So much for a Boyzone reunion folks.

Stephen Gately is busy working his boyish charms on St Peter while the rest of us bicker over puke, speculative evidence and an oddly-placed Bulgarian.

The Majorca Press recently felt the need to suggest that Steve was smoking ‘cannabis’ the night before he died and ‘knew that was not the cause of his death’. Now there’s a strange breed of paparazzo: ‘I know amigos, let’s take the bastard out of the death-crouch and crucify him, never mind relevance! Por Favor! We’re the Spanish Inquisition, and by the way, we’re trained doctors too.’

Smoking ‘cannabis’ in your own home isn’t illegal in Spain and probably isn’t newsworthy, but as you can see – some people will do anything for a scoop. An autopsy revealed that Gately choked on his own vomit and tissue samples were sent to a Barcelona lab for further tests.

“The autopsy revealed Stephen had taken cannabis, and his husband and another man present on the night he died have confirmed this in interviews,” said reporters to The Sun. “They have said Stephen did not take any other drugs, but the toxicology tests are being carried out to confirm this.”

Not a happy day for the Boyzone enthusiasts out there, especially as the boy-band were set for a comeback. Like em or not, there’s no denying that the babyfaced Irish foursome and their ‘nice-guy’ manager Louis Walsh had a massive impact on European pop and even paved the way for a handful of equally irritating clones.

Walsh and bandmates were said to be ’shocked’ and ‘devastated’ by the loss of their friend and a slew of celebrities including Brian McFadden, Stephen Fry and Emma Bunton mourned his loss via Twitter. 2009 looks like a morbid little year for packaged popstars – aren’t we lucky there’s a televised machine to replace our fallen heroes. Here’s to X Factor!

Simon Cowell paid tribute to the singer in front of X Factor finalists by saying Stephen’s death was ‘really, really tragic’ while fellow judge Dannii Minogue tweeted: ‘R.I.P. STEVEN GATELY’. Louis Walsh did not appear on the show and was clearly very upset.

Walsh was responsible for creating Boyzone in the 90s and managed them for seven years, achieving 16 top-three singles and six number ones. He recently told the Irish Times that he would have thought twice about auditioning Gately if he’d known he was gay.

“It wasn’t cool then to have a gay guy in the band,” he said. “I think people are racist and homophobic. They just pretend they’re not. It’s the way we’re brought up.”

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Good news – the X Factor live finals are back! Better news – Kandy Rain were kicked off. Jesus on a stick, they were crap.

But anyway, how did the X Factor contestants do? Let’s have a wonderful recap, shall we?

Rachel Adedeji - Rachel’s obviously a bright girl, because she left university to appear on X Factor. It’s a smart move because, while graduating from university is likely to increase your earning potential, most people who go on X Factor end up bitterly playing to tiny groups of disinterested pensioners in Welsh caravan parks for the rest of their miserable lives. Anyway, on Saturday’s X Factor, Rachel did a sort of muffled version of Let Me Entertain You accompanied by about 50 nightmarish mime artists who looked as if they’d like nothing better than to abduct your children and eat them. Horrible.

Kandy Rain – As well as being the first act out, Kandy Rain were the first act to kickstart a controversy on X Factor when, after their admittedly awful performance of Addicted To Love, Cheryl Cole essentially told them that they dressed like sluts. This caused Simon Cowell to remind Cheryl that she only got famous because she dressed like a slut too, which isn’t strictly true. In actual fact, Cheryl Cole got famous by dressing like a slut and by screeching violent racial epithets at nightclub toilet attendants. Get your facts straight, Simon. Yeesh.

Olly Murs – So Olly Murs desperately wants to be Robbie Williams, and Robbie Williams was the guest mentor on Saturday’s X Factor. So what did Olly sing? That’s right – a Robbie Williams song. In the style of Robbie Williams. On the plus side, Robbie Williams did say that he wanted to be friends with Olly, but that’s only because Olly is exactly like Robbie Williams and Robbie Williams looks like the sort of person who masturbates to pictures of himself. Fact.

