X-Factor Surprise

Well, last night was the X-factor semi-final show - 4 acts had to be reduced to 3 in readiness for the [american mode on]season finale[/american mode off] next week end.

Each act performed 2 songs - Brenda did "Respect" and "Without You" and I thought that she was simply amazing. Shayne did a couple of ballads - one a non-descript Ronan Keating song that I can't even the remember the title of and "Unchained Melody" which the judges described as spine-chillingly good - goose bumps etc. Frankly, I don't like the song so it did little for me - although I can see Shayne is super talented. Journey South did Rod Stewart's "You're in my heart" and a very powerful version of "Let It Be" - neither song is a favourite of mine but I do like Journey South, a lot. Andy did a really weird arrangement of "Everything I do, I do it for you" including a huge bit of cheesiness where he sang the final lyrics to his kids ... awwwww (quick someone pass the sick bucket) and for his second song he did another one of his power ballad, super smooth numbers but the precise title escapes me.

The comments from the Judges were not too helpful because they were all generally praising the acts quite a lot - which to be fair to them is not too surprising at this stage of the competition. However, at the end of the show, those of us that watched it Chez Gled were agreed that this week it would be "Adios Andy". Not because he's bad at all - but the other 3 acts just seem to go from strength to strength each week.

Anyway, with an hour to wait until the results show, I watched the results of the record of the year - Westlife won, again - they've won a couple of times before I think.

Back to the X-factor. Kate Thornton announces who is through to next week's final ... "and the first act through is ...." ... [dramatic pause] ... "Andy!".

So much for that theory then. Shayne is announced as being through next. And after the longest dramatic pause ever "and the third and final act going through to next weeks final is ... Journey South".

So it is not "Adios Andy" at all, but "Bye bye Brenda". We here at Chez Gled were absolutely gob-smacked - which may be a colloquilism for speechless, but we're never quite that !!

I fail to understand how Brenda could possibly have polled the lowest number of votes - do male acts have an edge in these competitions? Or are the public voting for the judges to some extent - I am not suggesting that it represents the whole of the vote by any means. But let's suppose for a moment that even just 0.5 percent of the vote is influenced by which judge is representing which act and a million votes are cast - then that's 5000 votes to swing the result by - and if one judge has 2 acts that might get split. And Kate Thornton, that at one point the votes between the bottom 2 acts was as close as 24 - yes that's right TWENTY FOUR.

And we must remember that just because the producers told Kate to announce the results in the order Andy, Shayne, Journey South and Brenda - this does not mean that the 2 acts with the lowest number of votes were Journey South and Brenda.

Let's just suppose that the judge-factor is far greater and Sharon's vote was split between Andy and Brenda - then next week that might be enough for Andy to win the show. Heh, who knows.

Next week I expect the result to come out like this:

1) Shayne
2) Andy
3) Journey South

The only possible upset I foresee is Andy pipping Shayne due to Sharon's popularity. Of course, my heart wants my brain to be completely wrong and I want Carl and Andy, Journey South, to win.

Ciao Chico !!

At last common sense prevails and Chico gets the boot from the X-factor. I felt that this weeks show was a bit lack-lustre in many ways. At least we're at the stage where the person that goes is the one that gets the lowest number of votes. No more ego voting by the bloody judges.

So, I still like Journey South best - although this week both of their songs left me a bit cold. Brenda was outstanding and Shayne was pretty good too. Andy seems to be fading a little compared to Brenda. And Chico - well I don't hate him any more, he's a fun guy but someone had to go. And it would have been an absolute travesty had one of the remaining four gone instead of him.

So my prediction for the final four order is now:

Winner: Brenda
Second: Shayne
Third: Journey South
Fourth: Andy

I'd love to Journey South win it - but I don't see it happening.

X-factor - Cowell does the dirty on The Conways

So in a week where Louis Walsh quit the X-factor but then of course turned up for tonights show as usual it all got a bit tense tonight.

There are six acts left and they're all pretty good and they're all getting a bit frayed at the edges.

Tonight though it was simple for me. Shayne did an outstanding rendition of The Darkness "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" - rather like a few weeks back when he did the Daniel Bedingfield song, it showed how incredibly good his voice is. Journey South did U2's "I still haven't found what I am looking for" - they're my favourite, but that song isn't one my favourite songs - it felt a bit disjointed to me, but what the heck those two guys ooze talent. Brenda covered a Whitney song - bah, I can't even remember which one to be honest - but she was simply amazing. Andy had a nervous start to his performance and fought passionately to hold his song together - but again there is no doubt that his voice is remarkable.

Then there's Mr. Entertainment - Chico - did another fun performance of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and danced superbly. As a singer, he is not in the same league as Shayne, Andy, Brenda or the Journey South guys - but he's fun with a capital F.

