Remember when the Christmas number one used to be sacred? So do we.

It’s not any more, obviously – until Facebook waded in to fix things, 2009 looked set to go down as the year that an annoying boy with too many teeth got the Christmas number one with a piss-weak Miley Cyrus cover version. He didn’t manage it, but it sure was close.

Now that Rage Against The Machine have secured the Christmas number one spot, we should probably take a look back at years when we didn’t have it so good.

Oh, and we know that we only did a thing about the greatest Christmas number ones last week, but this is hecklerspray, damnit. Being nice about things confuses us.

10 – Leon Jackson, When You Believe (2007)

Rather than just list each festive Cowell atrocity one by one, we’ve decided to lump them all in together under 2007’s effort. An awful by-the-numbers aspirational ballad performed by a sobbing Scottish boy with about 14 different simultaneous haircuts. Worse still, unless he goes barmy and unloads a machine gun into a shopping centre, this is the only thing that Leon Jackson will ever be remembered for.

9 – Winifred Atwell, Let’s Have Another Party (1954)

There’s lots to like about Let’s Have Another Party. It’s upbeat. It has a title that suggests Winifred Atwell was a hollowed-out, exhausted-looking raver in her time. It isn’t by Cliff Richard. But is it the sort of thing you want to hear while you sit down to tuck into a nice Christmas dinner? No. If you’re playing a game of high-speed snooker or running away from the bobbies? Yes. But nothing Christmassy.

8 – Band Aid 20, Do They Know It’s Christmas? (2004)

Now, look. We know it was for a good cause and everything. We know that, alright? But, Jesus. Turning Do They Know It’s Christmas into a piano ballad? With Travis in it? With Dido in it? With Bono croaking out his line like he’s pooing and ejaculating at the same time? There’s a Dizzee Rascal rap in the middle, for crying out. We’re all up for eradicating poverty just so these chumps will be out of a job.

7 – Dickie Valentine, Christmas Alphabet (1955)

Right, number one – you’re not spelling out the alphabet, Dickie Valentine, you turd. You’re only spelling out the word ‘Christmas’. You should call it Christmas Mnemonic or Christmas Bloody Acronym or something. Number two, you don’t need to spell it out more than once. You really don’t. Jesus. Some people, eh?

6 – Renee & Renato, Save Your Love (1982)

An obvious choice, maybe, but if we wanted to hear an obese man with suspect facial hair shouting at a woman with zero fashion sense, we’d go and move back in with our old university landlord. Really, there’s no call for that.

5 – Cliff Richard, Mistletoe & Wine (1988)

Possibly everyone’s first choice of terrible Christmas number one, but let’s cut Cliff some slack. In a week and a half he won’t have had a number one record in every decade since the 1950s, something that he’ll probably sob about in his giant tropical bloody mansion. Still, swaying like a wanker? Peering into that kid’s window like some kind of terrible pervert? That hair? The weird emphasis on the word ‘fingers’? This isn’t just awful, this is textbook awful. We get 77 seconds in before we start wanting to hurt people. You?

4 – The Flying Pickets, Only You (1983)

Oi, Flying Pickets. You’re Christmas number, for God’s sake. Put a bit of effort into it. Don’t film the video in the back of some clapped out boozer. And don’t wear a leopardskin collar on your jacket. And tell your mate to stop dressing up as Sylvester McCoy in Doctor Who. And stop obviously influencing the Flight Of The Conchords song Friends. Honestly, you make us sick.

3 – Mr Blobby, Mr Blobby (1993)

What? The TV character who was deliberately invented to be annoying turned out to be quite annoying? You don’t say. Still, though – this is exceptionally annoying. The only way that it could be more annoying is if was being sung directly to you by Noel Edmonds himself, from a throne made out of old Daily Mails, nude, and determined to softly stroke your cheek with the back of his hand. And Jeremy Clarkson’s in it. That’s never a good sign.

2 – Little Jimmy Osmond, Long Haired Lover From Liverpool (1972)

We have a recurring dream, you know. A dream that we’re walking through the city and we pass Little Jimmy Osmond in his horrible stripy jumper, waggling his head from side to side like some awful demonic little monster. “Be my friend, mister!” he says. We ignore him and walk on. But then he follows us. “Mister,” he says. “Mister, mister mister mister, hey mister!” he says as he tugs on our sleeve in an attempt to get us to look him in his incessantly cheery eyes. Long story short, we push him under a tram. He had it coming.

1 – Wings, Mull Of Kintyre (1977)

Why did this become Christmas number one? God knows. Maybe everyone was really miserable in 1977. The first half’s bad enough – if you wanted to recreate carbon monoxide suffocation with music, this is probably as close as you’re likely to get – but the bagpipes. Oh, the poxy bagpipes. And the fact that it NEVER ENDS. Screw you Paul McCartney. Screw you and your ratty mullet.

