El Ultimo! El Finale!

Many people have dared to dream. Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream today” and of course Lionel Richie, in his 80s soul-sapping dirge Say You, Say Me , spoke of having “a dream, an awesome dream”. Of course dreams do vary in magnitude, King’s dream concerned freeing America from racial hatred, whereas Lionel’s was some bollocks about “people in the park, playing games in the dark”, which strikes me as something to do with dogging. This column had a dream some 12 weeks ago, simply that this show would capture our imagination. It is now at the end that we truly see our folly, as we tune in to this final with a mixture of habitual compulsion, resignation and hatred.

Kate has a fully spangletastic frock on for the Final, although she still seems to be getting her hair done in the Play-Doh barber's shop from the look of it. We are again reminded by her about how important it is that Simon retires with enough money to officially put him above the law, and thus we must vote and vote and vote.

It's FuckOffRay to kick us off, and there is VT of him returning to Liverpool and singing to people etc. Much to my surprise people actually seem to like him, and so the fact he is in the final cannot be some dark Satanic plot to force the population to bludgeon each other to death as I initially thought.

Anyway, he's singing "My Way" again, and to be truthful I think if you didn't have to look at him it would be OK, but unfortunately you do have to look at him and so the sound is superceded by his shit-eating grin, chucky-munster face and throroughly awful ham acting all the way through the song. And to make matters worse when he sings "..shy way" it sounds exactly like "she-wee".

Leona's VT shows her going back to her parents' house and crying as per. She says that "seeing mum and dad has made me realise why I am doing this", so I assume her dad is the editor of Heat and her mum is a human size pile of fifty pound notes.

She comes on to sing the over-wrought warble-fest "I Will Always Love You" dressed in what appears to be a pink S&M dress. I hate this song and it's made even worse by her constant vibrato and falsetto jumps. There is a point where we cut to Simon and he is gazing at her with what can only described as love in his peepers, well she is his type is she not? By the time she has finished the judges are all on the Jester's shoes. I was unmoved.

Next up is a super suprise, as they wheel out Sean from we hate Wigan (spit!) to sing that Richard Marx song that he cried to in the auditions etc and everyone loves him. Apart from me, as beneath all that sickly sweet blubbing and nervousness beats the cold, selfish heart of a Pie Eater - make no mistake about it.

FuckOffRay is back on, singing "That's Life". They seem to be laying on the "plucky underdog" thing pretty thick, with his first two songs both concerned with getting on with it and succeeding even though everyone hates you and your foul chucky-face. Then, halfway through, Westlife come on to sing with him and I muse about whether there has ever been a more despicable mix of acts on a stage at the same time since the days of the Christians and the lions.

Leona returns to sing "A Million Love Songs", and I wonder who may be coming on to sing with her? That's right, it's Take That! With Leona looking so pretty in her snow white dress the lads look like they are missing the other three dwarves. This may work for Leona as Take That are the act to be with at the moment, rather than that collection of cardboard cut-outs from Ireland. At the end Gary gives Simon a good telling about how it is "your responsibility to make this girl a superstar, as she is fifty times better than everyone else, ever, so get her a decent album!". Go angry Gary!

Back we go to FuckOffRay, this time to perform "Fly Me To the Moon". So it's swing all the way for FuckOffRay tonight, the only difference with this one is that it has added Carlton Fresh Prince dance-mincing. I am calming down a bit about him until he sings 'Fill my heart with song and let me SWING or ever more', at which point I log onto www.soyouwantsomeonedead.com

The serious section is finished off by Leona singing "All By Myself", so it's ballads all the way for her, as both acts stick to what they know - understandable really. It was an amazing performance of a dreadful song, and Simon loves her in a very real way.

The show winds up with The Final 12 singing the syrup-fest "That's What Friends Are For", it is pretty woeful and only memorable for Ben singing so loud that his microphone topped out and the shot of Dionne with a face like a malevolent thunderstorm as they didn't even give her a line to sing alone.

Kate winds things up and passes the voting to the coagulated abscess of ignorance, apathy and poor education that is the British public.

FINAL RESULTS SHOW!

So we're back, and apparently eight million people have voted, some of whom for FuckOffRay I assume. Take That come on and sing "Patience", which is an absolute belter of a pop song by the way.

The two finalists then takeit in turns to sing "A Moment Like This". Leona absolutely beasts it as FuckOffRay reveals his limitations by simply crying and nodding his head at the significance of it each time he sings 'some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this". There is then a spectacular amount of fluff as they try to fill an hour up and it proves that the show really didn't need to be this long.

Finally it's results time. And the winner is.......LEONA!!!! The nation cries salt tears of joy as we realise that FuckOffRay won't be number 1 for Christmas, and this ordeal of mediocre entertainment is finally over.