And then, bless them, there's the Conway Sisters. Again they tried so, so hard with Starship's "We built this city" and you know what last year, they would have probably made the final. And they're a lot, lot better than many of the other "pop idol" products.

But in this company - it was entirely right that the bottom two tonight were Chico and the Conway Sisters.

And so it came down to the judges, Sharon of course, elected to keep Chico and said to the Conways "I'm sorry girls, but I think it is time for you to go home".

Now frankly - what I find remarkable is that during the show earlier Simon had said following Chico's performance that it was an awful, terrible Michael Jackson impersonation. And to the Conways he said "great song choice". So I was a little surprised that he elected to send his own act, The Conway Sisters home.

Seemed a bit inconsistent to me. But I don't disagree with his comment that "they're not going to win the competition with performances like that" but then in my view neither is Chico.

Was Simon trying to show that he is "big enough" to send home one of this own acts?

Once again despite all the furore in the press during the week with Louis "quitting" and the debates about this should be about the contestants and not about the judges - well here we are once again with a judge stealing the thunder.

Here's me wanting a black and white world again - but why can't they simply show the number of votes that the acts get each week and kick out the lowest one - instead of inflating the egos of these self-important judges a bit more?

Too busy to blog !!

The title of this entry is inspired by a comment once made to me by a very senior manager at a company that I used to work for. As he barged past me, at speed, into the Gents swinging the door almost into my face he apologised thus "Sorry Simon, didn't see you there but I am in hurry - too busy even to go for a p***". Well so far this week I know how he feels. I wanted to blog this about 36 hours ago, but better late then never .. maybe!

And yesterday as I was driving to Leeds, listening to the radio, a talk show - there were two subjects that came up which I felt quite strongly about. Murder and Rape. I wanted to stop the car and call in myself and express my views.

The debate around murder was a reaction to the murder of a policewoman last week as she attended a robbery in progress. It is generally accepted in most civilised societies that murder is unacceptable but whenever a UK police officer falls victim then the reaction seems all the stronger. There are calls for the return of capital punishment for killers of police officers and suggestions that it is high time we armed our police officers.

1) I don't think that a police officer being murdered should draw a potentially higher penalty than the murder of any other person. A life is a life, period.
2) Capital punishment in my view is barbaric and experience in the USA would suggest that it is not an effective deterrent. But my over-riding concern is - if you lock someone up for murder and then at a later date the verdict is found to be unsafe or just plain wrong then you can release the person - whereas once executed, well it is obvious.

So what should we do? Someone convicted of murder should be locked up for life and a life sentence should mean life, oh and the place that they are locked up in should not be a holiday camp.

The subject of rape was being discussed as some organisation had been doing some surveys resulting in statements like "33% of people surveyed said that they though that women who flirted and wore sexy, revealing clothes were partly to blame for being raped". Now this made my blood boil - I really don't see how any woman can be blamed for an act of violence being committed against her.

And then the debate started. And there were two ladies being moderated by the radio show presenter, but he was not doing very well. Lady number 1 was from a rape victim support group - and was at one end of the rape spectrum basing most of her arguments around women who were not only attacked sexually, but subjected to other forms of physical and mental abuse. She talked a lot about women being raped by husbands and partners etc. Lady number 2, sounded very posh and mentioned readers digest a lot and was mainly focussed on women who dress in "glorified underwear" and go out "topless" and should expect to get groped. Her other argument seemed to revolve around women who apparently consent to sex once at say 8pm and then cry rape following a second occurence at 10pm. These two women were so polarised in their views that it just turned into a slanging match. With posh lady telling victim support lady that "she just wants more victims". How f***ing stupid can you get.

These two women seemed more interested in scoring points off one another instead of making it clear that rape is wrong, end of story.

I realise that I am trying make a point about two very serious types of crime that probably have thousands of books and other documents written about them, by people much more qualified than I am.

What annoys me to the point of, well still wanting to blog this 36 hours later ... is that our society is so screwed up that the national radio broadcaster had to even ask such stupid f***ing questions?

Why can't it be simply the case that murder is wrong, rape is wrong? Why does one victim have to be more important than another? Why is even sensible to try and apportion the blame for crime onto the victim?

I wish I could say that writing this all down has enabled me to feel that spleen has been vented - but I still want to yell very loudly and punch something hard ... not a person of course, I am far to civilised for that !!

X-factor - Nicholas goes

I am feeling all self-righteous since I got the X-factor result right last night. My favourites Journey South are still in there and are without doubt the front runners as far as musicianship is concerned. Chico - well, I've gone from hating him to loving him and he'll probably win it at the moment.

But I have to say that I was pleased to see Nicholas go last night - I have never "got him" and it was the first time that so far this series that I thought that the judges got it right.