Oh, and merry Christmas and that, yeah?

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Leon Jackson, we all know him as the crying little Scottish boy who appeared on X Factor in 2007.

When it got down to the grand final between himself and freaky silver-haired Rhydian Roberts it was genuinely assumed that Rhydian would win. Probably because he was a better singer and didn’t weep as much.

Somehow, Leon clinched victory and won a lucrative record contract. Rhydian lost, but still managed to get an album deal. Now it appears that Rhydian Roberts has had the last laugh as his rival has been dropped by Sony. We’re trying not to cry either.

If you’ve ever been bored then you’ll know there are conspiracy theories flying around about the 2007 X Factor final. People claimed they couldn’t vote on the night for their preferred choice of Rhydian with the phones being constantly jammed. On the other hand, it was easy to waste your money when ringing up to vote for Leon Jackson.

Think about it like this everyone. Rhydian mostly sung in a classical style, and no-one under the age of 60 likes classical music. Evil lord of music Simon Cowell knows this and needed to appeal to a younger crowd. Leon Jackson was perfect – teenage girls liked him and so did their mothers who came to his rescue when he cried about stubbing his toe on a door, or not being able to break a Kit-Kat in half correctly.

Of course, his debut karaoke single went straight in at number one following his success. He literally sold a gazillion copies of When You Believe which has already been sung by ropey American divas Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. After the initial success, Leon trotted off to a secret musical bunker somewhere underneath the earth to work on his debut album.

Released nearly a full year later Right Now crash landed at number four in the UK. Most bands who aren’t the product of reality TV shows would have been proud with this result. But it seems that the powers that control Leon have decided this is a piss poor thing to have achieved. Especially when the runner up does better than you. Now Magazine reports:

“The LP only notched up sales of 130,000 while runner-up Rhydian Robert’s self-titled first album sold 500,000 copies”.

So how did our former champion take the news? Quite likely, he flooded the room with salty tears and nearly drowned everyone. Amongst weeping he did manage to say:

“I had a great year and learned so much recording and releasing my album. Every artist knows these things can go either way. I’m really looking forward to my tour and doing more writing.”

This basically means he’s really fucked off about being dropped and is determined to write 5000 songs so he can choose the best for his new album and prove everyone wrong. He can do so if he wishes, but we know it’ll be shit regardless.

So far, Leona Lewis is riding high with high profile sales across the entire world. Now, hopes are pinned on her clone and 2008 X Factor winner Alexandra Burke to achieve the same results as Leona when her album is unleashed on the public.

If she does make a right arse of it, we’re sure that she’ll be joining Leon in the dole queue or on TV shows where the only contestants they can get are failed reality TV stars from the past.

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Along with the giving and receiving of official Cliff Richard calenders and morbid gluttony, Christmas is all about Simon Cowell getting personality-free dullards to number one with awful pretend-aspirational songs.

And that's no different this year. Leon Jackson, winner of X Factor and a young man so crushingly inarticulate that his primary method of communication is weeping, has been all but guaranteed this year's Christmas number one with his song I Believe or Believe In Me or When You Believe or I Preconceive That My Sleeve Believes Its Weave's Called Steve. Not only that, but When You Believe by Leon Jackson looks set to become the fastest-selling single of the year, selling 300,000 copies in less than a week. That's not the only record When You Believe's broken, either – it's also the only Christmas number one with a tune that nobody can remember even when they've just finished listening to it.

Winning X Factor can change your life completely. Look at Leona Lewis. 14 months ago she was just another Simon Cowell talent show pleb going "woooahaoaha" all over Whitney Houston records on TV, but now she's a multimillion-selling artiste who gets to go "woooahaoaha" over songs written especially for her that only sound like Whitney Houston records. The difference is staggering.

And that's the future that X Factor winner Leon Jackson has to look forward to, if record sales of his first single When You Believe are anything to go by. By all estimations, When You Believe by Leon Jackson is going to be this year's Christmas number one even though a) it's awful, b) it means that Simon Cowell has stretched his run of talent show Christmas number ones to three painful years, c) it's not as good as that song about everyone dying alone and d) it's awful.

According to HMV, When You Believe by Leon Jackson is shaping up to be the fastest-selling single of the year as well as Christmas number one, selling 300,000 this week alone. HMV bigwig Gennaro Castaldo says:

"Even at this early stage it looks like being Leon all the way."

But that's inevitable, isn't it? The winner of X Factor always gets Christmas number one. Even if the show was won by a goose choking on a half-swallowed string of spaghetti – or worse, Chico – it'd still get Christmas number one. So we shouldn't judge Leon Jackson yet. No, we must wait until his first album of red-eyed lazily-slurred awkward cruise-ship swing covers farts into the shops next year. Then we can judge him. 

