchair from Glee. Was Puck busy?

Olivia Olson. The little girl who sings 'All I Want for Christmas Is You' and gets chased through an airport by a terrorist sex fiend in Love Actually. She seems to be best known these days as a voice actor, which the show hasn't mentioned – I even recognise her Steven Universe character, because you can't move for Steven Universe fans online. I think I even know what it's about, something about lesbians and gems and some bloke named Steven?

Martin Bashir. Were Princess Diana and Michael Jackson busy?

Hayley Hasselhoff. The daughter of Celebrity Big Brother star Pamela Bach-Hasselhoff. Don't know if she has any other parents??

Megan McKenna. I mainly know her for screaming "I ATE GRUEL FOR THAT CUNT" about John Partridge in Celebrity Big Brother, but she originally came from... well, I couldn't remember if she was an 'Ex on the Beach' person or a TOWIE person, so I just checked, and apparently she's both. I thought she was a bit of a rum choice too after reading someone complain that she'd already had a top 10 album – I'm now checking her Wikipedia page, and she apparently had a top 10 album on the UK Country Chart. Can there possibly be 10 country albums selling in any given week for there to be a UK Country Chart? Come on. It's like the US having a Billboard Madchester Chart.

Jenny Ryan. Vixen from Chase. Note how much quicker you can get through a sentence if you refuse to type the word "The".

Jonny Labey. I accidentally caught a bit of EastEnders once where he was padding about in his underwear after having implicitly bummed the murdery gay boy with the glasses. I think they killed him off after a week or something but he's still the first EastEnders character I'd picture if for some reason you asked me to picture an EastEnders character at gunpoint, and I'll tell you what, he could put his Jonny in my Labey-a any day! (I don't have a labia.) (I'm gay)

Victoria Ekanoye. This is... er... Mary's boring son's boring wife from Coronation Street? Hung around being postpartum depressed for a few months before leaving? Christ, you'd think ITV would at least have a decent pick of the Corrie cast. Did they exhaust all their best options on Soapstar Superstar and that time Janice Battersby did Björk on Stars on Their Eyes?

Ricki Lake. For #1s week, she could do either 'Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)' OR 'Hole in the Head'.

Max and Harvey. X Factor tried to palm these two off as "presenters" but Wikipedia reckons they're a "singing duo from Berkshire who rose to prominence on Musical.ly", which I think is one of those weird apps adults only find out exist when they google who shares their birthday and end up on famousbirthdays.com staring nonplussed at a grid of 13-year-olds named Kayden or Braynee with the description "Musical.ly star".

"The Islanders". A group of 4 people from Love Island, who Wikipedia tells me are named Eyal Booker, Zara McDermott, Samira Mighty and Wes Nelson, and I absolutely am not going to click on their individual Wikilinks to check whether they have their own profiles or if it just goes to their subheading on a list page. What am I going to find out about them anyway? Biographical information? Nobody wants that. Wes, mind you, I do remember from Dancing on Ice. Runner-up last series. Remember the Dancing on Ice thread? No you don't because I was the only one who posted in it. A premonition of what's to come in this thread, you might say? Please do say that so that at least someone will have posted.

"Try Star". Three rugby players, named Levi Davis, Thom Evans and Ben Foden, and somehow I have heard of two of them – Thom Evans was a bit crap on Strictly Come Dancing, and Ben Foden I think cheated on a Saturday. Apparently they also play rugby? Who knew.

Cole and Edwards. That's Brendan Cole, cunt from Strictly, and Jeremy Edwards, who, last I heard (before my time) was a cunt from Celebrity Big Brother, who became very unpopular for bullying Jackie Stallone, but not in an interesting enough way that anyone remembers him enough to hate him. Probably before that he was in a soap or something, I don't know, who cares. He seems like the sort of man who you might go to the tabloids about with an allegation of sexual impropriety during #MeToo season only to get turned away due to lack of interest. I'm not alleging anything obviously. I'm just saying, if he was a sex criminal, who'd even bother writing about it? Fish in a barrel.

"V5". According to Wikipedia, "V5 consists of social media influencers Alondra, Laura, Natalie, Sofia and Wendii." I checked the ITV site and they don't have full names for them either. Not even social media links. Look, I know it's cheap to go "X FACTOR: """"CELEBRITY""""? NEVER FUCKEN HEARD OF 'EM!!!!" but: what is this? What's happening? Is there any pretence that they're in any way public figures? Is this going to be explained? "These 5 girls have LOADS of mates take our word for it". Come on.

