It may have taken a month (and required an intense mind mapping session on my sofa) but I have come up with an Exciting Overarching Narrative for my Blog. This is, apparently, important if I am to become published one day, according to my all important Literary Agent Flatmate.

Blog Post 1 on this exciting overarching narrative will come shortly. Maybe even today if Come Dine With Me isn‘t on.

However, in addition to this, I’ve decided I’m allowed a few posts to be outside of the Overarching Narrative (don’t kill me Literary Agent Flatmate), mainly because I really want
to blog about the X Factor. For example, I recently saw someone on Twitter calling Jamie “Sideshow Bob”. That was totally my invention, and this blog will enable me to get these things out there first.

Week 1:

I’m such a geek/the new Derren Brown. I’ve come up with a mathematical formula to predict who will be in the bottom two. Let’s see if it’s right before I reveal just how sad I am to have created this formula, but I predict that the bottom two will be Rikki and Kandy Rain. In fact, according to my potentially ingenious formula, here’s how everyone ranks:

1. Danyl
2. Stacey
3. Joe
4. Jamie
5. Lucie
6. Olly
7. Miss Frank
8. Rachel
9. Lloyd
10. John & Edward (They can’t even be bothered to come up with a band name)
11. Kandy Rain
12. Rikki

Other thoughts:

Rachel:
The curse of going first. Good ability to walk about on stage (though I’m not sure it takes trained professionals months to learn how to walk down some see-through stairs). Not the best song choice to show off her voice (which is what the first few shows need to do, Danni, before *then* showing us all that they can “perform” too). And backing singers should be banned.

Kandi Rain:
I didn‘t mind the outfits, but the cat ears were a step too far (and I would have suggested a ballad to show off their voices rather than this).

Olly:
Olly annoyed me because he smiled (albeit in a petrified manner) all the way through this song. THIS IS NOT A HAPPY SONG! (The worst ever example of a complete misunderstanding of a song on the X Factor is below):

Rikki:
Am I mad to like him? To think he could be the new Will Young? I think he’s got a good, interesting voice and I quite liked the suit. Even the hat was OK. And I loved the song choice, even if he got the genders all muddled (he started singing to a girl but then either she was a lesbian, or she changed to being male by the end of the song. More on that topic later).

Stacey:
Coldplay was a great idea, but unfortunately this song is best sung by a man with falsetto and therefore it sounded a tad warbley. But impossible not to love her and with better songs, she’ll be top 3. I refuse to use the phrase Likeability Factor.

Miss Frank:
Simon was right, Shar had a great voice. I predict they will go the way of JLS, in that she will start singing all leads whilst the other two click fingers passive aggressively in background.

Sideshow Bob:
Not a massive fan, but he’ll stay in for ages. Second half better than the first. Hair is distracting. Backing singers too loud.

Lloyd:
Not good. Why are you grinning your way through Cry Me A River, an angry song about discovering your partner’s unfaithful? Why sing a Justin Timberlake song if you can’t dance? Why is a woman doing robot dancing wandering around the stage? (If I’d been consulted, I’d have recommended doing a stripped back acoustic version of the song).

Lucie:
Fantastic voice, but Simon’s right: singing Leona showed the limits of it. But she looks just like a popstar (and also Sarah from Hollyoaks). I still think with her voice – and the right songs – she could win.

Oh yes, I also loved the wind machine. Plus The Boyfriend noticed that they constructed a halo around her, which is very interesting. Look at this from last year to see why:

John and Edward:
Is it wrong that I’m fascinated by their twitchy movements?

Joseph
Why do I not like him? My boyfriend says I am harsh.

Danyl:
I like the idea of boys singing “girl” songs, even if I’m fed up of hearing this song over and over again. Bad arrangement too. However, Danyl’s the most interesting over 25s performer and should go far (if he doesn‘t come a cropper in the week four shock eviction of a favourite scenario).

As for Dannii’s comment, I don’t think it was that awful (even if the tone it was said in wasn‘t great): it would be bad if he hadn‘t already outed himself. It does annoy me that there are so few songs sung by gay men which actually refer to another man in them. I can only think of a couple in fact. Even Will Young has only done it in one song that I’m aware of, “Switch It On”, where he sings to “Mr Fabulous”. Maybe I should do a whole blog post about this?). As he’s outed himself, Danni’s comment is only an issue if being referred to as gay on TV is seen as a hideous, horrible thing, which is homophobic in itself. So there you go.

So let’s see if my formula works!

P.S. I watched it on ITV On Demand and if I see that Glade Plug-in (“It’s clever!”) advert one more time I will flip out.