Disclaimer: writen at midnight after “Christmas Day”. Much food and alcohol consumed.

- So, we’re essentially back in 2002 right and it’s the final of Pop Idol: Will Young vs. Gareth Gates, when Simon thought that Gareth Gates was the next big superstar. However, the public defied Simon and decided that the much more interesting and relevant Will Young, who could inteligently interpret songs, was the winner. An important victory. Back to 2009 and the winner was the other way round. We’ve regressed. Even now, Joe isn’t trending on Twitter. It’ll be interesting to see how much his debut single sells this week: whether it’s Leona(571k)/Alex (576k) amounts or Leon (275k) amounts. This will be the first clue to how popular he might be…

- Whilst Olly sang “The Climb” almost entirely out of tune (as it was the Final, the Judges had to ignore the flat notes and convince us it was an incredible-never-heard-before-vocal), I sort of preferred his desperate, broken man version to Joe’s strangely soulless performance. As a contestant, Olly was interesting as it’s unusual to get someone good at the up tempo numbers but not so good at traditional ballads on the show. Literary Agent housemate also made a interesting comment that unlike the other contestants he actually leads the dancers. No mean feat.

- However, it seemed more likely that the Gospel Choir on “The Climb” would lead the contestants away: why were they dressed like hospital workers? They were here last year too, looking equally creepy. And that combined with the crazy cartoon silhouettes on the background of the weird house in the George Michael song? Fascinating: the X Factor entered a dark, intriguing place.

- Is it wrong to dislike Cheryl and Simon’s constant hugging of each other, like they’re a little gang against Dannii and Louis? It’s like playground bullies.

- Do we think they didn’t do the traditional “bring back the rubbish acts from the auditions” performance as this year one of the rubbish acts that would have normally been included actually got through and were lauded up as the best entertainment we’ve had in years?

-JLS and Alexandra: where to start. They smashed it. Why couldn’t it have been a three way thing with Leona joining in? Why can’t we just ignore the current contestants? Let’s go merrily into denial and remember last year instead. The clip below is amazing for so many reasons, which I will enumerate below (look, Guardian Editor and Literary Agent Housemate, I can use long words like enumerate and am therefore definitely worth approaching. This is my last X Factor blog post so I am not above desperate self-promotion):

1. Her crying is genuine, slightly ugly, proper fall on your knees wailing.

2. After losing, one of JLS misunderstands and thinks he is Obama and says something like “because of this moment, others have hope. Victory after Victory”.

3. When Dermot offers to show her her single Alex says “yes please” like a baby.

4. Despite breaking down mid song with perfect overwhelming emotion she recovers like a trouper and belts out enormous, epic notes. The other contestants are practically holding her up in the final notes.

5. Diana Vickers STILL has no shoes on.

- Oh my god, the voting stats are out. I’m fascinated. Worthy of a blog post in themselves I feel…

 - And now, what on earth do I blog about now? Please do suggest!