The X Factor - El Finale!

Many people have dared to dream. Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream today” and of course Lionel Richie, in his 80s soul-sapping dirge Say You, Say Me , spoke of having “a dream, an awesome dream”. Of course dreams do vary in magnitude, King’s dream concerned freeing America from racial hatred, whereas Lionel’s was some bollocks about “people in the park, playing games in the dark”, which strikes me as something to do with dogging. This column had a dream some 12 weeks ago, simply that this show would capture our imagination. It is now at the end that we truly see our folly, as we tune in to this final with a mixture of habitual compulsion, resignation and hatred.

Kate has a fully spangletastic frock on for the Final, although she still seems to be getting her hair done in the Play-Doh barber's shop from the look of it. We are again reminded by her about how important it is that Simon retires with enough money to officially put him above the law, and thus we must vote and vote and vote.

It's FuckOffRay to kick us off, and there is VT of him returning to Liverpool and singing to people etc. Much to my surprise people actually seem to like him, and so the fact he is in the final cannot be some dark Satanic plot to force the population to bludgeon each other to death as I initially thought.

Anyway, he's singing "My Way" again, and to be truthful I think if you didn't have to look at him it would be OK, but unfortunately you do have to look at him and so the sound is superceded by his shit-eating grin, chucky-munster face and throroughly awful ham acting all the way through the song. And to make matters worse when he sings "..shy way" it sounds exactly like "she-wee".

Leona's VT shows her going back to her parents' house and crying as per. She says that "seeing mum and dad has made me realise why I am doing this", so I assume her dad is the editor of Heat and her mum is a human size pile of fifty pound notes.

She comes on to sing the over-wrought warble-fest "I Will Always Love You" dressed in what appears to be a pink S&M dress. I hate this song and it's made even worse by her constant vibrato and falsetto jumps. There is a point where we cut to Simon and he is gazing at her with what can only described as love in his peepers, well she is his type is she not? By the time she has finished the judges are all on the Jester's shoes. I was unmoved.

Next up is a super suprise, as they wheel out Sean from we hate Wigan (spit!) to sing that Richard Marx song that he cried to in the auditions etc and everyone loves him. Apart from me, as beneath all that sickly sweet blubbing and nervousness beats the cold, selfish heart of a Pie Eater - make no mistake about it.

FuckOffRay is back on, singing "That's Life". They seem to be laying on the "plucky underdog" thing pretty thick, with his first two songs both concerned with getting on with it and succeeding even though everyone hates you and your foul chucky-face. Then, halfway through, Westlife come on to sing with him and I muse about whether there has ever been a more despicable mix of acts on a stage at the same time since the days of the Christians and the lions.

Leona returns to sing "A Million Love Songs", and I wonder who may be coming on to sing with her? That's right, it's Take That! With Leona looking so pretty in her snow white dress the lads look like they are missing the other three dwarves. This may work for Leona as Take That are the act to be with at the moment, rather than that collection of cardboard cut-outs from Ireland. At the end Gary gives Simon a good telling about how it is "your responsibility to make this girl a superstar, as she is fifty times better than everyone else, ever, so get her a decent album!". Go angry Gary!

Back we go to FuckOffRay, this time to perform "Fly Me To the Moon". So it's swing all the way for FuckOffRay tonight, the only difference with this one is that it has added Carlton Fresh Prince dance-mincing. I am calming down a bit about him until he sings 'Fill my heart with song and let me SWING or ever more', at which point I log onto www.soyouwantsomeonedead.com

The serious section is finished off by Leona singing "All By Myself", so it's ballads all the way for her, as both acts stick to what they know - understandable really. It was an amazing performance of a dreadful song, and Simon loves her in a very real way.

The show winds up with The Final 12 singing the syrup-fest "That's What Friends Are For", it is pretty woeful and only memorable for Ben singing so loud that his microphone topped out and the shot of Dionne with a face like a malevolent thunderstorm as they didn't even give her a line to sing alone.

Kate winds things up and passes the voting to the coagulated abscess of ignorance, apathy and poor education that is the British public.

FINAL RESULTS SHOW!

So we're back, and apparently eight million people have voted, some of whom for FuckOffRay I assume. Take That come on and sing "Patience", which is an absolute belter of a pop song by the way.

The two finalists then takeit in turns to sing "A Moment Like This". Leona absolutely beasts it as FuckOffRay reveals his limitations by simply crying and nodding his head at the significance of it each time he sings 'some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this". There is then a spectacular amount of fluff as they try to fill an hour up and it proves that the show really didn't need to be this long.

Finally it's results time. And the winner is.......LEONA!!!! The nation cries salt tears of joy as we realise that FuckOffRay won't be number 1 for Christmas, and this ordeal of mediocre entertainment is finally over.

Leona is "speechless", and to be fair I am very happy for her, she is genuinely talented and a very nice girl, or I might simply be happy because she is not FuckOffRay.

Anyway, that is that. They are already advertising for next year, so see you again then, when hopefully they will manage to find more than one decent singer...