But, hey, if When You Believe by Leon Jackson is going to be the Christmas number one, who are the also-rans? Well, currently in second place is that Katie Melua cover version of What A Wonderful World that appears to have only been recorded to soundtrack bitterly ironic suicides, followed by Leona Lewis and then Fairytale Of New York by Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl, which got a boost this week because of Radio 1 wanking about with the bleeper button. 

So congratulations to Leon Jackson, who'll go down in history as a Christmas number one even though his song's rubbish. We don't know how Leon plans to celebrate his Christmas number one yet, but we have a feeling it'll involve crying his whole body into dust. 

Still, could've been worse. Same Difference could've won.

Read more:

"X Factor" winner tipped for top spot – Reuters 

Leon Jackson – the red-eyed Scottish boy who only managed to stop crying for about three seconds in the entire second half of 2007 – has won X Factor.

It was a surprise result for sure, since operatic weirdo Rhydian Roberts had been tipped to become the X Factor winner right from day one, but Leon Jackson proved that he had the winning mix of weird-haired good looks, strong regional support and the ability to burst into tears every time he said a word that even sounded like 'mum'. And now, thanks to his X Factor win, Leon Jackson has been almost guaranteed to get the Christmas number one with his single When You Believe – a song that was instantly available to download for anyone who wasn't completely sick of the twatting thing after it was played about 19,000 times in a row during the last 20 minutes of the X Factor final.

X Factor winners never enjoy guaranteed success. Although last year's X Factor winner Leona Lewis is doing OK at the moment, there's every chance that the 2004 X Factor winner Steve Brookstein is that man you've seen sleeping in a puddle of his own sick in the doorway of Primark lately. The future that awaits Leon Jackson, who won this year's X Factor last night, is unknown. All we know is that the X Factor final itself went on for so long that church groups plan to show it to non-believing schoolchildren to try and explain what purgatory is like.

Even though his first X Factor performance was a terrified, badly-screeched skronk-jazz version of Can't Buy Me Love by The Beatles that was so terrible that it barely even classified as music, Leon Jackson somehow rose and rose throughout the ranks to upset the bookies and score a surprise X Factor victory yesterday. How did Leon manage this? We think we've got a few ideas…

1 - X Factor is a show geared towards teenage girls with such laser-precision that it may as well be called OMG He Iz So Gawjus LOL!!!1! and that's why young boys always do so well at it. Given that the only boys in the 14-24 category were Andy Williams (a good-looking chap with all the intellect, charisma and singing ability of your nan's pubes) and Rhydian Roberts (an undoubtedly decent singer, but one who happens to look like a Norwegian sex offender), Leon Jackson got through by falling somewhere between the two.

2 - The X Factor final was set up as a Battle Of The Nations, with Rhydian representing Wales, Leon Jackson representing Scotland and Same Difference representing England. Assuming that 90% of the English vote, mortified that they've had both Scooch and Same Difference acting as their national ambassadors within the space of a year, committed suicide at 7:15 last night, that left Scotland and Wales duking it out. And Scotland is bigger.

3 - The X Factor final was Rhydian's to win and he threw it away. His granny-pleasing opera shtick is dull enough on its own, but the X Factor guest star performance reinforced that immeasurably. While Leon Jackson sang Better The Devil You Know with either Kylie Minogue wrapped in a net curtain or Barbara Windsor doing an impersonation of Kylie Minogue wrapped in a net curtain, Rhydian was lumbered with Katherine Jenkins – a woman who was supposed to perform a duet of You Raise Me Up but just ended up shrieking like an over-amplified dolphin trying to wail the theme-tune to Star Trek while getting stabbed. Plus Rhydian looked as if someone had shaped his eyebrows, the big git.

4 - Leon Jackson cries at everything all the time, and X Factor viewers love it when people cry. And although he's cried out of nerves and a love for his mother in the past, on yesterday's X Factor Leon Jackson went the whole hog and actually cried at a homemade pamphlet about Hinduism. Leon Jackson cried about Hinduism. A man with that amount of tears deserves to win everything, right?

Whatever the reason, though, Leon Jackson was crowned winner of X Factor last night. Usually the result section of the X Factor final is marked by the host crowing about how many millions of people have voted, but this time there was none of that. So we can assume that either the crackdown on television voting prevented this from happening, or only a couple of people could be bothered to vote. And those people should look at themselves very hard each time that When You Believe by Leon Jackson is played on the radio.

Because, let's not beat around the bush, When You Believe is awful. It's like Simon Cowell owns a computer that can churn out faux-aspirational power-ballads at the drop of a hat. Nevertheless, When You Believe will sell a bundle and get to Christmas number one, and only after that can we judge Leon Jackson properly. Simon Cowell has learnt his lesson and has promised that he'll take his time with Leon's album, you see, just like he did with Leona Lewis. After all, it takes time to craft a decent album of bad Radio 2-friendly cruise-liner jazzpop, and Cowell ruddy knows it.

