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.

Bad news for fans of pretty girls wigging about in their pants – Hope are the latest act to be ejected from X Factor, something that means the only female eye candy left on X Factor comes in the form of a self-satisfied school dinnerlady.

That’s not to say that Hope didn’t deserve to be booted out of X Factor, though – they absolutely did, thanks to a lukewarm performance of 2 Become 1 and a version of We Will Rock You that served only as an excuse for each member of Hope to go “WooooahohhAHHHOOOOH!” in turn. But don’t worry, Hope fans – the group promises that it will absolutely stay together forever now, which will at least start a medium-sized bidding war between a handful of subscription-based soft-pornography digital TV channels if nothing else.

But now that Hope are out of X Factor, who’s going to win? Here are the X Factor betting odds – for Same Difference and Niki Evans – with help from Paddy Power…

Same Difference – Last week was a very important X Factor for Same Difference because it showed that they can be marginally less dreadful if they’re not surrounded by billions of gormless gimmicks, so this week they expanded on that by, um, surrounding themselves with billions of gormless gimmicks. For their first X Factor performance – a skin-crawlingly over-sincere rendition of Any Dream Will Do – Same Difference were joined by a toothy choir of candle-holding children who looked like they were kicked out of Narnia for being too twee. There may have been a group hug at the end – we were too busy vomiting our guts out to pay attention by that point.

But, compared to Same Difference’s second X Factor performance of Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, it was a masterpiece of restraint. Sung from beds and flanked by pillow-fighting dancers in dressing gowns, it was a riot of silly faces and wacky dancers that single handedly convinced us to commit some sort of terrible hate crime if Same Difference win X Factor. By the way, has anyone else noticed that the girl from Same Difference hardly gets to sing anything by herself. Why? Is she shit? Current X Factor betting odds – 12/1

Niki Evans – Throughout X Factor, Niki Evans has solidly been the second-favourite to win, but now she’s been usurped by Leon Jackson. Surely that’s a mistake – after all, now that Beverley Trottman is no longer in X Factor, Niki has all the old ropey older lady votes to herself. So what has accounted for Niki Evans’ X Factor slump?

Firstly, there’s the fact that Niki Evans’ songs on Saturday were unstoppably lame. Niki sang Total Eclipse Of The Heart - completing her inevitable transformation into Bonnie Tyler that we’ve been banging on about for months – and then Niki performed a song by Sting, of all people. Sting. And just to make sure that people really wouldn’t like it, Niki sang the song at half-speed  – making it appear to last for about three or four years – in the style of a disenchanted ghost unenthusiastically failing to haunt the inside of an empty crisp packet. Also, how much smugger can Niki Evans get without smearing herself in butter and hugging herself to death? Current X Factor betting odds – 7/1

Tomorrow – the X Factor betting odds for Leon Jackson 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.

All said, Saturday’s X Factor Love Songs Night was a great success; although if we’re honest, compared to the X Factor Disco Night an X Factor Dissonant Avant-Rock Night would be a success, too.

And that means that this Saturday X Factor is treating us to a Best Of British show where, dressed up as an assortment of jolly red-faced butchers, cricketers and wooden-toothed Victorian prostitutes, the X Factor hopefuls will belt out a selection of songs like Roll Out The Barrel, Doing The Lambeth Walk, My Old Man’s A Dustman, I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts and the theme-tune to Oh, Doctor Beeching! by Su Pollard. Either that or they’ll all sing You’re Beautiful with a quiet look of desperation in their eyes. Let’s wait and see.

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

Niki Evans - As part of Saturday’s ‘X Factor contestants go home’ shtick, Niki Evans got to go back to the school where she was a dinnerlady in an attempt to show the world that actually she’s getting a little bit up herself. After all, Niki is second-favourite to win X Factor, and look what heady careers the other X Factor silver medallists have achieved, like, um, that binman bloke and, er, the others. But back to Niki Evans’ X Factor performance of The Power Of Love on Saturday. Yes, it was brave of her to sing the start of the song with no accompaniment and, yes, Niki managed to get it pitch-perfect – at least up until the final note when she sounded like she’d trod on a nail – but once again it was a Niki Evans X Factor performance rooted so firmly in the 1980s that she may as well be dressed up as a titting Rubik’s Cube. We’d love Niki to try her hand at something just a little bit more modern – like, say, an MC Hammer song or the theme-tune to failed supernatural 1992 Karl Howman sitcom Mulberry. Current X Factor betting odds – 11/2