Rikki Loney – On Saturday’s X Factor, Rikki performed Back To Black by Amy Winehouse and wasn’t particularly good. However, that’s not what we want to talk about. We want to talk about all of Rikki Loney’s poxy hats. We’re starting to believe that Rikki uses hats as a kind of personality substitute. And if that’s the case, it works. Because we do think that Rikki has a personality – it’s the personality of a dickhead who wears too many stupid hats.

Stacey Solomon – On Saturday’s X Factor, Stacey Solomon performed The Scientist by Coldplay, and was promptly complimented by all the judges for her brave choice of song. It just goes to show how dull X Factor is when a ballad by the world’s dreariest bunch of namby-pamby pissbags gets held up as a leftfield experimental voyage into the terrifying unknown. Maybe next week Stacey Solomon will sing a Keane song and Louis Walsh will have an aneurysm. Who knows?

Miss Frank - We’ve never really hidden our desire to see Miss Frank win X Factor. And we’re still standing by that following Saturday’s show – their rendition of Who’s Loving You was timeless and soulful and actually pretty amazing. We hesitate to call perfect, because the one in the middle didn’t arbitrarily break off and start rapping in a foreign language halfway through, but it was close enough for now.

Jamie Archer – Jamie Archer is a big-haired titsack who we dislike for any number of reasons, like the way that his version of Get It On was a pile of dreadful, overblown guff and the way that we can’t help feeling as if he’s probably Jamie Oliver’s favourite contestant. However, Jamie shouldn’t leave X Factor just yet, because he’s the star of our new favourite X Factor game – the How Many Times Will Jamie Archer Interrupt His Own Song To Bellow ‘Come On’ At The Studio Audience game. On Saturday’s X Factor it was twice. Can he beat this next week? We hope so. We believe in you, Jamie. WE BELIEVE IN YOU.

Lloyd Daniels – A theory: if hair straighteners were banned tomorrow, Lloyd would never stand a chance of winning X Factor. Because that’s all he is – a silly haircut plopped on top of the world’s dullest boy. On Saturday, his X Factor performance of Cry Me A River was lifeless and lacklustre and anaemic and only livened up by the mental dancer next to him who kept flinging herself around like she was on fire. The judges don’t like him. The musical directors don’t like him. Robbie Williams didn’t seem to like him. But despite all this we get the feeling that Lloyd’s going to go far. It’s a very silly haircut, after all.

Lucie Jones – Lucie is pretty, has a pretty voice and can sing ballads quite well. On Saturday’s X Factor pretty Lucie used her pretty voice to sing a ballad. We’re probably going be cutting and pasting that last sentence into every X Factor recap we write about Lucie from now on, because we get the feeling that she’ll be doing that a lot.

John & Edward - This year’s designated hate targets, John & Edward used Saturday’s X Factor to perform Rock DJ. And you know what? It wasn’t terrible. Now, was that because our expectations of them are so low that we’d be pleasantly surprised if they managed to go for two minutes without kicking a puppy in the ribcage or curling out a turd on the stage? Well, yes. Duh.

Joe McElderry – Joe McElderry is such a gaping charisma vacuum that he may as well not even exist. Case in point: on Saturday’s X Factor, Joe performed No Regrets as if he was auditioning for Robbie Williams: The Musical. It was dire, but on the plus side at least now we know what it’s like to see a desperately bitter song performed by a grinning toddler. So that’s something.

Danyl Johnson - Outed by Dannii Minogue following his performance of And I Am Telling You, to his obvious distress. It’s important to remember that Danyl is a teacher, and this sort of muck-spreading is bound to have a number of upsetting ramifications for him. Although, you know, if Danyl has got this far through his career in education without being the target of merciless bullying from his pupils, then his pupils obviously aren’t trying hard enough. Kids these days, eh? They don’t know they’re born.

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What’s that smell?

Could it be the subtle scent of talentless TV exploitation, the overwhelming fragrance of WAG or the clover-hinted odour of small-man’s syndrome? Freshen up like a pointless media middleman with four new fragrances from X Factor. You’re bound to get lucky if you smell like a TV talent show judge, and nothing says ‘I love you’ like rating your partner’s performance in the sack.

No, really, the X Factor judges are all getting their own perfumes. You’ll be able to buy them in time for Christmas and everything.

