Watch with Rant: X Factor

Watch with Rant - This is the first of what I hope will be a regular item on this blog, where I will detail the successes, and more importantly, the short-comings on the bright thing in the corner of your living rooms.

Where better to start than a show that divides the nation, the X Factor.

Some see it as the return of family entertainment/variety to prime time TV, harmless fun and a way of discovering the next star. 

Others, myself included, believe it to be the worst sort of entertainment. The X Factor is a cheap, vulgar, and uninspired way of filling close to 4 hours of airtime across the ITV network as well as being a huge cash-cow for a desperate channel looking to sell some prime time advertising slots in the run up to Christmas.

My main gripe with the show is its blatant exploitation of the deluded. For the first 6 weeks of the show we go through the open auditions, which at times remind me of a Victorian tour of Bedlam, with only the very best, and more importantly, the very worst being put up for judgment in front of the four cunts of the a-pop-ocalypse. (you like what I done there?)

Wading through the shit of auditions which including a couple of out of tune bovines who ended their duet with a punch (then an topless appearance in the Daily Sport) and after overly dramatic and drawn out decision process the fine 14 contestants were selected. 

So with a mixture of boredom and indifference (due to the girlfriend having firm control of the remote) I faced the curtain raiser to the series.

Here's my comments about the contestants I made out loud during the show.

Enjoy.

Rebecca 

• a dull voice, wonky eyes, a dodgy outfit and can't walk & sing at the same time. Apart from that a faultless performance

Storm

• WHAT THE  FUCK  IT  THAT? someone give him a mirror. 
• Right, those chaps ARE wearing condoms over their heads right?
• Lets not beat about the bush on this one - storm lee is looking like a proper cunt

Belle Amie

• Belle Amie's father is actually David, the famous nature loving, bearded presenter
• Hey Belle Amie, Holland called, it wants it's flatness back

Cher

• A mix of elizabeth taylor and a crack whore
• Oh fuck she's "freestyling"
• Cher looks how Cheryl would of looked like if they hadn't caught the malaria in time (and had been living with full-blown AIDS for a year) 

Diva Fever

• Glad they're not over camping it up too much
• perhaps the only thing more gay would be, oooo, i don't know.... rimming?

Paije

• Shit, that bloke from Bloc Party has let himself go a bit!

 

Katie

• wow-look at Katie, she's like a futuristic knight! No... go'on fuck off, back to reception and get me a coffee while you're at it
• yeah, you remind me of Cyndi Lauper, no hold on, I meant Cindy: the Leper

Mary 

• clear up on studio 3..... 
• you know they say that black is slimming, well THEY are fucking liars, you can't slim down a whale 
• wow, those earrings really take the focus of her massive bulbus head

Nicolo

• Has someone removed Nicolo roof of his mouth? he can't pronounce any of the words? it's like lester piggott doing karaoke 

One Direction

• One Direction? which direction do you reckon? yes, thats right, Louis ' dressing room.
• One Direction: bad singing, horrible horrible acting and fucking awful lip syncing
• One Direction give Louis wand erection

Wagner 

• Wagner From Sao Paulo to Dudley, wearing crushed velvet smoking jacket and being every married mums fantasy, Yes Wagner, I love you 

Aiden

• oh look at Aiden, look how awkward he is, so uncomfortable he is, if he get any more "different" he'll be presenting T4 tomorrow.. 
• but fuck me, he's actually not that bad at all
• although he may knife on someone

Treyc

• Treyc I hate already, just purely on the way she spell her name, fucking illiterate parents          

If you haven't watched the show yet, I won't spoil it for you but Nicolo and FYD (an act I didn't mention in this post because they were actually quite good) were booted off the show.

Norman Wisdom: not big, clever or funny

So Norman Wisdom has kicked the bucket, and judging by his previous performances, was probably carrying a ginormous cake, which would surely land on top of, the butt of the majority of his "high" jinx, the poor Mr Grimsdale, as a final act of disrespect on his way to join the great cabaret in the sky. 

Now I have nothing against the old boy of British comedy, apart from him being possibly the most un-funniest man to ever grace film, TV, the stage, fuck it - the earth. But as the news broke rent-a-quote talking heads were falling over themselves to praise him, claiming him to be the second-coming. He wasn't the second coming, he was a very unfunny man whose one joke was that he fell down... a lot. 

We've got to remember that these were hard times for the British nation. Rationing was still in place following World War II, and an average family of four had to survive on as little as 7 jokes or 20 puns at week. This is the same quoter that Wisdom had to use in his films.

Perhaps its down to the fact that I never saw him in the prime. All I really knew of Norman Wisdom was him making an unfunny twat of himself on Pebble Mill or Aspel - looking confused and falling down a lot, which wasn't actually an act at all - that's what happens when old age sets in. So to judge him on the previous work I checked youtube and yep, he's not funny on there either.   

It's true that comedy doesn't always stand the test of time. Steptoe and Son for instance, was a show my Dad loved and one that I was forced to watch growing up. Despite it not tickling my funny bone, I could still see the quality of the performances, the stoylines and, every now and again, the odd joke or two, but Dad even admitted it hadn't aged well.

A comedian who aged like a fine wine and not like an opened bottle of coke is the fanastic Phil Silvers AKA Sgt. Bilko. This guy wrote the book and laid the foundations of character-led sitcoms for years to come. He's like the Shakespeare and Sgt Bilko was his Hamlet. This is who I judge comedians of that era against and Wisdom isn't fit to suck the shit from the tread of Silvers' shoes. 

Wisdom isn't a man to be lorded over as a comedic genius, not even as a jobbing comedian.

He was a man lucky to be born when he was. If he was making his way in the industry today, he wouldn't even get on the panel of Argumental. 

Oh, he was also a tax-dodger of the highest standard.