Rhydian Roberts – We see a pattern emerging here; one week Rhydian Roberts will deliver a stock-still, sensible, heartfelt ballad and everyone will like him, and then the next he’ll dress up as a turd and sing something so campy that everyone hates him for it. Therefore, after singing Go West two weeks ago, on Saturday’s X Factor Rhydian got to sing Somewhere with only the occasional sincerity-affirming fist-clench as choreography. True, Rhydian boomed the song out like there was no tomorrow and people seemed to like it – especially Dannii Minogue, who was reduced to tears by the beauty of watching a funny-looking blonde bloke shouting a Barbara Streisand song – but those people are wrong. The whole thing reminded us of Harry Secombe standing on top of some godforsaken hill bellowing Abide With Me during a particularly dull episode of Highway from 1987. Don’t worry, though – if our pattern theory holds up then on next week’s X Factor Rhydian will be performing Rock Me Amadeus while dressed up as Kure Kure Takora. Current X Factor betting odds – 2/7

Tomorrow: I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here 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.

We’ve been researching X Factor a lot lately, and we’ve discovered one aspect of the show that hasn’t gained a single word of coverage – Louis Walsh’s hair.

We can’t be the only ones who have noticed Louis Walsh’s X Factor hair, can we? With each week of X Factor that passes, it gets a little bit less grey and a little bit more fluffy. It’s true – for the first 20 minutes of Saturday’s X Factor we were honestly convinced that Louis Walsh was either wearing a cossack’s hat or had a rabbit perched on top of his head. We think it’s because this year Simon Cowell seems determined to remind Louis of how old-fashioned he is at every opportunity, and Louis is trying to young his hair up a bit more each week as a result. At this rate he’ll have a full-on emo fringe by Christmas. Let’s make that happen, people.

But who’ll win X Factor? Here are the X Factor betting odds for Niki Evans and Rhydian Roberts, with help from Paddy Power…

Niki Evans – The Niki Evans X Factor checklist is growing all the time. Can Niki sing power-ballads? Check. Can Niki Evans sing showtunes with a man playing a trombone through her legs? Check. Can Niki Evans sing anything else? Um… You see, on Saturday’s X Factor Niki Evans got to sing yet another power-ballad – Because Of You by Kelly Clarkson. But this was a power-ballad with a twist, because it meant that the X Factor production team could dress Niki Evans up in a studded leather outfit and make her sing next to some fire, which we’ve always taken to be a sort of freakish shorthand for ‘Look! Bonnie Tyler!’ – especially when combined with the soft-rock hunch and fist-clench stance that Niki seemed so determined to roll out while singing it. Anyway, it’s nice to see that Niki Evans is still well on course to become the quickly-forgotten second-place X Factor runner-up this year. Current X Factor betting odds – 4/1

Rhydian Roberts – Rhydian Roberts tried something completely new on Saturday’s X Factor – he tried singing a song without hobbiting around the stage like some sort of melodramatic Scandinavian elf-king, and chose You Raise Me Up as his song to do it. Although Rhydian got a standing ovation from all of the X Factor judges for it, we’re not convinced – at best it seemed like Rhydian’s audition for a career of singing the national anthem before minor international sporting events. True, Rhydian’s performance on Saturday’s X Factor made him seem like a real person as opposed to the malevolent dictator of an imaginary colony of space-goblins, but you know what? We actually quite like space goblins. Still, Rhydian remains favourite to win X Factor, so at least hopefully this time next year he’ll be able to sing a Bleeding Love-style radio hit in the style of a startled moose on a rollercoaster. Current X Factor betting odds – 8/15

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.

We honestly can’t thing of a more historic tradition than X Factor Big Band night, but that might be because we recently hit our head quite hard. Seriously, we’re bleeding a lot.

Anyway, X Factor Big Band night took place on Saturday and gave the remaining X Factor competitors the chance to get their first taste of performing in front of a huge live band. Judging by Saturday’s X Factor it also gave them the chance to mumble inaudibly because someone hadn’t realised how loud all those trumpets would be, but that was probably less deliberate. The X Factor Big Band night can make or break singers – this year it broke Futureproof but last year it made Ray Quinn, but that’s something the X Factor production team will pay for in the afterlife.

