The X Factor

Sometimes I read the Guardian's X Factor liveblog, complete with the "comment is free" (comment is harrowing) comments.  It makes me feel like I've wandered into the lounge at a retirement home.  I'm 34, I'm old enough to be Cher's mother, but even I know who Jay-Z and Duck Sauce and Blackstreet are.  Looking at the twitter it seems the young people think that Shout was by Dizzee Rascal -- and I'd find that more annoying of them if it weren't that the actual Graun liveblogger has decided to attribute it to James Corden.  Plus he seems to be startled and bemused by Cher's habit of doing more than one song at once.

This week's theme of Guilty Pleasures was annoying for two reasons: I don't really approve of the concept; and then they didn't follow it -- though perhaps it's entirely logical that they make no distinction at all between Guilty Pleasures X Factor and every other week on X Factor.  Wagner is always a guilty pleasure.  But no one sang anything by the Wurzels, and no one did The Bloodhound Gang.  Not a single William Shatner cover.

I saw my brother and sister-in-law this afternoon and discovered that not only had neither of them seen the fantastic picture of Wagner holding a lion by the tail (which you can see here) but they hadn't seen the Stephen Fry Wagner youtube video, so I'm posting it here in case you've missed it.


Plus here is a really good song.  No X Factor connection, just something I've been listening to quite a lot.