It's a mockery really - all three of them said before this series started that it was not about them, it was about the contestants. But frankly the in-fighting between them this year has been worse. And Louis Walsh in my view is a complete joke.

He is totally inconsistent and has nothing of value to say about any of his own acts. He introduces them every week with the same, tired, disinterested, uncaring, twee little catchphrase such as "He's a young guy, he's cool, he's Nicholas". There is no way that this guy should be allowed in front of a camera.

I have a lot more time for Sharon - although she's fallen into the banal reason trap at least once "I kept Chenai in because she is a woman". Well, duhhhhh !!

Simon's the only one that has any integrity in my view. He gives an honest appraisal of every performance every time as far as I can tell.

And you know what? I don't think that this is just my ranting - watch the contestants, they respect Simon's views. What they really care about is what Simon says about them.

They're not stupid - unlike Louis.

Lunchtime on Hump Day

It doesn't get much more middle of the week than noon on a Wednesday. Last weekend is now forgotten and the coming weekend seems a long way off.

I'm feeling at a bit of a low ebb which is not helping. I feel so isolated when I am in Leeds - during the day work takes care of me, but as nice as my little flat is ... it is not home. And I don't know why but speaking to the family on the phone is just anything like being there. A phone call is sub-optimal when what you really want is company. When you phone someone up they expect you to talk - this is perfectly understandable because the vast majority of phone calls are made to impart some information such as "I'll meet you in town at 8pm" or "I'll be home in about 2 hours" etc. I don't necessarily want to talk all the time, I want people around me but sitting on the phone with someone while, say, watching TV - as you might do if you were with them - would be a bit odd.

Ah well, there's no magic answer ... but hopefully it makes a bit more sense now !!

X-factor - Shock and Awe as Maria goes ..

As many people know I love TV shows like American Idol, Pop Idol and the X-factor.

This week the X-factor hotted up! Shayne did Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me A River" - a much more appropriate song for him 8/10. Maria did the Stones' "Brown Sugar" - she was out of her comfort zone and I didn't really like it 7/10. The Conway Sisters did Wilson Phillips' "Hold On", one of my favourite songs - and did a reasonable job of it 7/10. Andy then did the Boyz 2 Men "Make Love To You" and did a very credible performance of it - his voice is outstanding in my view 9/10. Journey South stretched themselves again with Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer" - I enjoyed it 8/10. Chico then completely murdered Enrique's "Hero" - 2/10 for stupidity! Nicholas then did R Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" - yawn - 6/10. Brenda closed the show with an excellent cover of Dionne Warwick's "Heartbreaker" 8/10.

I fully expected Chico and Nicholas to be the bottom 2. Was not entirely surprised to see however that it was the Conway Sisters in there - but very surprised to see Maria in there with them. However, having said that - given that they were there then I was not surprised to see Simon keep the Conways in (his act) and of course Sharon voted to keep Maria and Louis play the Irish card to keep the Conways in.

On the night - I certainly would not have voted for Maria over the Conways either though. But that aside - to lose Maria at this stage was a surprise and I guess is a reflection of the standard of the competition this year. They're all credible - except Chico (as a singer anyhow).

7 acts remain - my favourites are Andy, Brenda and Journey South. However, I reckon that Shayne is most likely to win - and it can't hurt his chances with Simon Cowell making comments like "you have the potential, within 2-3 years, to be the biggest selling male artist in the UK".

NTL suck

I have a cable TV service (I use the word loosely) from NTL. I pay an amount of money to be able to watch cable TV 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. However, it would appear that when this service goes wrong only provide support during office hours.

So, here I am on a Saturday afternoon with what seems to be a broken cable TV box and no prospect of even getting someone to start thinking about the problem until Monday morning at 9am.

It is no good - they have simply got to go !!

Dan Brown

So these days I read quite a bit more for pleasure than I used to do. But books have to grab my attention quickly - those that know me well will not be surprised by this. I am not patient, I like things to happen now and at some pace. So, if a book hasn't got my attention in the first chapter (or less) then it ain't gonna get it.

As a result, until quite recently I could number the books that I have really enjoyed reading as an adult on the fingers of one hand. And they would be Fatherland - Robert Harris, The Fourth Protocol - Fredrik Forsyth and I can't think of any more specific examples that don't have pictures in them! I've read quite a lot of factual stuff - reality tends to grab my attention more easily - example, I have read a number of books about Rush, and by Neil Peart, the drummer from Rush.

Don't recall exactly when but sometime in the last 2-3 years or so I got into the Harry Potter books and I found them tremendously engaging, easy to read and extremely enjoyable. The problem I had after reading them was finding something else that I enjoyed as much. But finally I did ...