But now isn't the time to be cynical, because Leon Jackson has won X Factor and this is his moment of glory. All hail the new David Sneddon!

Google it. You'll understand.

Read more:

Leon Jackson: The Winner Speaks – X Factor 

How wrong were we? Niki Evans – the singer who we were convinced would come second in this year’s X Factor – actually ended up coming fourth in this year’s X Factor; the same as The MacDonald Brothers did last year, the lucky cow.

In hindsight, though, it was no surprise that Niki Evans got voted off X Factor so early. No matter how proficient they are, older ladies never make it to the X Factor final – especially ones like Niki, who think that they can get away with opening shows by murmuring out dreary Eva Cassidy covers and then get all indignant because nobody seems to like it much. Still, at least now that Niki Evans has been eliminated from X Factor the show’s prop department can put away those horrible black candlesticks that appear to have been stolen from the set of a 1970s low-budget European movie about sexy vampires.

But without Niki Evans in it, who’ll win the X Factor final on Saturday? Here’s part one of this week’s X Factor betting odds – for Same Difference and Leon Jackson – with help from Paddy Power…

Same Difference – For Same Difference to be in the X Factor final means that people actually like them enough to spend money voting for them, and that’s just about the most terrifying thought we’ve ever had. Especially after watching Same Difference’s first X Factor performance on Saturday – a gimmick-stuffed rendition of Chain Reaction than binned all notion of ‘singing’ in favour of poncing around with a gang of enough beefed-up circus performers that it could legitimately qualify as a piece of propaganda created to try and turn toddlers gay.

However, as bad as their first X Factor performance was, Same Difference’s second song was at least proof that they know how to emotionally manipulate idiots properly. After crying unstoppably during her pre-song VT because she used to get bullied – and then bursting into tears immediately after she finished singing Never Had A Dream Come True – the Same Difference girl ensured that they’d get a bucketload of votes even if they’d sung Fuckin’ An Animal by Gwar. Also, have you noticed how stuff always falls from the ceiling when Same Difference do an X Factor performance? Here’s praying that this trend continues on Saturday’s X Factor final, only with anvils and bits of broken glass this time. Current X Factor betting odds – 7/1

Leon Jackson – Well now here’s a coincidence; Leon Jackson managed to scrape through the X Factor semi-finals on Saturday even though the celebrity mentor was Michael Buble, a man who Leon Jackson wants to be so badly it verges on creepy stalkerish obsession. Funny that. Or maybe Leon Jackson got through to the X Factor final because of his performance of The Very Thought Of You – where, dressed in an outfit that made his neck completely disappear, Leon plodded about awkwardly holding the hand of a random girl from the audience and singing in the sort of way that we’d imagine would convince crumpled alcoholics to commit suicide. Yeah, that was probably it.

Because it definitely didn’t have anything to do with Leon’s second X Factor performance – a leather-trousered rendition of How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You that was so uncomfortably skronky that not even Leon’s biggest fan could think it was anything other than utterly dreadful. But maybe Leon Jackson does deserve to win X Factor, you know – it’s been a while since we’ve had a Christmas number one performed by a massively inarticulate Scottish boy, after all. Current X Factor betting odds – 7/2

Tomorrow – X Factor betting odds for Rhydian Roberts. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power X Factor betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

Now that only four X Factor contestants remain, the show’s production team knows it has to raise the bar again and again to make sure that each episode reaches even headier heights than the last.

And that’s got a lot to do with what X Factor themes are chosen. For example, Saturday’s X Factor was all about the Best Of British, which allowed the remaining X Factor contestants to sing about a million Queen songs – technically making the Best Of British Night a Best Of British (And A Bit Zanzibarian) Night – and an American version of a Sting song. And this week, we have a feeling that the X Factor theme is ‘songs’. We’re especially looking forward to that one.

But who’s going to win X Factor? Here are the X Factor betting odds for Leon Jackson and Rhydian Roberts, with help from Paddy Power…

Leon Jackson – There’s now a gut-wrenching chance that Leon Jackson could win X Factor, although we’d like to point out that if this happens, it’ll be by default and not because of how talented Leon Jackson may be. That’s because, now Hope are out of the running, Leon Jackson’s competition now consists of two cartoon gonks, a smug cruiseship entertainer and Aled Pissing Jones. Leon Jackson tragically now counts as X Factor‘s most normal singer – and since he’s a weeping rat-haired fool, that really isn’t saying much.