Who’ll win X Factor this year? Here are the X Factor betting odds for Niki Evans and Rhydian Roberts, with help from Paddy Power…

Niki Evans – Now that she’s effectively been banned from mentioning her dead father any more, Niki Evans has stumbled upon a brand new X Factor sob story – the “I’m just a poor old former dinnerlady” story. Obviously Niki will wear this one out in a couple of weeks too and we’ll have to watch X Factor VT clips of Niki crying because her auntie gave her a purple My Little Pony on her eighth birthday instead of a pink one, but we’ll worry about that when we need to. Because on Saturday’s X Factor Niki Evans ditched her sad power ballad formula to belt out All That Jazz and, although at times she looked a bit like Jessica Rabbit in her Fat Elvis stage, by and large she pulled it off. Aside from an unfortunate incident where a trombone was played between Niki’s legs, making it look like she had a tubular brass penis that looped back on itself, by and large it should be pointed out that Niki Evans stretched herself and generally succeeded. So this Saturday, to show that the sky really is the limit, we’re going to see Niki Evans perform How A Thug Like It by C-Murder. Current X Factor betting odds – 2/1

Rhydian Roberts – Now, you may have thought that Rhydian Roberts screaming The Phantom Of The Opera at the top of his voice while the stage exploded around him on the second X Factor show marked a high watermark of over-the-top ridiculousness, but if that’s the case you hadn’t accounted for Rhydian Roberts using X Factor‘s Big Band night to perform Get The Party Started by Pink looking like the Queen Of Narnia dressed in the inside of a Refreshers packet. If you missed it, please try and track it down on YouTube, because all the nightmares you have for the rest of your life probably need a soundtrack. Honestly, the whole thing was so bewildering that it didn’t even fit the usual definitions of good or bad – it was like being ordered to start a party by the giant floating stone head from Zardoz. Logic dictates that Rhydian Roberts will need to reign himself in for future X Factor performances otherwise he’ll technically become some sort of avant garde performance artist, but we’re not sure that Rhydian Roberts knows the meaning of the word restraint. Which should at least make Westlife Night interesting. Current X Factor betting odds – 6/4

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.

X Factor enters its third week of live finals on Saturday, and it’ll need to pull out all the stops to compete with the thousands of damp, miserable firework displays going on up and down the country at the same time.

Actually, who are we kidding? If there’s one thing that X Factor is world class at, it’s disappointing pyrotechnics – whether it’s Sharon Osbourne flouncing off the show and then sheepishly coming back again three seconds later, the painfully deliberate bickering between the other X Factor judges or the singers themselves, who this year all seem to have been pulled from the back row of a nativity play run by a specialist school for the hopelessly untalented. X Factor is the televisual equivalent of watching a boy try to write his name in the air with a sparkler, but without the exciting but at the end where he badly burns his hand. And, tragically, we’re hooked already.

Here’s the last of this week’s X Factor betting odds to win – for Hope, Rhydian Roberts and Niki Evans – with help from Paddy Power…

Hope – Everyone’s talking about Hope. Well, talking and shifting around uncomfortably in their seats trying to cover their genitals, anyway. While it’s far too early to single out Hope as potential X Factor winners, it is fair to say that they’re the act this year who most closely resemble the window display of a mid-to-large Amsterdam brothel. On Saturday’s X Factor, Hope performed Lady Marmalade while writhing around on the floor like a bunch of deeply erotic tapeworm, causing all kinds of blood pressure problems among the male X Factor viewership. But we’re starting to worry that the sexy act will start wearing off if it’s all they rely on. So maybe Hope should think about ramping it up a little bit next week. We can’t be the only ones who want to see Hope singing I Will Always Love You while doing each other with strap-on dildos, can we? Current X Factor betting odds – 7/2

Rhydian Roberts – Phantom Of The Opera, of course. With the possible exception of Chico having a breakdancing contest with some kids, Rhydian’s X Factor performance of Phantom Of The Opera was hands-down the weirdest moment in the show’s history, all fire and smoke and terrifying unblinking shouting. We’re told that the song has long been Rhydian’s favourite, which could account for the totalitarian, power-deranged way that he went about singing it. While it could have been Rhydian’s high point of the entire series – it’ll be hard for him to commit so heavily when, say, J-Lo night rolls around – let’s all just pray that Rhydian Roberts never ever wins X Factor. Because that’ll only just make Rhydian’s inevitable ambition to make a concept double album about Mordor one horrible step closer to reality. Current X Factor betting odds – 11/4

Niki Evans – Well, we make that one whole week without Niki Evans mentioning her dead father, meaning that she must be in need of another USP. How’s this – she’s singing Celine Dion‘s song… while Celine Dion is in the building! That’s crazy and something that completely hasn’t happened before in the past when everyone had to sing Abba songs in front of Abba or Rod Stewart songs in front of Rod Stewart. Anyway, long story short, Niki Evans sang My Heart Will Go On on Saturday’s X Factor, she did it well and now she’s the favourite to win. But X Factor is just two weeks old and already we’re getting a bit bored of Niki’s ‘power ballad with lyrics sung behind the beat to make it sound more emotional’ shtick. So next week, let’s hope Niki does us all a favour and mixes it up by singing Kill Or Be Killed by Bloodclaat Gangsta Youth. Current X Factor betting odds – 5/2

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.