Were Lucy Benjamin, Matt Stevens, Chris Moyles, Jean-Christophe Novelli, Aldo Zilli, Paul Rankin, Ross Burden, Nikki Sanderson, James Hewitt, Rebecca Loos, Michelle Marsh, Gillian McKeith, Paul Daniels, and Debbie McGee all busy?

[machotrouts]

This started last week and the second episode is on in a few minutes (I typed that a while ago, it's actually on right now but I have too much integrity to edit it). First episode is presumably still available on STV Player. Yeah I'm just assuming you live in Scotland like me, how does that fucking feel not to be the centre of the universe for once you fucking English cunt.

Oddly, rather than just ploughing straight into live shows, they're making the celebrities do "auditions" in Simon Cowell's garden or something, to a small crowd of Simon Cowell's mates, who emit the exact same very conspicuously dubbed cheer after each performance. 8 of the 14 acts auditioned last week.

Everyone was really unaccountably impressed to see Kevin McHale, sorry that's how some people spell "The cunt in the wheelchair from Glee". I'm not saying he's a cunt, he might be perfectly fine as far as Kevins go, but didn't even the people who somehow found Glee bearable hate his character? Maybe everyone was just excited to see him using his legs. It's a miracle!

Highlight of the week was Martin Bashir, doing an absolutely dogshit karaoke attempt at 'L-O-V-E' (Nat King Cole not Ashlee Simpson) before launching into a serious sob story spiel about how his brother who died of muscular dystrophy in 1991 is the reason he felt inspired to come on the show, to the weepy delight of the judges. Absolutely fucking shameless! Strongly recommended.

"Cole and Edwards" made cunts out of themselves, but I don't know whether they're being actual cunts or pantomime cunts trying to obfuscate that they are just actual cunts.

Jenny Ryan sang in a very deep voice and my mum laughed along throughout assuming it was a comedy audition but everyone seemed to like it. I don't have an opinion. Why would I know whether anyone sings good. Watching 15 series of The X Factor does not provide you with a useful frame of reference for that, I can tell you.

The Musical.ly stars, Love Island shaggers, rugby love rats, and Hayvid Hasselhoff also performed, and there's nothing much to say about any of that.

Nice to see Bernie Sanders looking well!

[confettiinmyhair]

Talent Show's are regurgitating, and cross pollinating with the dregs of Reality TV. Britain's Got Talent: The Champions and now this. Ex Celebs Go Dating Contestants, Jeremy Edwards, Martin Bashir.

[thecuriousorange]

They're trying to appeal to everyone from the nans to the teens and I wonder if there's any individual who knows who every single contestant is.

[BlodwynPig]

I hate nans. Rotten people

[touchingcloth]

Talent Show's are regurgitating, and cross pollinating with the dregs of Reality TV. Britain's Got Talent: The Champions and now this. Ex Celebs Go Dating Contestants, Jeremy Edwards, Martin Bashir.

Give it ten years and they'll need to start running YouTubers and reality TV stars through a mincer and pressing the resulting mush around a wireframe in the hope that the novelty delays the death of the format by a year or two.

[Ja'moke]

I have no intention of watching this, but I'm enjoying your write-ups machotrouts. Very funny.

I miiiight watch the All Stars one if it has Rhydian and Ruth Lorenzo on... that's around the last time I watched X Factor.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

I hate nans. Rotten people

But good breads.

[confettiinmyhair]

Presumably All Stars won't feature anyone who has actually been successful post X Factor. So who knows who we might be left with?

[kitsofan34]

[Gurke and Hare]

Presumably All Stars won't feature anyone who has actually been successful post X Factor. So who knows who we might be left with?

Steve Brookstein if he can tear himself away from being a cunt on Twitter. But yeah, I'm guessing not Leona Lewis.

[Ja'moke]

Steve Brookstein if he can tear himself away from being a cunt on Twitter. But yeah, I'm guessing not Leona Lewis.

Is Leona Lewis still relevant? I could see her doing it. But not the likes of One Direction or Little Mix.

[kitsofan34]

I checked Leona Lewis' wikipedia page to see what she's been up to and listed in her television credits is an appearance as a contestant on the X Factor All Stars show.