Leona is "speechless", and to be fair I am very happy for her, she is genuinely talented and a very nice girl, or I might simply be happy because she is not FuckOffRay.

Anyway, that is that. They are already advertising for next year, so see you again then, when hopefully they will manage to find more than one decent singer...

We've Got a Semi-On!!

There are many things in life that promise much and fail to deliver: losing your virginity, Razorlight gigs, David Tennant as Doctor Who and the England Cricket team (gutless!) to name but a few. So as we reach the penultimate show in this Parade of Pointlessness that is the X Factor Series 3, must this be added to the list. The final three are the most uninspiring bunch since the Pop Idol when the finalists were Michelle McFatness and Mark, who is so boring I cannot even recall his surname, or the last line-up of the Celebrity Jungle thing where I literally only knew four of them.

To business. There is no theme this week, other than "Songs that make me want to kill Ray", and they are each singing two songs. Kate opens things up by bringing on the acts with their judges, thus LouLou is sat on his own at the desk, Ha Ha! Once again we are reminded that these acts face the dreadful possibility of going home to their normal jobs if voted out, so it is up to us to prop up their ridiculous notion of having a proper career in the music industry by voting for them.

FuckOffRay kicks us off, singing "I've Got A Shit-Eating Smile", looking like a Rat Pack Chucky Doll. He once again looks and performs like the type of person whose mother would dress him up in Lederhosen to go to a birthday party. It is competent, but dreadful, and I fear I cannot write objectively about this person in any way anymore, so my apologies. As my mate pointed out, his performances are a white scouse version of Carlton from The fresh Prince of Bel Air (© Joel Sidney 2006).

Twirly-haired Leona is up next to sing another bloody 90s ballad, because obviously we haven't heard enough of these have we? She does it very well, again, but are we really learning anything about her here? We know she can do gymnastic vocal scanning and I for one doubt she will be building her career on this music, but Simon obviously thinks this is a vote winner, which is really what it is all about when you've got a semi-on.

Ben, unlike the other two, has spent the whole duration of this series getting worse and looking less arsed with every passing week, in between bouts of moaning like a whale with a harpoon through its kidney. Looking at his song selection this week it seems that both he and Sharon have had enough and both want to go home. He kicks off with the uber-dirge to end all dirges, Bryan Adams' soporific vomit-fest "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" and it sounds just like what it is , a high-end pub singer singing a low rent movie ballad which, relative to Leona's performance, sounds even worse than that.

End of Act I, most people are now surely watching the Dancing on the other channel.

Back to the beginning of the Loop of Inadequacy we go, with FuckOffRay coming on to give us the finale of the musical Carousel and Red Scouse Anthem "You'll Never Walk Alone". He spends practically the whole song singing through a stream of perfectly formed tears rolling down his sickly apple cheeks. But why was he crying?

(a) His mind was full of thoughts of the Carousel finale, with Julie singing the song following the tragic death of Billy Bigelow

(b) The sheer hysteria of the semi he has on got to him

(c) He has his hand in his pocket pinching his balls with sharp tweezers to cynically tap into the Hillsborough disaster emotions and the hearts and fingers of the voting public

Answers to nowplease@fuckoffray.com

On to Leona, who is having a go at "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", as made famous once more by staple Radio 2 fodder and dead person Eva Cassidy. It was again technically very good, but surely she must get some upbeat stuff to do in the final? Eh? Oh. She was crying as well.

No doubt Ben wants to cry as he has to follow all of this emotion by no doubt gruffly shouting a version of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", which he duly does. Why did they give him this song? If Sharon had given him "Angel Of Harlem" he would have rocked the joint with it, instead everyone was forced to listen to what sounded like rusty nails being shaken slowlyin a sieve whilst someone played 80s delay guitar in the background - the musical equivalent of Prince's Beef Paste on Mighty White bread.

That's it, Kate goes though the usual nonsense and then hands over to the giant embolism of fag smoke and vitriolic disdain that is the British Public to cast their votes.


RESULTS SHOW

Kate returns, and would you believe it - it is the closest and largest vote in the history of the civilised world! The morons at home have literally made their thumbs bleed on the repeat-dial button to offer an opinion on who they despise the least out of this shower. However as always there is more time for us to give money to Syco Productions vote, whilst we listen to the super-special guest!

Gloria Estefan, who I'm sure used to be able to sing, comes on and tunelessly quacks her way through a medley of her greatest and cheesiest hits. And then, to business...