And it’s not even as if Leon Jackson is particularly brilliant, either. His first performance – of Crazy Little Thing Called Love – was slurred out in one long nondescript word like a twelfth-rate Sinatra impersonator, and his second – The Long And Winding Road – was only memorable because Simon Cowell called the song choice “ridiculous,” clearly forgetting that he made Will Young and Gareth Gates do a duet of it together not so long ago. And that was crap as well. Current X Factor betting odds – 4/1

Rhydian Roberts – It’s almost inevitable that Rhydian Roberts will win X Factor now, but that really isn’t a good thing at all. X Factor is all about the teenage girls, and the winners who do best are either young women who teenage girls want to befriend or young men who teenage girls want to snog. Rhydian Roberts, on the other hand, looks like the sort of person who teenage girls see on ‘Don’t Talk To Strangers’ posters at school.

Rhydian’s problem is this – he looks like he’d far more comfortable performing on a Sunday teatime BBC1 show about cardigans and antiques than a spunky young pop show like X Factor, as proved by his performances on Saturday. By far his most convincing effort was World In Union, a song commissioned by some rugby players based on a 90-year-old piece of classical music. Call us old-fashioned, but that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that’ll get the 14-year-old girls queueing up outside HMV. And Rhydian’s other song – Somebody To Love – was just a mess. And Rhydian sang them both in completely different voices. He’s going to win X Factor, isn’t he? Bugger. Current X Factor betting odds – 1/3

Tomorrow – Strictly Come Dancing betting odds. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power X Factor betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

Beverley Trottman – the schoolteacher with the voice loud enough to knock the moon out of orbit – has become the latest victim of the X Factor axe, and for once it wasn’t the X Factor judges who binned her; it was the whole wide world.

Because of a judging deadlock, the X Factor elimination went to the public vote, and it turns out that hardly anyone voted for Beverley Trottman. Perhaps it’s for the best – Beverley never stood a fart’s chance of winning X Factor at the best of times, and her performance on Saturday did nothing to prove otherwise. Claiming that she was singing it for all the kids at her school, Beverley performed a new version of divorcee classic Without You that included up to 18 different key changes, the last four of which were only audible to bats and dolphins. Anyway it’s just as well that Beverley Trottman can’t live if living is without her pupils, because she’ll be back in the classroom any day now, surely.

So now that Beverley Trottman is out of X Factor, who’ll win? Here are the X Factor betting odds for Hope, Same Difference and Leon Jackson, with help from Paddy Power…

Hope – Hope were supposed to win X Factor from the start, but now it seems as if the only way they could be any less popular with the public is if they dressed as up Steve McClaren and sang the Croatian national anthem. Coming off the back of last week’s near-elimination from X Factor, Hope went for a completely different change of tactic on Saturday – they dressed in black and got all miserable to a Christina Aguilera song. Well, we say ‘they’ but actually it was all Phoebe again, leaving the rest of Hope to look bored and occasionally make intermittent vowel sounds. And yet Hope almost got voted off X Factor again. So what can Hope do to win the public over again? They can let other members sing, for a start, and go back to only wearing their bras and knickers again. Honestly, the bra and knicker aspect of Hope’s X Factor comeback campaign can’t be overestimated. Current X Factor betting odds – 33/1

Same Difference – Since Saturday’s X Factor was Love Song Night, Same Difference had to be a bit careful; after all, there’s nothing like implied incest to win a crowd over, is there? Eventually, Same Difference plumped for Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now – not so much a love song as a mutual declaration of overbearing ambition. But, hey, by singing it Same Difference got to drop the majorette dancers and giant teddy bears and attempt to show the world that they were capable of maturity. Which they obviously aren’t, by the way – during the song you could see the pair of them straining to hold back their wacky children’s entertainer facial expressions, causing them to involuntarily look as if they were either deeply constipated or mocking the disabled. And yet Same Difference still got through to the final five X Factor acts. It’s starting to look like a poisoned water supply might be the only way to get rid of them. Current X Factor betting odds – 8/1

Leon Jackson – Instead of actually rehearsing for their songs last week, the X Factor contestants all got to go home, which meant that Leon Jackson a) went to his old clothes shop and cried and b) went to see his Mum and cried. But crying all the time seems to be doing the trick, because despite being transparently awful, Leon Jackson still hasn’t been voted out of X Factor. And God knows he deserves to be after Saturday’s performance of You Don’t Know Me; a swingy piece of cruise-ship fluff performed in the style of a sozzled nightclub entertainer at 3am on a rainy Tuesday night. However, since his X Factor song was quite slow, Leon Jackson didn’t get the opportunity to show off any more of his violent electrocution house dance moves, a small mercy that we’ll be forever indebted to him for. But, as the X Factor judges are constantly shoving down our throats, Leon keeps improving. That means now he’s just normally dreadful instead of suicide-inducingly dreadful, in case you needed the explanation. Current X Factor betting odds – 8/1

Tomorrow – X Factor betting odds for Niki Evans and Rhydian Roberts. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power X Factor betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

There are a few rules that one should adhere to when reaching the X Factor live finals – one is to invent as many sob stories about yourself as possible, and the other is to avoid rollerskates, as Alisha Bennett found out on Saturday.