[Gurke and Hare]

Oh, okay. I'm a old person, I don't know what pop stars are relevant these days, but given that she's clearly the best solo act ever to come out of it and she's had plenty of success, I wouldn't have thought she needed it.

[machotrouts]

The last auditions happened last week, and first of all I need to retract the bit in my above post where I implied I fancied Jonny Labey. He's cut his hair and now he has a hat instead. He really suits the hat as well, and of course that isn't a compliment. He conducts himself like a hat man. He sings like a hat man. I'm not 100% sure whether he was even wearing a hat or if I just mentally projected one onto him because he seemed so hatty. Disgusting and I'm against all of it.

Megan McKenna sang an original song from the album she's already released, which I guess they're not burying in a memory hole for the purposes of the show, the social media randoms and the boring woman from Corrie were good because they'd fucking have to be, and the woman I erroneously claimed above was a voice actor in Steven Universe did okay (she's a voice actor in Adventure Time, which is allegedly not the same thing, even though it probably is). Ricki Lake was also there, and at least I can say with confidence what show she's from without googling it (Jerry Springer).

The acts from each of the two audition episodes were then told who has and hasn't made it to the live shows – putting through 3/sending home 1 from each category. If we'd just started with the live shows, sending home 1 act each week, we'd already be down to exactly as many acts as we've got now, so I don't know what the point of doing it like this was. Did they forget to hire the venue?

The 3 acts sent packing were uninteresting celebrity offspring Hayley Hasselhoff, nightmare spitroast partners Cole & Edwards, and Jenny Ryan, who people thought was actually good, provoking mild controversy, particularly as she was eliminated over 1 act in her category who didn't audition – Vinnie Jones, whose name is in bold now because he wasn't in my opening post, on account of not being there. He dropped out of the auditions after his wife died, but still wants a crack at the live shows, so we'll be seeing him tonight. I do mean to be insensitive, but given how awful the prospect of Vinnie Jones as an X Factor contestant would be at the best of times, fucking imagine how unbearable Vinnie Jones as a Dead Wife Guy is going to be.

We will also be seeing Jenny Ryan, because she's going to be brought back as a shock twist. You're going to be very shocked trust me.

Live shows start this evening.

[purlieu]

I have to be honest, the modern world of popular culture utterly baffles me. This is a very enjoyable thread so far, so thanks for that machotrouts.

[druss]

Actual Ricki Lake?

Why the fuck is she there?

[BlodwynPig]

I hated it when American 'celebrities' suddenly got Britainized by the likes of Norton and Big Brother. Destroys my youth. Ricki Lake was so so so distant, a different place, a different time. If I travelled to LA as a 15 year old, I could say I was at best 100 miles from Ricki Lake.

Now, we get this. Ricki Lake, an ordinary woman trying to fit in with crass Brit culture (oh, this is taking place in America...no matter).

[confettiinmyhair]

Olivia took the result badly, it's the reaction that needs an accompanying gif image of Gary Lineker from World Cup '90 saying to the bench - is he alright? Even unflappable Dermot was worried about her welfare.

[machotrouts]

The acts have performed in their first live show, and now I've got to go through the indignity of having opinions on them all.

Kevin McHale
Fair play, we might be cynical about the show making a big deal of picking celebrities who "aren't known for singing" only to cast someone from Glee, but he does sing like a man who's never carried a tune in his life. You wouldn't know he was from Glee, unless you had a very low opinion of Glee, which you do.

Ricki Lake
Quite liked this. About as un-Hairspray as you can get. Sweet and understated. No place for that on the X Factor.

No Love Lost
A weird thing about the X Factor these days is, every so often, they'll for no apparent reason give an act an original song that actually seems to be a half-decent bop, and yet it will never, ever make it to a recording studio, let alone get any sort of release. It'd have made sense in the early days to develop the show into being more than an empty karaoke spectacle, when contestants were expected to sometimes go on to popstar careers, but now that the Syco-actually-releasing-records aspect of the format has fallen by the wayside, I don't understand what this is for. It's all the more inexplicable that they're still bothering with it in a novelty celebrity series.

Oh that's the Love Island people's new name by the way. That's what we call them now.