The personality cult has hit an all-time low. Forget about the talent, it’s all about the talent-show judge: Someone who can’t sing… but knows what good singing sounds like. “What about Cheryl Cole?” you ask. Yeah OK, she’s behind a desk and she’s not paid to think. She’s paid to endorse products, like Geordie handbags, crap shampoo or TV show perfumes. Cheryl and the other panel members each reportedly earnt £250,000 for selling their smells. We thought we’d give you an idea of what’s in store:

Eau de Simon Cowell: Crisp banknotes blended with petals of egomania and the backside of Sharon Osbourne, this fragrance suits a particularly useless breed of human being, but one with character. Loaded with special pheromones that attract gold-diggers and industry psychopaths.

Essence of Walsh: Irish bog-water and Kensington High Street combine for a special one-off whiff of Louis, designed for two-faced nice guy types who ‘just wanna help you out’. Wearing the Essence of Walsh will get you out of anything. Anything.

Cole 187: A lovely mix of Byker Grove, girl-band knickers and cyanide that changes your voice and somehow makes you less attractive, especially if you’re married. Want to put a stop to those pesky one-liners? Go for Cole 187, it’s absolutely lethal.

Dannii Miasma: Smell like your sister with this refreshing and flirty outback musk. Made from ethically sourced children and crocodile oil, Dannii Miasma can summon your siblings at will. Especially useful when you need a second opinion or some backup in a scrap.

After meeting with experts to discuss their odours this week, the four will release fragrances under the X Factor brand name in time for Christmas, parting thousands of idiots with their money. Simon Cowell is rumoured to be smug about his man-smell, as one source revealed:

“Simon says his will be the top-seller – he’s already winding the other three up.”

Jade Goody musicals, X Factor fragrances… What’s next? We think that saving money has never been more attractive.

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Yay! Big Brother’s finished! Yay! That means we can talk about X Factor now! Yay! Until Christmas! Yay! Or until we take our own lives! YAY!

Now, X Factor is still in that awful, unnecessarily long early audition part where people turn up, sing in a hilariously bad way and then go home to develop lifelong violent revenge fixations on Louis Walsh. These episodes barely warrant recaps, to be honest, but how else could we spend our time? Seeing friends? Going outside? Pah.

So here are the X Factor contestants from Saturday who caught our eye – Olly Murs, Demi Cullum and Carla Schettini…

THE ‘GOOD’: Olly Murs

Some things in life are legitimately worse than death. Torture, for example. Or having your face pushed into an obese man’s sweating armpit on the tube in the middle of August. Or – and this is easily the worst of the lot – being called ‘cool’ by Simon Cowell. Because Simon Cowell is the precise scientific opposite of cool. He signed Robson & Jerome. He’s got granny teeth. He nodded enthusiastically when he first heard an Il Divo record. We imagine that his nipples are three inches long. Simon Cowell couldn’t grasp the concept of cool if you spent a month bellowing it into his face through a megaphone positioned two millimetres away from his eyeballs.

And yet, on Saturday’s X Factor, Simon Cowell decided to call Oliver Murs ‘cool’. Olly Murs, for what it’s worth, is essentially what Jack Tweed would be like if he went through a Face/Off-style bodyswap experiment with Bradley from EastEnders. But what was it about Oliver Murs that made Simon Cowell decide that he was cool? He sang Superstition by Stevie Wonder quite well if a little cluelessly, danced like a robot and tried to act out every word of the song like the woman who does the sign language on the Sunday omnibus of Hollyoaks. All in all he was fairly decent. But Simon Cowell thinks that he’s cool so he may as well just hurl himself off a cliff while he still can.

THE BAD: Demi Cullum

We’re repeatedly being told that X Factor is a singing contest and not a personality contest. This is clearly the case, because if X Factor was a personality contest, then that would suggest that Leona Lewis was in possession of some form of personality, which fairly obviously couldn’t be any further from the truth.

However, the old ‘if this was a personality contest, you’d come first’ line was trotted out for Demi Cullem on Saturday’s X Factor. She’d been singing since she was a baby. Her family had all made banners. She’d decided to sing Saving All My Love For You. The problem was that she decided to sing it really loudly and slightly off-key, so it took a couple of lines to realise that she was actually pretty dreadful. We’re not sure what happened after that – we assume she was rejected – because that was the point that Cheryl Cole decided to do that awful self-conscious Mother Teresa thing of hers and give Demi a hug, so that’s when we had an anger stroke and vomited until we blacked out.

