time for the annual X factor.

Quite like Terry and Amelia from NUNTHORPE so far.

Even though it is not real music, Simon Cowell is the devil incarnate and they are all just pub singers.

Still some good voices in there.

An awful programme on so many levels and the sooner this trash is gone the better.

I like it. Quality trash tv. Beats watching Hollyoaks with the Mrs.

Just wish they would be more honest about their reasons for putting people through instead of hiding behind the frankly ridiculous pretence that it's a serious singing competition. When people are put through because they are absolutely useless but have interesting tv personnas they should just admit it.

X factor is like the Rugby Union World Cup.

Every rugby league fan rushes to say how crap it is.

But they all watch it.

Agreed.

Is it exploitation of the mentally challenged - possibly in the audition stages when it verges on a paying audience visiting an asylum for entertainment as they used to do in Victorian days.

Does it uncover serious singing talent - occasionally, and once again I wheel forth Will Young (not X Factor ???) and Leona Lewis, I can't think of any others though.

Does it provide acres and acres of press coverage and the sort of saturation of the "Womens Weekly Magazines" that a million pound advertising budget couldn't provide - absolutely.

Is it just a giant mincing machine of talent for Sony who need the constant flow of would be singers and more importantly the immediate market research of popularity that they just could not gather in any other way culminating in one huge money making opportunity in December every year - Yep.

Is it absolutely predictable, was anyone genuinely surprised last night when some of the failed auditionees were invited back to join forces to make "a band" (despite that being my least favourite word to describe a group of non instrument players), did anyone call their mother back from the kitchen after she thought it was all over, "Mother, come back quick, Louis' asking some of them to come back..."

Its all of the above, and yes, I still watch it every week.

Surely the whole point of X factor and the whole Simon Cowell thing is that you actually appreciate how good some of the real talent is out there such as Adele.

When someone like that comes along it puts the X factor genre firmly in its place.

You cannot have good music without being able to compare it to bad.

I agree that there is certainly an "X Factor Genre" based on a pool of not quite good enough talent, what I do find quite sad though is the sight of 18 year olds declaring that their life's ambitions are crushed beyond repair when they are rejected from one bad audition, I sort of get the idea that these are kids who have never had anyone say "no" to them in their life so far and if that really is the case then they have chosen the wrong career path - one that will be littered with rejection slips regardless of how good their talent is.

we have a winner here.
i can honestly say i have never and will never sit through a full programme of this. obviously i catch a glimpse and that is enough believe me.
also just when it finishes you forget that the missus is getting ready for a new series of britains got talentless garbage.
and so the cycle begins again .........................

To be honest though i think you are picking up on a symptom of modern society and parenting.

Teenagers and young adults who have had a lifetime of having what you want and being able to live off mum and dad ( and consequently just daydream about being a celebrity) are in for a very rude awakening.

The time for realism is coming and is going to be very hard for the current crop of kids.

I started watching episodes of the american X Factor recently. It is streets ahead of the british version in pretty much every area: the talent, the judges, the overall production.

They are still in the audition phases over there, but already there are a couple of singers that are miles better than any of the singers in our show. Take a look on a popular video site for Marcus Canty and Melanie Amaro. Some genuine talent, I think.

Oh, and LA Reid is awesome

Yep, the glimpses are quite sufficient!

Oh, the producers - sorry, I mean the judges - are putting some groups together. I never saw that coming.

The X Factor is a light entertainment show, it's not a talent show. In eight years the only act they've found who has gone on to international success is Leona Lewis.

Don't watch it but if anyone doubts the ability of the utterly talentless to be given a stage, they should've been sat in our flat last night. We have a pub whose beergarden adjoins one wall, a couple of times a year this pub puts on live "entertainment". This has previously consisted of a Blues Brothers Tribute Band (John Belushi would be spinning in his grave), a Jam Tribute, various heavy rock bands etc. Most of whom, although not providing earth-shattering entertainment, were bearable.