Jenny Ryan
It's nice that Conchita Wurst has been adopted into the X Factor songbook, but Jenny sounds like that Bad Lip Reading video of Beyoncé singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

Jonny Labey
Rancid. Is there a more grimly X Factor 2006 concept than a big band rendition of 'Show Me Love'?

V5
The X Factor must be pulling a Bobby Sabel here – making up the numbers of a celebrity line-up by calling contacts from your civilian booking pool and hoping nobody will notice. They've had a line-up change already, replacing one of the randoms with another random, and there's been no explanation of who she's supposed to be either. Louis Walsh excitedly told them after they performed "THIS IS THE START OF YOUR CAREER!". Yes, that's kind of the problem, isn't it.

Martin Bashir
Oh, that's what my mum's been singing round the house recently. I wondered what "DONKERS YEARN" was supposed to mean. Better enunciation than my mum, got to give him that.

Max and Harvey
Either the producers wanted them out straight away, or they're trying to set up a comeback narrative next week. Nobody has ever been asked to sing Bros in good faith.

Olivia Olson
Half-arsed dirgy moody electronic remixes of old songs are a bit of a trope of this show by now, and I'm not sure these are ever doled out to acts in good faith either. Not sure her singing helped her case, though. "BE SO UNTROOOEEE... what am I to doe?" You wouldn't chase her through an airport over it.

Vinnie Jones
One of my most miserable childhood memories is an elderly great-aunt's birthday karaoke party. Every uncle in my family – uncles to me, uncles to my mum, uncles to my uncles, just men whose defining trait and often first name seemed to be 'Uncle' – had a go on the mic. They had such fun. Nobody could sing, and that just made it more fun for everybody. My great-aunt was up on a table dancing, remarkably full of life for a woman 6 months away from dying of natural causes. I, so far as I could tell, was the only person not having fun. In fact, I was so upset and angered by the noise that I sat in the corner with my hands clasped over my ears, crying, waiting for my parents to take me home, which they didn't, for hours. I was probably in my teens at this point – easily old enough for this to be strange and incongruous behaviour, old enough to be fully cognisant of the social embarrassment I was making of myself, but too young and too far from home to be allowed to leave of my own accord. I sat there and suffered a neverending queue of uncles, uncle after uncle after uncle after uncle, each one louder, drunker, and offer-key than the last. Hell is uncles, and I was in hell.

Megan McKenna
Another original song, and she's as good a songwriter as you'd expect Megan McKenna from Ex on the Beach to be. Whose expectations is this supposed to be subverting? People who got their hopes up that her album would all just be tracks called 'Gruel for That Cunt' and 'Ghetto Cunt'?

Victoria Ekanoye
She was okay. I feel like 'Never Tear Us Apart' is a song nobody actually likes. I don't think anybody particularly dislikes it either. It just sort of exists and we're all occasionally expected to put up with it for reasons nobody can remember anymore.

Try Star
It bothers me when what probably started as a pitch to mash up two songs – in this case, 'Pony' and 'Ol Town Road' – turns out to be singing a bit of one song, stopping, then singing a bit of the other song. It's not a mash-up, and it's too short to meaningfully constitute a medley. It's just nothing, isn't it. Nobody could want this. Just pick one and get on with it.


Amongst these performances, there was a confusing new bit of format – Simon Cowell just announced at some point in the show "the CHAIRS are back!", to absolutely no reaction, as the camera cut to 3 cheap little IKEA chairs just off-stage, completely unexplained. Okay mate. These turned out to be "safe seats", the mentors each getting to choose one of their acts to be safe from the public vote. I don't remember this having been done before, so I'm not sure how it's "back" – I can only suppose he's alluding to the Six Chair Challenge, but that's not the same thing, except in as much as it has chairs. Does Simon think the chairs themselves are integral or iconic somehow? Is his opinion of his show so low that he thinks the furniture is what the remaining viewers are tuning in for?

The safe acts were all selected immediately after their performances, seemingly on a whim before the mentors had even watched everyone, as if they had to find a way to make an innocuous concept annoying and inane, because this is the X Factor and that's what we do. And tactically speaking, shouldn't they be picking their worst acts? The ones they don't think would survive a vote? The acts and mentors were all behaving as if it was the ultimate compliment. Anyway, Nicole, Louis, and Simon gave their seats to Jenny, Jonny, and Try Star (handily, as Try Star were on last, they didn't have to show us how they were all supposed to fit in their one seat) and the remaining 10 acts faced the public vote, which was open for one ad break because we don't bother with Sundays anymore.

