Please stop the noise...

I probably should know better, but I've just been watching the new series of the X-Factor on ITV. Sometimes I think I should turn my flat into one of those households where people don't watch ITV because it's crap. To do this would involve me putting a sign on top of my telly saying "Please refrain from watching ITV because it's crap" and then ensuring that myself, and anyone else passing through the flat, adhered to the instructions on said sign. But I'm not going to do that because it would look untidy.

So, back to the X-Factor. If anyone is lucky enough to be unaware of what the show is, it's like Pop Idol with a wider remit. As well as young pop-wannabes, pretty much anyone or anything can apply. Old people, even older people, grandmas, groups. They'd probably let Mr Ed audition if he turned up (and if he was real).

It's still at the auditions stage at the moment which is almost always the most entertaining part. I am continually bemused by some of the people that attempt to get through this stage. They are some of the ugliest, stupidest, least talented, utterly deluded wastes of space that you can see on non-pay tv. I can't believe that the singing they do actually sounds good in the confines of their own small heads, or the small heads of their families. There are parents pushing their kids onto this thing and they must know that the auditionee will be utterly humiliated. Then there are people going on purely of their own free will, in what is seemingly a kind of social suicide.

To reiterate, these people cannot sing or dance and they look awful. They look awful in pretty much all of the ways that it is possible to look awful, sometimes all at once. And perhaps more importantly given that it's all about the music (yeah, right) they have no musical ability whatsoever.

And then there are the completely barking mad ones. Today, an old balding man who claimed he'd recreated the voice of John Lennon and was able to get it to sing the old balding man's songs. In his audition he played a homemade CD on a portable stereo. It was hard to say whether it sounded like Lennon or not, but I think "not" has to be more likely. But at least he wasn't trying to sing live himself.

The ones that really confuse me are the little nerdy ones, the ones that look like they were aiming to audition for University Challenge but took the wrong door. I just don't understand what the f**k is going through their heads. Don't they know?

Bunch of useless arse, every single one of them.

(darn. actually I'm just pissed off cos I forgot to enter the auditions myself again)