Although Alisha Bennett’s befuddling stage routine to her X Factor rendition of Young Hearts Run Free – plus her wonky vocals – contributed to her downfall, she still has plenty to be proud about. For starters, Alisha Bennett will go down in history as the only X Factor contestant who made Sharon Osbourne launch into a weird tear-flecked defence of people who have to rollerskate to make a living – and if that’s not enough, Alisha Bennett has never to our knowledge thrown a schoolgirl against a brick wall by her hair, which at least sets her apart from 50% of Sharon Osbourne’s other X Factor flock. We’ll miss Alisha Bennett, that’s for sure, or at least – ooh – a day or so.

It’d be longer but we’re still trying to work out who’ll win X Factor this year. So here are today’s X Factor betting odds for Hope, Same Difference and Leon Jackson, with help from Paddy Power…

Hope – Well, ain’t this quite the turnaround – Hope, the girlgroup lauded to win X Factor at the start of the competition, are now rank outsiders. But why? Perhaps it’s because Hope aren’t actually a girlgroup – anyone watching Hope’s performance of Gimme Gimme Gimme on Saturday will have noticed that only one of them is allowed to sing, only one of them is allowed to talk and all the others may as well be kebab-meat kestrel sculptures for all the good they actually sodding do. As it happens, Hope’s X Factor routine wasn’t especially awful – there was a clever little Madonna mash-up bit plus the whole thing doubled up as a fun ‘count the cameltoes’ side-game – but with two X Factor sing-offs under their belt, Hope are going to need to change strategy sharpish. This either means they all share the vocals more equally in the future or they start writhing about like jelly-spined prostitutes high on catnip again. We know which one we’d prefer. Current X Factor betting odds – 12/1

Same Difference – Saturday was the X Factor Disco Night, but if you didn’t know that and only saw Same Difference’s performance of Blame It On The Boogie you may have thought that you were watching the X Factor 1983 Lithuanian Eurovision Song Contest Qualifying Round Night. Pretty much everything about it was awful, from the golden tracksuits to the horrifying attempts at raunch to the alarming realisation that Same Difference are somehow even more creepy when they’re singing to people they’re not directly related to. It says a lot about Same Difference’s X Factor performance that it was easily their most mature song to date, and it was written by perennial eerie boychild Michael Jackson when he was 20. Since logic dictates that Same Difference narrowly avoided the sing-off on Saturday, we’d imagine that they’ll be back doing what they do best next week – churning out the theme-tune to Dora The Explorer dressed up as bumblebees. Current X Factor betting odds – 10/1

Leon Jackson - You may know Leon Jackson as X Factor‘s resident red-eyed wuss, but a quiet transformation has been taking place over the weeks. You see, despite being very obviously terrible, Leon Jackson has gone seven weeks without facing X Factor elimination, which has built his confidence up somewhat – and now traces of Leon’s real personality are coming out. It’s just a shame that Leon’s real personality seems to be fairly bastard-heavy. Even though all he did on Saturday’s X Factor was sing Relight My Fire with his knees constantly bent like he’d just shat himself while wearing a sparkly Scottish flag on his T-shirt – in itself an act of regional desperation so nauseating that it literally made us chew our own ankles off – Leon started hoofing about in front of the X Factor judges like some sort of obnoxious Little Lord Fauntleroy who’d just won the pools. In truth, though, we didn’t hate Leon’s routine – we just can’t bring ourselves to forge an opinion about it. Current X Factor betting odds – 10/1

Tomorrow – X Factor betting odds for Beverley Trottman, Niki Evans and Rhydian Roberts. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power X Factor betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

Now that Brian Friedman seems contractually obliged to appear in every single X Factor contestant training VT package, it looks like there’s no room for the X Factor celebrity mentoring we enjoyed so much last year.

But that’s OK, because in its place we get to see a string of massively generic X Factor theme nights like Love Song Night or Songs From The Movies Night, or Saturday’s 21st Century Night. Now, it might be a sign of our own age, but when we heard that X Factor was doing a 21st Century Night we envisioned silver tinfoil dresses, robot dog backing singers and cutting-edge, fiercely futuristic music. Is that what X Factor gave us? No. X Factor gave us James Blunt covers. Oh, the humanity.