In no particular order Leona is through, quite why they have to mention the order is a bit strange as there is a safe person, then a bottom two, is not adequately explained. This leaves a bottom two of FuckOffRay and Ben, once again Kate tells us that this is in no particular order, and I would guess she has no particular brain function if she thinks that makes sense. The final act through and thus in the Final is....FuckOffRay!! A great number of people are going to pay for this one day...

So Ben is off home to try and have a career for about 6 months before going back to his tent business. The final is between two of Simon's acts.

The nation is close to the end of this thoroughly dispiriting ordeal by television, plus I'll get my saturday nights back and will no longer get irate emails from people demanding to know where the update is! Sorry it was late by the way...

How Manilow Can You Go?

It's the Final Fantastic* Four (*Shite). This week we have the pleasure of the company of Barry Manilow, a man whose face appears to be that of a normal person's reflected in the back of a spoon and the acts will be doing a song of his plus a song that have picked all on their own selves.

Kate comes on looking like a bewigged aubergine with 2 eye-slits cut into it, and we are once again reminded that it is "our vote alone!" that can give this largely undeserving bunch of charmless people with questionable talent a recording deal.

We kick off with the MacDiablos, singing the execrable "Can't Smile Without You" which is possibly the most nauseatingly sickly of all of the Conk's songs, which when you consider the rest of his catalogue is sicklier than being force fed melted Fererro Rocher through a hosepipe. Anyway, it is as you expect, a competent performance that is about as interesting as Cliff Richards' views on royalties law. The Dark One will however ensure their passage obviously.

Next up is Ray, and there is much talk about how he showed he could sing last week, which is fair enough I suppose. Manilow tells him that to make "Mandy" live he must imagine that he is singing to Mandy only, whoever Ray's Mandy may be. I thought it was a weak performance and he struggled with knowing where to breathe. I assume it was weak as he is still inexperienced with the ladies so his Mandy was a wank-sock at home in his bedroom that probably still has Power Rangers wallpaper.

Ben is next, with his usual preamble where he moans and moans about how tough it is and how he wants this more than anything in the world etc etc etc. Shut your face you insufferable tosser! He then sings "I Made It Through the Rain" and it was totally unconvincing, sounding like Axl Rose attempting the love theme from some low-rent braoadway musical. Why everyone thinks this bloke is so good I have no idea.

Leona comes on looking very pretty in a cute outfit and she sings "Could It Be Magic". It is vocally outstanding (again), she moves like a Thunderbird puppet being operated by Stephen Hawking (again), and the judges adore her (again). Quite right too, she is the only real talent in this show.

End of Act 1. Barry makes some obsequeous noises about everyone being aces and we move into Act II - In which they have picked their own songs.

The MacDiablos enter again, this time doing "Shang a Lang", complete with Tartan ties, tartan lighting and tartan scarves in the crowd. It is truly, excruciatingly awful, but also good fun and I fear they may stay in after this, they will then get a recording contract and the Necromanser will send his message throughout the world via bland cover versions. Take Heed!!

Ray decides to sing "My Way" (oh I wonder why). This is not a song for a 19 year old to be singing at all, least of all a nineteen year old whose "Way" has involved being stroked with sickly affection and indulgence by his cloying parents and 'professional scouse' family only to then be foistered upon us every week as a miniature Satan every saturday. If anyone thinks I'm being harsh about his parents, you should know that in an interview it turns out that the reason Ray auditioned is because on asking his parents what they wanted for their wedding anniversary they said "Go for the X Factor la', to get you talent truly seen la". I rest my case.

Ben has taken the calculated and cynical brave decision to sing a capella, however there are levels of a capella and this one involves a 75 strong gospel choir as backing, mmm. His version of "Somebody To Love" is alright, certainly better than his first effort anyway. Everyone says how brave he is at the end. NEXT!

Leona finishes us off with "Without You", and it sounded like every other ballad that she has done and showed us nothing we didn't know.

Kate hands over to the congealed pustule of barely hidden xenophobia that is the British Public to make their decision....


RESULTS SHOW

It's once again the biggest vote ever in the world, zzzzzzzz.

Manilow comes on singing some song that was so dull I can't remember it and he appears to dance exactly like Kermit the Frog.

At last the results arrive. In no particular order Ray goes through first - will someone please think of the children I am likely to kill if this continues! Leona goes through next, thank the Lord, leaving a Bottom Two of the MacDiablos and Ben. There is no judge selection nonsense this week so we go straight to those with the lowest votes and it's the MacDiablos!! So it would seem that He Who Walks Backwards will not corrupt the world via these lads and he'll have to have another go with Journey South. LouLou is now actless, so perhaps he will spare us his "my dad is harder than your dad" style arguing with Simon.

So the Semi-Final next week. I haven't had such low expectations since I bought the new Who album...