It was a double elimination, as I imagine it will be every week, because we haven't got time to do this properly. Ricki Lake (who got 1 of my free app votes) was booted immediately, having received the fewest votes, and the judges then had to vote on who to send home out of the 2nd and 3rd from bottom, no sing-off, just straight to the decision. Olivia Olson (who got 1 of my free app votes) was eliminated over Martin Bashir (who got 1 of my free app votes) by Simon Cowell, on the basis that he thinks the public, who did not vote for Martin Bashir (except for me), like Martin Bashir (which even I don't).

No idea what Olivia taking it so hard was about. She has a perfectly adequate career voicing a cartoon princess in Adventure Steven or whatever, and she's openly weeping because Martin Bashir's Danke Schoen robbed her of a place in a reality show that got beaten in the ratings by Danny Dyer's 'The Wall'. This is Celebrity X Factor! There aren't stakes! Absolutely nobody is going to come out of this as a winner!

[Utter Shit]

Even by usual reality show celebrity edition standards that is an astonishingly shit line-up, isn't it? I've only heard of four of those, and Olivia Olson I only know because I'm a massive gimp who loves Love Actually. I'd put it down to the show aiming for a younger demographic, but if that was the case what on earth are Ricki Lake and Martin Bashir doing on there? I mean...I'd have thought that line-up would be actively harmful to the X Factor brand, whatever that is nowadays.

[thecuriousorange]

Say what you like about Vinnie Jones, he was good on a celebrity version of Gladiators in mid nineties, pretending to be angry at Wolf.

[jenna appleseed]

Say what you like about Vinnie Jones, he was good on a celebrity version of Gladiators in mid nineties, pretending to be angry at Wolf.

Inexplicably hilarious on TOTP2, too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nz5F2aIWzw

[EOLAN]

"Try Star". Three rugby players, named Levi Davis, Thom Evans and Ben Foden, and somehow I have heard of two of them – Thom Evans was a bit crap on Strictly Come Dancing, and Ben Foden I think cheated on a Saturday. Apparently they also play rugby? Who knew.

I am a reasonably big rugby fan and I knew of only one of them; the one married and broken up with one of the Saturdays.

[confettiinmyhair]

Thom Evans retired early, he's been trying to build a Celebrity career. He's been on Strictly. Foden, I'm convinced is in this to prove to his ex-wife that he can be a Popstar. The other chap is probably going to be more know for his singing then his rugby.

Rugby celebrities seem to be the in thing, see also Greg, the co-winner of Love Island.

[machotrouts]

Victoria Ekanoye was bottom of the public vote and straight out last episode after an adequate-as-could-be-expected performance of a Beyoncé bonus track from 2008. Simon Cowell denigrated it by sneering "that's what I call a TV performance", because the song and staging foisted on her didn't seem like a serious attempt at promoting a real-life record. Well what the fuck are you doing a celebrity X Factor for you daft twat. Of course it's all nonsense shit that could only possibly exist for TV entertainment. If that isn't the point, what the fuck is? Was Soapstar Superstar this fucking haughty back in the day?

It's weird and joyless to have this pretence looming over the show that it's somehow of any consequence beyond its own bounds, when not even actual X Factor bothers trying to make popstars of anyone these days. It's like when Robot Wars had those recent celebrity specials, something they'd already done frivolously and entertainingly about 15 years prior, and inexplicably decided to take it really seriously by making the celebrities actually take part in making the robots, and it was a barely broadcastable waste of everybody's time because the robots were so shit that every battle ended in 10 seconds because they'd get one ram in before becoming immobilised from all their wheels falling off.

Celebrity X Factor is a distractingly contradictory format – they want to treat this like a proper serious X Factor that's all about the charts, and then wheel out Martin Bashir off of the news and Diana, forgetting half of his lyrics on stage, and, worse still, remembering the other half. As much as viewers gripe about "joke acts" every series, it's usually just applied to anyone who's a bit gay and hits the odd bum note – you don't actually get hapless newsreaders bumbling about on the live shows of X Factor proper. It's okay for Simon to save Martin Bashir from the bottom three twice, because this is fluff and shite. You just can't do that and keep up the creepy record exec cosplay. Does Syco even still exist? Come on. You've made your money, you've milked the Teletubbies and One Direction dry, if you're not retired by now you fucking should be.