Who’s going to win X Factor this year? Here are the X Factor betting odds for Same Difference, Leon Jackson and Hope. Betting odds, as ever, come from Paddy Power…

Same Difference – On Saturday’s X Factor the parts of Same Difference were played by H From Steps and the Reese Witherspoon character from Election. In a toyshop. In hell. Our jaw dropped so much when we saw Same Difference’s performance of I Don’t Feel Like Dancing that it actually dislocated, so ill-judged were all the trikes and trampolines and conga-dancing and dancers dressed as wooden soldiers and fairies that went into their routine. We haven’t even got round to questioning how Same Difference managed to get through to next week’s X Factor yet because we’re still trying to work out why everyone watching X Factor didn’t kick their TVs to splinters at the mere sight of the Same Difference boy’s “Hey, look at me, I’m so kerrr-azy!” face. Can someone please, please lace Same Difference’s drinking water with Ritalin before Saturday before it’s too late? Current X Factor betting odds – 14/1

Leon Jackson - Leon didn’t get to wheel out his “Ah’m jist a wee working class lad fra Scotland” shtick on Saturday’s X Factor because he had a sore throat, which apparently meant that singing made him feel like he was “being stabbed in the throat.” Substitute ‘throat’ for ‘eyes and ears’ and that’s a pretty good description of how Leon’s singing makes us feel too. But, anyway, on Saturday’s X Factor Leon Jackson got to sing Dancing In The Moonlight – a tough choice not only because of his ailment but also because it was almost impossible for him to do a worse job on the song than Toploader did. But, love him, Leon managed it by peppering the performance with intermittent high-pitched whoops that made him sound as if he was being goosed by a mischievous ghost throughout the song. But Leon still sailed through the voting, which will help to further boost his confidence. And you know what that means – more useless dancing next week. Current X Factor betting odds – 14/1

Hope – We’re developing an unnatural thing for Raquelle from Hope, and it’s unnatural because she’s clearly an idiot. Case in point – before Hope’s performance of Back To Black by Amy Winehouse, Raquelle took the lion’s share of the pre-song X Factor VT to say how her parent’s divorce affected her as a child and how she was going to sing ‘from the depths of her soul’ during the group’s song. Turns out that her soul only consists of vowels, because all Raquelle did during the song was go “Ooooh” and “Aaaah” while one of the other girls sang all of the actual words by herself. Anyway, Hope’s X Factor song was a clear turnaround from last week’s show when they faced elimination, because this time they tried a normal song sung normally with no slutting around. But what’s Hope without songs about bras and shagging? Vapour, by the looks of it. Current X Factor betting odds – 6/1

Tomorrow – X Factor betting odds for Niki Evans and Rhydian Roberts. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power X Factor betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

Perhaps this says more about our state of mind than the show itself, but we’re only three weeks in and this season of X Factor is starting to seem like the most controversial one yet.

We’ve seen Sharon Osbourne get her knickers in a twist and leave X Factor only to squirm back again the following week, we’ve seen Emily Nakanda hurl a schoolgirl against a brick wall by her hair and get kicked off X Factor – the big question is what happens next. Will Louis Walsh be asked to leave X Factor for stabbing Simon Cowell in the neck with a biro while shouting “Don’t tell me what to do!”? Will Same Difference be removed from X Factor for having it off with each other? Will Rhydian stare directly into the camera and impart an ancient curse that will turn X Factor‘s audience into zombie soldiers who follow his every word? Probably the last one, we’d imagine.

But who’ll win X Factor? Here are the X Factor betting odds for Beverley Trottman, Leon Jackson and Hope, with betting odds from Paddy Power…

Beverley Trottman – Each year on X Factor there’s an older female contestant who regularly sings the competition into dust but clearly doesn’t stand a hope of winning the show, and that’s the case with Beverley Trottman, whose X Factor version of Feeling Good was confident, strong and electrifying, yet completely forgettable the instant it was over. Don’t ask us why, it’s utterly unexplainable. Still, as everyone is so keen on pointing out, X Factor is important to Beverley Trottman because at the moment she’s ‘just’ a primary school teacher, but X Factor is allowing her to be the woman she’s always dreamt of being – a peripheral singer on a teatime ITV talent show for eight weeks before she’s inevitably voted off and goes back to being a primary school teacher, albeit a slightly more embittered one. Current X Factor betting odds – 10/1

Leon Jackson – You know what we’re getting sick of? Listening to Leon Jackson do his “I’m just an ordinary wee lad from Scotland” shtick on his X Factor VT package week after week after week. Because, you know, we thought X Factor was all about finding a star, not a terrified-looking ordinary wee lad from Scotland who cries a lot. Anyway, Leon’s X Factor performance of Fly Me To The Moon on Saturday was uniformly called his best yet by the X Factor judges, possibly because he wasn’t pulling a face that suggested he could see a gang of masked men beat his mother to death while he was singing it. Even though it was more suited to a SAGA cruise ship cabaret night than a prime-time TV show, and featured a dance that looked like he was being attacked by a swarm of invisible bees, in truth it was Leon’s best routine. Which means that on next week’s X Factor we can be treated to Leon Jackson the obnoxious egomaniac. Yay. Current X Factor betting odds – 7/1

