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.

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.

So Simon Cowell’s big X Factor ruse of putting together manufactured groups and telling the world how they’ll probably win X Factor has backfired – on Saturday his boyband Futureproof were eliminated from the show.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Simon Cowell had to choose whether to eliminate Futureproof or his girlband Hope, because they were both placed in X Factor‘s bottom two. We’ll deal with Hope in the days to come, but nobody can really be surprised that Futureproof were knocked out of X Factor – their dull, weedy rendition of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You was hopelessly overpowered by the live band accompanying them and their much-discussed dance routine was a joke. But at least now they’re out of X Factor, Futureproof can return to what they look like they do best – hanging out on the top deck of buses throwing open cans of cider at terrified pensioners.

But now that Futureproof are no longer a part of X Factor, who’s going to win? Here’s the first part of this week’s X Factor betting odds – for Alisha Bennett, Andy Williams and Same Difference – with help as ever from Paddy Power…

Alisha Bennett - Thanks to young Emily Nakanda coming over all Macho Man Randy Savage on the internet and getting kicked off X Factor, Alisha Bennett finds herself as the only 14-24 girl left on the show, and since she was in X Factor‘s final two for the first two weeks running, the pressure on her to sing Valerie well enough to stay on the show must have been huge. You suspect that if he was in the same position, Leon may well have actually soiled himself onstage. And yet Alisha did a surprisingly decent job of it, looking like a popstar for the first time and sailing through the elimination process unharmed. We’re pleased for Alisha – not because we want her to do well but because it means that Alisha’s X Factor VT next week won’t just feature her crying a lot because nobody likes her. The following week once she’s been in the bottom two again, sure, but let’s just be thankful for next week’s breather. Current X Factor betting odds – 33/1

Andy Williams – Once again, we’re stunned that Andy Williams wasn’t even in the X Factor bottom two on Saturday, because his rendition of This Guy’s In Love With You tanked so badly we can hardly describe it. Poor old Andy – a man so dim-looking that we wouldn’t be surprised if McDonalds started writing ‘Contents Hot’ on their drinks just to stop him dipping his penis into cups of coffee all the time – started performing the song alone at a table for one, possibly because it didn’t take long for the girl to work out that this guy’s probably only in love with himself. Also, Andy’s X Factor performance taught us that whenever he’s backed by a live 27-piece orchestra, whatever he sings will sound like the insane mutterings of a drunkard at 4am. Please just get rid of him next week. Current X Factor betting odds – 25/1

Same Difference – The X Factor Big Band night is a chance for the performers to pay homage to some of the most effortlessly cool songs from a time when music was more pure, so that’s why on Saturday Same Difference decided to sing that old standard from Frank Sinatra‘s seminal In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning album, Reach For The Stars by S Club 7. And, if the song had been performed by a buck-toothed six year old girl in pigtails, chances are it would have been the most adorable spectacle of the night. But since it was actually performed by two slightly incesty adult siblings who model themselves on Ned Flanders, the result was so creepy that we found ourselves clawing at our own skin by the second verse. The only thing we can attribute to Same Difference scraping through the X Factor elimination process was because of their sobbing “I’m a victim of bullying” VT package, despite the fact that even the most pitiful victim of bullying could probably find something to bully Same Difference about. Current X Factor betting odds – 14/1

Tomorrow – the X Factor betting odds for Beverley Trottman, Leon Jackson and Hope. 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.