The countdown to Christmas began this weekend as Simon Cowell TV once again usurped the nation's Saturday evenings by bringing us the first round of X-Factor auditions and so, for the next four months, we can all look forward to tabloid headings about the surprisingly dull misdemeanours of people you weren't interested in before Cheryl Cole told them they could sing and advert after advert reminding us that we can watch Louis Walsh in HD.
The first episode didn't disappoint - England, it seems, is still full of people for whom this 'means the world', who just 'need to be given a chance' so that they can 'give mum what she deserves'. My biggest concern, however, is over those people who say that 'all they do is sing'. Apparently, they sing when they get up, they sing when they're walking around the house, they sing when they're at work and they sing when they're going to sleep. Wasn't this what ASBOs were created for, or have sections of society been given permission to perform 24-hour musicals, a little like Mark Watson's 24-hour comedy show from the Edinburgh festival a few years back? I recently passed through a village with a 'No Cold Callers' sign - perhaps this is where all the 24-hour singers are kept, joined together in a pact not to be disturbed by the world of speech out there? In fact, if they do sing all the time then how exactly did they manage to tell the judging panel their name without bursting into an operatic aria?
If the return of the X-Factor didn't make this weekend crazy enough then Premier League football decided to chip in just to make sure. Three 6-0 victories gave Colin Murray the opportunity to play Iron Maiden at the end of Match of the Day 2, while the 'papers relished the opportunity to plaster '666' over the front of celebrating Newcastle fans. Teams not involved in those three matches must have wondered just what they did wrong - did they not get the memo that we were going for a clean sweep of 6-0s? The likes of Birmingham and Wolves, we hear, had been campaigning for a weekend of 1-0s across the board, Mick McCarthy calling it 'ludicrous' to expect his team to score two months' worth of goals in a single match.
And, to top it all off, I went to a wedding this weekend in which the couple got married for the second time in two months.
Strange days indeed.
I know where you are coming from - now we have several weeks of this kind of drivel to "entertain" us on a Saturday night.
ReplyDeletePerhaps public flogging could be the new Saturday night's entertainment - let them sensationalise that one!!
"And here we have Chavy - look at the way those welts expand on his back as Artilla the flogger gives him his final lash"!!!
I think they did something like that in North Korea after the World Cup. Apparently, 'human rights' or some pathetic excuse like that makes it unethical to do such a thing...
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be opposed to a public flogging of most of the England team though. There isn't enough public flogging in 21st century Britain.
Aha, so musicals aren't actually so contrived after all - people actually do sing about their dinner and a walk in the park. There I was thinking that most of us merely spoke to one another (and occasionally to ourselves) when actually the nation is busy warbling.
ReplyDeleteWell at least if we should accidentally flick through an episode of X-factor we now no longer have to fear so many out of key songs - God bless computer enhancements!