Also he's always rudely looking down at his notes when he's talking now, like he's forgotten he's on the telly. Maybe he's just insecure about his mad fucked face.

Jonny Labey, who proved he'd been bred in a lab specifically to be the worst X Factor contestant of all time by opening the show with a big band rendition of 'Are You Gonna Be My Girl', was also criticised by Simon for losing "the cool factor", and any reassurance that this is not what Simon considers "cool" is outweighed by the horrifying implication that everything Jonny did up until this point was cool. A bewildering little diagram lies in his head of "Big band covers of Robin S" and "Big band covers of Jet" either side of a line labelled "COOL". Jonny was thank fuck the second act eliminated, after a moment of confusion where nobody was sure who'd gone because Dermot ambiguously announced who'd got the "second lowest votes", which could either mean the person who'd got the second fewest votes overall (eliminated), or the person who'd got the second fewest votes of the two people he was addressing on stage then and there (saved). Unprofessional and he must be sacked and replaced with Olly Murs and Caroline Flack immediately.

In other news, they're doubling down on the "safe seat" shite in the form of the BGT-rented "golden buzzer", the dumbest bit of format of the dumbest show on ITV, and they've already somehow made it even dumber by having Nicole break ranks by bonking her buzzer for a different mentor's act, after Try Star singing 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' apparently incited in her an uncontrollable gush of English jingoism. Vote Brexit Party! (And deport Nicole Scherzinger.)

[machotrouts]

Really going out of their way to demonstrate the inanity of the "golden buzzer" this week by just saving the first three acts to perform. One third of the way into the running order and the entire judging panel has unanimously ruled out the possibility of anything better happening. Thanks guys, shall I just go ahead and turn it off then.

Find it quite sad that voters seem to be going along with Simon's bizarre facade that the point of X Factor: Celebrity is somehow to find a viable pop act, and not to see celebrities make cunts of themselves. Why would any actual human vote for V5 – a perfectly decent girl group of 5 entirely anonymous fuckknows who have no place whatsoever outside a civilian series – ahead of Martin Bashir? As if this is an actual X Factor series? No sense of mischief in this country anymore. Maybe we're all just a bit more tentative about that kind of thing since Boris Johnson became prime minister.

"No Love Lost", the Love Island people, are also out. They were okay by the standards of this show. I voted for them. Simon was unhappy enough about this that he announced an option to vote back in an eliminated act for the final. Okay. I will be voting for Martin Bashir.

Damning indictment of the viewership that I can't find a video of Martin Bashir smacking Dermot in the face on his way out.

[machotrouts]

R.I.P. Golden Buzzer. Binned off because everyone hated it, which is weird because every other element of the show is still there. Maybe they're working their way through each part of the format one by one until they're just broadcasting static. So what's everyone's favourite Golden Buzzer moment. Mine was when Nicole Scherzinger desperately strained to work herself into a lather about Vinnie Jones' dead wife, going on about how meaningful and honest the lyrics must have been to him, after he sang... a Madness medley. Not even any of the melancholy ones. Just bounding about to 'House of Fun' like a twat.

Kevin McHale's 'I Feel Love' I think is the first performance I've knowingly enjoyed all series. Gay in that classic X Factor "we can't figure out how to force him back into the closet so we'll just have to embrace it as garishly as possible" way. Actually got me a bit hot for the Glee fake wheelchair Kermit voice man. Anyway he's eliminated now obviously. Gay votes must be going to Max and Harvey singing the Pete Buttigieg anthem and Jenny Ryan working her way through Eurovision hits of the 2010s. The Polish butter churning one from 2014 this week please.

[machotrouts]

Well, Megan McKenna won.

The "All Stars" thing that was supposed to follow has been binned off and replaced with this "X Factor: The Band" shit that's on now. Nobody really seems to understand what it is. They're putting together a band? Multiple bands? By what method? Is it Popstars: The Rivals? Whatever it is it's only on for 4 episodes over the course of 1 week. Who cares.

The Just Eat sponsor bumpers make me want to fucking kill myself. The perfect soundtrack to a despondent and hopeless pre-election Tory Britain.

[BlodwynPig]

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