Well last night was the second week of live shows of the X Factor after four acts were sent home last week. Now, I am usually a huge fan of X Factor. I always have a favourite, last year was Matt Cardle, the year before Joe McElderry (I also have a knack for picking the winners!), and this year is Sami Brookes. So when Louis Walsh had a completely senile moment and sent home the best acts, keeping some of the worst, I lost all faith in the programme.
Thankfully someone in the viewing figures department picked up the general vibe that the audience were not happy with his choosing Goldie Cheung over Sami, forced Goldie to quit (family issues my a**e) and invited Sami back. And in one swift move I genuinely believe Louis had put himself back in the running.
And then the live shows began and as expected, Louis was the laughing stock of the show. Or rather, his acts were. Kitty is a self-obsessed, over-bearing, chubby-looking Gaga-wannabe, Johnny is camper than a pink row of tents queueing for Elton John tickets and Jonjo was painfully aware that he'd taken the place of a far superior vocalist in the form of Terry. Louis' only hope is Sami.
But once again he is stealing attention from his fabulous acts with his joke acts and his own appalling attitude. This year his sparring partner is Gary Barlow who is doing a very good impression of Simon Cowell at his meanest. Now as you may or may not know from my blog, I am a huge Thatter. That is to say I flipping LOVE Take That! So I would defend Gary Barlow to the hilt and never hear a bad word about my boys kindly. So when Louis starts making boy band digs by saying "ALL of you can sing" then pointedly looking at Gary I get riled. If it continues I'm going to feel compelled to go down to London, search Louis out and teach him a thing or two about great boy bands.
His whole purpose as judge on X Factor is to prove to himself that he still knows a thing or two about music. Now he's got competition in the form of someone who has been in a boy band, won an Ivor Novello award for songwriting, reformed now the best man band ever to have graced Britain and looked sexy doing it, Louis is showing his true catty colours. And it's getting tiresome.
Because of their petty squabbles alone, this year, for the first time, I find myself preferring Strictly Come Dancing. A lot of this is due to the fact that I know almost all of the celebrity dancers for once, some of it is due to the fact that Harry Judd, the drummer from McFly, looks very handsome in a penguin suit and none of it is due to Brucie's "jokes". The judges have a deserved respect between each other, Bruno makes it comical, Alesha makes it real because she really has been in their shoes and Len brings a bit of decorum to the whole affair. X Factor bosses should take a leaf out of their book next year and get judges who care about finding a star rather than proving their own skills. Then the show might not get so slated for being generic and predictable.
Now as promised, I also want to talk about the Rugby World Cup. I've always watched rugby but never as intently as this before. I think the change came at the beginning of August when I saw a game in real life. I was lucky enough to go and see a World Cup warm-up between the England first team against the Welsh "second" team at Twickenham. Before this experience I had never fully appreciated the beauty of the game. On television it's difficult to see the lines and the way they move together, it's like a well choreographed ballet and it was magical to witness. So since then I have sacrificed sleep, lie-ins and holiday lazy days in order to witness some of the best rugby I've ever seen, and some of the worst.
Worst has got to be the Quarter final between England and France. It's very easy to admit that England did not deserve the win. Messy lines, terrible hands and no atmosphere meant that even if France had brought their poor form of late, I still don't believe we could have won it.
And best has got to the Wales vs Ireland Quarter final. The skill of both teams had me completely gripped despite the 6am start. It was very tough to call almost all of the match but Wales just kept up the pressure and eventually the Irish started to crack.
Which leads us to this weekend and the semi-finals. Sadly work yesterday morning prevented me from watching any of the France vs Wales match but I am aware it was a very close match and many are of the opinion the result was decided very early on when the Welsh captain Sam Warburton was sent off for a dangerous tackle. Having read many opinions on the matter and listened to many more, I decided to watch it for myself and make my own decision.
And I must admit, I fully support the referees decision to award an instant red card. Now I won't claim to understand every rule in this beautiful game, their offside rule still alludes me (and before you think it, no, I do not have the same problem in football) and many penalties I just accept that the ref is probably right. But even I could tell that the tackle was extremely dangerous. To lift a guy off the floor and then drop him could have caused an extremely serious injury. As Captain of the Welsh team one would expect Warburton to know the rules.
He did have a press conference where he stated it was not malicious but the three week ban, which means the captain will miss the third place play off match, is not being contested by Wales which answers all the critics of the decision. They clearly accept that the tackle was dangerous and deserved a straight red.
As for the final, I am writing this as Australia play hosts and neighbours New Zealand and I for one hope that the All Blacks are successful. The reason behind my aspirations? I want to see that Haka again!
For now that is all the opinion I have. Enjoy the rest of X Factor, Strictly and the World Cup and I'll write again in the week!