Hope – Although they’re clearly being pushed by Simon Cowell as potential X Factor winners, on Saturday Hope found themselves in the bottom two sing-off. But why? Here’s what we’ve got so far - 1) Hope’s X Factor song was Hanky Panky, possibly one of Madonna‘s least-liked singles. 2) Due to what we assume was a sound-mixing cock-up, Hope were completely swamped by the big band during their X Factor performance. 3) Instead of writhing about in their knickers like in previous shows, this time Hope were all dressed as single mother Chatham schoolgirls. 4) Hope ran over and kissed Simon Cowell in the middle of their song, an act so stomach-turning they may as well performed vivisection on Socks the Blue Peter cat instead. To stay a part of X Factor, Hope need to remember what they’re good at – performing nearly-nude versions of the audio track to Butt Sluts 5. Current X Factor betting odds – 5/1

Tomorrow: X Factor betting odds for Niki Evans and Rhydian Roberts. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power X Factor betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

One of the main reasons we’re so happy that X Factor is back is because the hokey unconvincing X Factor theme nights are back, which meant that on Saturday everyone had to sing a song from the movies.

This is because Celine Dion was the special X Factor guest on Saturday and, since she sang the song from Titanic, Songs From The Movies was probably a slightly politer X Factor theme than Really Crap Songs That Only Wankers Like Which Are Sung By People Who Deserve To Be Drowned, the only other theme that Celine Dion fits into. Not that it matters, though – with a couple of exceptions, the X Factor contestants’ songs only managed to be Song From The Movies so long as you can count ‘second song played in the end credits after everyone has gone home’ as a song from the movie. OK, we’ll admit that we’re just bitter because Rhydian didn’t sing the overdose theme from Requiem For A Dream.

Who’ll win X Factor? Here are the X Factor betting odds for Beverley Trottman, Andy Williams, Leon Jackson and Futureproof, with betting odds from Paddy Power…

Beverley Trottman – Now that ITV seems to have decided that each episode of X Factor should be a million hours long, it’s inevitable that some singers won’t stick in the memory as well as others, and that’s the case with Beverley Trottman. Memorable last week for the silly wig she wore during I Will Survive, this week saw Beverley ditch the wig and continue her quest to perform all the divorcee karaoke classics in the world with a rendition of I Have Nothing that was too boring to even mention here. Beverley, remember, is a teacher by vocation, and we’re not surprised she’s so desperate to leave the profession if her children’s ‘I Love U Mummy’ T-shirts are anything to go by. How could she possibly be a decent teacher if she can’t teach her own bloody children to spell the word ‘you’? Current X Factor betting odds – 14/1

Andy Williams – Andy Williams has that rare mix of character traits that makes him vastly smug and impossibly anonymous at the same time. And this manifested itself on Saturday’s X Factor in his performance of Stayin’ Alive. Andy – a man who looks like he’d need a six-week training course to teach him what cutlery is for – for some reason decided to not just try singing the most iconic song from a 15-times platinum album, but to sing it in a series of mid-level mumbles and listless grunts. A few self-conscious dance moves aside, Andy’s Stayin’ Alive was so personality-free that it may as well have been sung by a photograph of some grey wallpaper and we’re genuinely surprised that Andy wasn’t shortlisted for X Factor elimination. Current X Factor betting odds – 12/1

Leon Jackson – Leon’s first X Factor performance was so mind-bogglingly awful that we’re not even sure it was music – so, in grand X Factor tradition, Saturday’s show saw Leon ‘stripping it back’ for his performance of Home. No gimmicks, no lurching time signatures, no skronk – just Leon Jackson meekly stumbling around a stage singing a dreary ballad like he’d just wet himself. To be fair, though, Leon’s X Factor performance this week was better than last week, but that’s partly because he’d set the bar so low that a three-minute atonal shriek would have probably been better. Worrying, though, X Factor viewers seem to be warming to Leon’s brand of irritating vulnerability already, which means that we could be in for a few months of this awfulness. Current X Factor betting odds – 10/1

Futureproof – Futureproof’s X Factor debut was a passable attempt at She’s The One that got praise from the judges and pushed them up to second-favourites to win as far as these X Factor betting odds go. But that wasn’t enough for Simon Cowell, who wanted to reboot Futureproof and work them hard and make them better than ever. In short, he wanted to turn Futureproof into Robson And Jerome. And, if that was his mission, he succeeded. After wafting out out a leaden version of If You Don’t Know Me By Now, Futureproof are now fourth-favourites to win X Factor and damn near almost put us into a coma. Nice work Mr Cowell. Current X Factor betting odds – 4/1

Tomorrow – X Factor betting odds for Hope, Rhydian Roberts and Niki Evans. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power X Factor betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.