THE POINTLESS: Carla Schettini

Came on, gave Louis a tie, sang If You Don’t Know Me By Now by a band she appeared to call Simple Bread while channelling The Count from Sesame Street if he was being attacked by wasps, and then Simon Cowell gave her one of her trademark vicious tongue-lashings. Except he didn’t. He said it was nice to meet her and then gave her a big moony smile. Simon Cowell’s gone soft. This is the worst X Factor ever.

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However, there’s just one little thing that could derail the entire show, and that’s that the X Factor judges are being great big babies. According to reports, X Factor judges Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole are all fighting because some of them don’t want to sit next to other judges and one of them has a slightly bigger dressing room than the rest.

What’s more, Cheryl Cole doesn’t like Louis Walsh because he’s got BO, and Louis Walsh doesn’t like Dannii Minogue because she keeps her lunch inside an ice cream tub instead of a real lunchbox like he does, and Dannii Minogue heard Carly Robinson from 7F tell her best friend’s cousin that Cheryl Cole had nits and was a lesbian IDST.

We’ll admit that we haven’t really been paying attention to X Factor this year. That’s mainly because, whenever we’ve tried to watch it, someone has been crying. If the contestants aren’t crying because they’re happy or because they’re sad or because their dead rabbit’s last wish was for them to enter X Factor and it’ll never get to see them succeed, then Cheryl Cole’s crying because, like, getting paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to tell a bad singer that they’re bad at singing is the most difficult thing she’s ever had to do.

And if neither of those are happening, then chances are we’re crying because X Factor is shit and it makes us want to kill ourselves.

Tomorrow sees the start of the X Factor live finals – the culmination of months of hard work after which one lucky contender, if they believe in themselves and strive to be the best they can be, might wind up a tenth as famous as Chico.

However, it’s been reported that tensions between the X Factor judges might threaten to tear the entire show apart, and it’s all down to who sits next to who and who and who gets the biggest dressing room. Apparently, the biggest faultlines lay between the following:

Louis Walsh – An X Factor stalwart, Louis Walsh has been on the show since the beginning, apart from the time when he decided to spuriously resign for a week and the other time when Simon Cowell fired him for about 30 minutes. Louis Walsh doesn’t like fellow X Factor judge Dannii Minogue, because he’s loyal to previous X Factor judge Sharon Osbourne – who Dannii didn’t get on with – even though it was Sharon Osbourne who once threw a glass of water over Louis on a live TV show.

Dannii Minogue - Unfamous sister of Kylie Minogue, Dannii Minogue joined X Factor last year and didn’t get on with Sharon Osbourne because Sharon went on TV with clingfilm wrapped around her head and Dannii thought she was mocking her heavily botoxed face. After the rift caused Sharon to leave X Factor, Dannii Minogue decided she also didn’t like her replacement Cheryl Cole, because Cheryl Cole is young and pretty and sexy and Dannii Minogue was supposed to be the young, pretty sexy one on X Factor even though she’s almost 40 and has a face like a brass doorhandle. Dannii also doesn’t get on with Louis Walsh because, oh, who cares.

Cheryl Cole – Nobody likes Cheryl Cole because she cries all the bastard time.

Got all that? Good. Now here’s The Mirror to explain their new scrap:

Dannii Minogue insists she should sit apart from Louis Walsh – and the feeling is mutual. But all-powerful Simon, 49, likes to sit next to this year’s new girl Cheryl Cole, 25. A source explained: “Dannii is fuming she is placed next to Louis. The pair are well known for their disagreements and both are not keen on having to sit next to each until Christmas. Simon wants Cheryl beside him – but she wants to sit beside Louis!”

What’s more, there’s one dressing room in the X Factor studios that’s slightly bigger than the others, and Louis, Dannii and Cheryl all apparently want it. And we’re promised that these arguments are real, and really could put the future of X Factor in jeopardy. You know, just like how they’re real every year and aren’t just a way of getting people to stop watching Strictly Come Dancing.

Still, whatever stops people from remember they’re going to have to spend the next three months of their lives watching endless piss-weak Whitney Houston karaoke, eh?