For me, the most exciting part of the XFactor began on Saturday: the live shows.
Forget the auditions which can be littered with crazy, delusional people who think they can sing but can no more hold a tune than I can surf on one foot - or two even! These poor people are clearly put in front of the cameras to get cheap laughs, but to me it makes a mockery of the programme and I much prefer rival talent show The Voice's method of cutting to the chase and only showing those hopefuls who have got through to the final auditions.
And I say no, too to the new look Boot Camp round where each judge had six chairs and about 10 hopefuls vying for their place like a sick kind of musical chairs, the end prize being the chance to fly to a judge's 'home' somewhere exotic for yet another audition for the chance to appear on the live shows - phew am now suffering from audition exhaustion - the cure for which is of course, the live shows!
So, what is it about the live shows?
Well, it's the glamour really. I bet you'd never have guessed that from me! The stage sets can be magnificent, glittering, over-the-top affairs, sometimes involving fire or tickertape or both!!
The contestants are now no longer 'Average Joe Auditionees' and more potential superstars in the making. So the whole process of getting glam is taken out of their sweaty paws and handed over to a crack team of make-up artists, hairdressers and stylists who have the best tools for the job (sometimes). Previous series have seen some rather strange concoctions, however, this year, so far, so good! I was particularly blown away by Sam Bailey who looked amazing - her rather limp, lifeless looking locks were transformed into glossy, cascading curls and some obviously extremely persuasive stylist had managed to extract her from her habitual leggings and t-shirt and into a black, floor-length stunner! Suddenly everyone had forgotten she was ever a prison warden as she morphed effortlessly into an A list-type-diva!
And then there's the judges. This year there's not really the same sartorial rivalry as there has been in recent years when the two female judges were of similar ages and musical genres: think Kelly and Tulisa, Nicole and Tulisa and Danni and Cheryl. It was clear that as the live shows progressed, so the tensions grew ever bigger as did the dresses which became so hugely brash in each woman's attempt to outdo the other.
This year of course, there's Nicole and dear old Mrs O. Mrs O may be a lot of things but a fashion icon she isn't, and that's no disrespect to her age. Mrs O is a rockstar wife/manager and her outfits are reflective of this, her LA lifestyle and highly exuberant personality i.e. they are gloriously over the top and shriek "dahling" more loudly than she does herself. Contrast this to the equally crazy but sartorially more sophisticated Ms Scherzinger and it's probable that each one feels they can relax, dress the way they want to and not worry what the other is going to wear each week. I say it's probable....
So week one of the live shows and if there was a contest between the two female judges, then Nicole would have won it hands down. Regular readers will know that I love, love, love floor-length evening dresses, and nothing is more glamorous than one in black and guess what: Nicole wore an amazing floor length black number which laced up at the back and had a gravity defying split that managed to be neither tacky nor obvious - to me that was a winner and the sort of dress which would look amazing, elegant and sophisticated on any figure - so there!
Which was more than could be said for guest Ellie Goulding's frightful frock. Designer Julien MacDonald obviously got carried away with the thought of being on Strictly when he designed this. It was the sort of dress an over-made-up, grimacing ballroom dancer would wear: basically a flesh-coloured body stocking with a load of sequins running from neckline to floorline on its front and back thus revealing a see-through panel down the sides which kind of hardly left anything to the imagination as she writhed around the stage. And Twitter users showed no mercy in tweeting their exact thoughts on said dress, the overall consensus being that the over-the-top frock was a ruse to cover-up the fact she can't sing. Hmmmm.
The XFactor is back and kicking and I love it.
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