No. No. No. No Nooooooooo.

No. I can't accept this, I have to have my ears removed for the duration of the rest of time, or at least until Christmas is over.

The X Factor finalists are to sing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which is the most beautiful song in the world and does not need 21st Centuryised by some everyone-else-soundalike. That is the biggest travesty I have ever heard of. And I haven't heard it yet, I pray for some miracle that I never do and continue to be able to listen to the best version untaintedly.

And that's another thing. The Jeff Buckley version is not the definitive version, it is not the best. John Cale's version is the best; he has a beautiful voice, he sings it to perfection. Jeff Buckley's version is very similar, just slower and not as well sung, not as poignant and just simply not as good. Just because John Cale wasn't one of the most beautiful people ever to have lived and didn't tragically drown at a very young age, doesn't mean that he didn't do the song infinitely better.

So no. I'm not happy with the choice for X Factor. I hate the existence of the X Factor, it's drivelly cruel TV that produces another drivelly singer or four that are exactly the same as everyone else in the dirgey charts and this is the final insult.

And I continue to be extremely unhappy that everyone mistakenly claims Jeff Buckley's version to be anything like as good as John Cale's, let alone better.

By the way, yes you have heard it, John Cale's version is the one in Shrek. It's also the second song here.

Saturday night

Tonight I was obliged to watch x factor as I had my 11 year old niece in. To date, I have watched precisely one episode of this and that was last year's final. This is by design, not by accidentally missing it.

Now, I'm not remotely averse to laughing at stupid people, but doing it in their face, for tv, seems a bit mean. Do the panel have to laugh openly while people are still singing? And why is Cheryl Cole on the panel? To look plastic? I do quite like Simon Cowell's dubious wit for about ten minutes, then he gets on my nerves. And Dermot? Dermot, Dermot, Dermot, what are you doing there?

In an attempt to heal my poor eyes, I went to watch Gangs of New York as I've never seen it. Ugh. Sprout is both unattractive and not very good at all at acting (which is why I've not seen it before) and every single scene was at least three times as long as it needed to be. The rest of the cast weren't exactly inspiring either, even those that are normally good.

This was the first of our planned Saturday takeaway, film and drink night. The drink was fruit infused Strongbow, which was rank. The takeaway was good, one out of three ain't... no, that's pretty bad actually.