Marie recommended that I read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I could not put it down - what an absolutely tremendous book. I then followed this with the Da Vinci Code which again I enjoyed - but not as much as the Angels and Demons. And I found the end of the Da Vinci Code rather weak compared to the end of Angels and Demons. Even so, I'm looking forward to the movie of the Da Vinci Code coming out next year.

Lately, I've been reading Brown's Deception Point - perhaps not quite as compelling a subject matter as Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code but still a really good read in my view and again I felt it was paced better than DVC and certainly the ending was better and the twist in the tail was more of a surprise.

So, yes I am enjoying reading Dan Brown's books but so far my rankings are (1) Angels and Demons (2) Deception Point and (4) The Da Vinci Code. I have his other book, The Digital Fortress, ready to start reading next - I wonder what it will be like?

So a couple of things about Blogs ...

... they can take away surprises. Example, yesterday evening I am all excited about having tickets for the Darkness concert in February. So I tell Dan about it and he seems pretty pleased that we're going. And later when Kim get's home I say "Hey Kim, guess where we're going on February 20th?" to which she calmly replies "To see The Darkness". Yeah, she's read the blog. Better watch what I say then eh?

... they're more fun when they're easy to use. I am notoriously bad at keeping Blogs going, but so far I am really liking Blogger!

TGIF ... sort of !!

Well, it's Friday which is good since "the weekend starts here" as they say. However, it is currently bad as I am still in Leeds with a prospect of a couple of hours on the road yet before the weekend really starts for ME !!

This week I have been on a training course, which is great, nice to meet new people, learn new stuff and so on. I got to stay in a nice place and a change of scenery is always nice - a change is as good as a rest and all that. However, what is less pleasant is the truncation of the working week into the two remaining days - which is partly why I am still here in Leeds at almost 5pm on a Friday.

For me, the distance between my place of work and my home is my biggest gripe about my job. Yes, of course, I have other gripes, but I think that they would diminish significantly if I was at home more.

But the bottom line is, there is no point me leaving here yet - because I'll just end up sitting on the motorway for 3-4 hours instead of 2 hours. But I really don't feel much inclined to do much more work today so instead I have decided to BLOG !!

So, on a more upbeat and fun note - I didn't quite remember at 9am this morning - but I just ordered tickets to and see "The Darkness" in Nottingham in February next year. I'm expecting a really fun night out and it just happens to be in the same week as the X-factor concert in Nottingham.

Perspective

So anyway, Dan's home. His perspective "What's the problem? I went out on Saturday and came home on Sunday." Now for a normal person this might mean going out at 8pm Saturday evening and coming home in the wee small hours of Sunday. Now what Dan actually did was go out at 6am on Saturday and come home after midnight on Sunday, i.e. technically Monday morning. He doesn't understand why I am concerned - but then I am the parent and he is not.

I am discussing this difference in perspective and Dan is in the kitchen talking to Kim and he's bemoaning the fact that while he has been gone we've had "good food". Remember, now that this is a 17 year old's definition of good food.

What has actually happened is that Marie has been laid up all weekend with a very, very painful back problem. And so I have been even lazier than usual and it has been take-away-a-rama - chinese, pizza and even McDonalds. Kim explained the reason for this to Dan and his comment on Marie's situation was "every cloud has a silver lining".

In my own defence, I did heat up some baked beans and toast some bread last night as we could not face another takeaway. As a secondary level of mitigation I feel that I should point out that we do eat out / take away a lot at weekends as a matter of course.

And finally, in other news, the NHS, gotta love it. Went to the doctor's again this morning - they took my blood pressure again, higher than last time, and gave me a flu jab. Have to have a bunch of blood tests done early next week and go back again in about 6 weeks time. Also, these headaches I have been getting almost constantly now for about 6 months ... well guess how long I have had my "new" spectacles, yes, about 6 months. So, I need to make an appointment to see the optician too.

Daniel - where are you?

I fully understand the desire of a 17 year old to be independent and to not be tied to the proverbial apron strings. However, when said 17 year old lives at home and goes out at 6am on Saturday morning and there is no further communication with home for over 36 hours, well, then frankly one wonders if said 17 year old is taking the piss. Alternatively, said 17 year old could be lying in a shallow grave somewhere. Let's hope he's taking the piss eh?

Hollie's Cute !!

Yeah, yeah I know, "tell us something we didn't know" ... but I just wanted to test the photo inclusion option on a posting. 'k?

Time for a change

The software that I have been using for InfoLoco for the past few years is great - but I keep having to bend it and twist it to do what I want to do. What I want to do is to be able to publish articles with photos whenever the fancy takes me. PHPwebthings - does news which lets me post text but not photos, does photos but not with much text, does articles which are hard to setup. Basically, it is a square peg for a round hole as far as I am concerned.

So, move over PHPwebthings and enter Blogger. Easy to set-up and easy to use. What remains to be seen is whether or not it makes my blogging habits any more regular or frequent.