Public sees past Ray of Shite

Never mind the X Factor, more importantly, will Leona have the X-Rated Factor needed to survive pop's maelstrom?

Though the X Factor result is now known – hey it was Leona everyone, hurrah! – some serious questions still lay unanswered.

One, why did Ray Quinn bother to turn up, when the result was so obviously a shoo in?

Because the sadistic little twat wanted us to suffer his sub Robbie Williams crooning (and self satisfied nodding) one last time? Because he had some David Koresh-style plot to make his grey haired cult of fans spontaneously top themselves? It surely couldn’t be because he thought his rendition of the now-sure-to-be-number-one-hit ‘A Moment Like This’ was better than Leona’s could it?

She hit the Mariah top notes and did the Whitney lip wobble and everything to give her credit. But the song’s about as memorable as Shayne Ward’s ‘That’s My Goal’ . Remember him? ‘Exactly’, (as one of Ray’s fellow countrymen said when asked who Accrington Stanley were in that famous milk advert). So has Leona having won the X Factor, really got the X Factor? There’s no doubting she can sing, though I resent the way she seems to have unwittingly convinced everyone that ‘Without You’ is a Mariah Carey song. Over here in pedants corner, can I just point out it is a Mariah Carey cover version of a rather splendid song made famous by Harry Nilsson and written by some old rockers who never made it. Her rendition of Chiquitita was blinding on Abba week and she was note perfect on I Will Always Love You (another cover version by the way, this time of a Dolly Parton song).

But, like Shayne before her, is she not just a bit, whisper it, boring? Not that I’d ever stick up for Chico, but he did have a certain lunatic appeal and creating one’s very own timezone is quite a feat. The Cheeky Girls were appealingly mental and they’ve done alright for themselves – well one of them has now toppled weathergirl Sian Lloyd as the eye candy of Lembit Opik. I was going to write ‘weird Liberal MP Lembit Opik’ but in a party consisting of coffin dodgers, alcoholics and chaps with a penchant for scat-munching rent boys, he doesn’t seem so strange after all. Anyway, you certainly wouldn’t catch Leona going out with him and in my tabloid addled book, that’s a shame.

I want more Cheryl Tweedy punching toilet attendants and Britney going knickerless and a bit less boring Jamelia in my pop stars. We’ll have to wait and see if Leona’s up to the job.

A couple more X Factor questions for you to conclude – is Simon Cowell’s head getting squarer and what is it with Kate Thornton’s nipple? [Actually there was nothing going on with the old hag’s décolletage this week, I just wanted to get the number of hits to the site up again].