I am not thinking of divorcing the Mrs but if I were I might start with X-Factor. In my single days the cats and I used to watch DVDs of Inspector Morse or, as a real treat, The Sweeney or Foyle. These days the Mrs is the only one smart enough to work out how to use the three remote controls needed to work her ultra-modern TV. As such she has power and that means that the cats have to watch the X-Factor.
To show solidarity with the suffering felines I have occasionally wandered in and, I confess, have become quite hooked as a range of chavs strut their stuff on stage. Of course the real stars of this lack of talent show are the judges, uber-camp Louis Walsh who is nice to everyone, Britain’s leading chanteuse and intellectual heavyweight Ms Cheryl Cole, or whatever she is called these days, an old spice hag and the waspish plutocrat and brains behind this money making machine Simon Cowell.
Watching is, I admit, pretty embarrassing but as we sat glued to Saturday’s final part one the Mrs grabbed her phone. Who are you texting? I asked. “I’m not – I’m voting for Fleur East.” The Mrs had listened to host Dermot and knew that her vote (cost £1.50) really mattered. Ching Ching. More money from Mr Cowell. It got worse…
Viewers were told that we could win Simon Cowell’s car (a mini) and £50,000 just by texting again. “Yeah really, like Cowell drives a mini” said I, adding that I hoped she was not going go for this con as well. “Oh I have already” said the Mrs, “I entered last week – think how useful £50,000 would be.“
Jeepers! It costs £1.50 to enter this contest and assuming that Cowell gets the car free as some sort of sponsorship package that means that he needs less than 34,000 of the millions of imbeciles who watch this programme to text in and he is even more loaded. He can’t lose. The Mrs – like hundreds of thousands of chavs across the land - seems delighted to text away stacks of her hard earned cash to Simon Cowell. No wonder he is always smiling.
In case you missed the finals, a fat Italian poof came third, Fleur from East London came second but the winner was a charming white van driving young man Ben from Croydon who seems very fond of his mother and is an all-round good bloke. Simon repeatedly said that Ben is the nicest bloke he’s ever met and he means that most sincerely. At which point the chavs are reminded to vote again by text by host Dermot because “it really matters.” Ching ching.