Last night's band kicked off at 8.00pm and finished their first set around 9.15. They'd played cometently and although there was no obvious musical genre, they did inlude some gems such as Fun Loving Criminals "Scooby Snacks". The play resumed at 9.45, only this time with an added twist, they were joined on stage by what appeared to be two, possibly three females, who then proceeded to "sing" for the rest of the evening. Their reportoire was pretty eclectic and included songs such as: Johnny Kid & The Pirates' "Shaking all Over", Rober Palmer's "Bad Case of Loving You", Stevie Wonder's "I was made to Love Her" and The Beatles' "Day Tripper".

Through what appeared to be a determined and deliberate combination of tone-deafness, an inability to find, let alone hold a note, complete lack of harmonies, poor timing and unlearned lyrics, they proceeded to mangle every, and I do meany EVERY song in ther set list. I finally reached breaking point at about 10.30 and after considering walking around the corner and having a word with the landlord, decided on a more subtle approach.

I remembered that I'd bought a battery-powered loudhailer at a car boot sale, so after digging it out, I went downstairs to the covered alley that separates the two properties. I climbed a stepladder and waited for a break between songs, then using the megaphone through the gaps in the corrugated roof, gave them my critique. After the first broadside, on of the girls said "I'm sorry for the interruption", to which I replied: "Don't apologise for me, you should be apologising to any lover of music, you have voices that only a mother could love". I continued by listing all of their perceived faults and suggested that they hired a practise studio, instead of rehearsing in public. I ended by recommending that they should seek other means of finding a living and suggested that they apply to the cheese factory on Monday morning.

The rest of the night continued in blissful silence.

A couple of points

Its a crying shame that the last twenty years has seen the demise of the Working Mens Clubs upon who's stages, upon tens of thousands of stages, every Saturday and Sunday night, the trio that you mention would have been able to establish pretty quickly that they either had no talent for singing (despite what their families had told them), or get their faults ironed out pretty quickly - indeed the way it used to work in Leeds they wouldn't have got past the agents auditions every Tuesday night in Jim Winsors Club until they were ready to go on the circuit.

I've recently spent two weeks in a small resort in Corfu where some pretty average "club turns" touted their talent nightly in a dozen or so bars - its been the "thing" in these resorts for several year now to do the "tribute" acts, more is the pity.

Nothing against "tribute" acts if they genuinely want to impersonate an established artist - my cousin runs an agency full of the fekkers - but when a bar sign a singer up for the season, give them some lodgings and feed them every night, and then give them a different wig and tell them that its Tuesday so they are Lady Ga-Ga or its Wednesday so here's a different wig and we'll draw some biro tatoos on your arms and you are instantly Amy Winehouse, then you know they are taking the p1ss.

By far the best bar in the whole resort was a small lock-up bar with a "Cheers" type square bar that you could sit at while a resident band of three guitarists played a whole range of rock without the aid of a backing tape (the devil incarnate, ruiner of musical talent), for three guitarists to hold your attention for a couple of hours without the aid of a drummer while they go through a repatoire of West Coast rock or anything that anyone shouted out for them to play, then you know they are good tradesmen.

I'd left the wife and the other four people in our party that night and got myself well p1ssed sat at the bar like Norm off "Cheers", the Greek barman kept bringing me bowls of free peanuts and heavily salted popcorn and every time he mixed a cocktail for someone he'd pour a snifter into a shot glass and get me to try it, he couldn't speak a word of English and I couldn't have heard him if he did but what a bloody good night that was - took the wife back in there a few nights later and she hated it - f'kin women eh ?

Oh I remember when my quest for fame and fortune was scuppered by an unprofessional camera woman who was laughing and shaking the camera in the process of filming my audition to be a fitness coach for the nation. I was the real star in that audition waiting room in Manchester all them years ago because the rest of the acts were cliché singers, opera dogs and twirlers.

It broke my heart when I didn’t get through to the judges stage.