Dermot-itis.

It was prime-time television, it was a Sunday, my flat mate had control of the remote control and I was trapped under the oppressive weight of a belly flopping fat man of a hangover.

The scene was set for subjection to the televisual equivalent of attending a karaoke night in the Rhondda Valley with a vice on the top of my head gripping at my temples, a dog strapped to the vice barking incessantly into one ear, whilst a screaming malnourished baby is strapped mouth first to my other ear.

And so X factor began with the usual strobing effect of a light display designed to completely baffle the audience and fox them into thinking that something of value was going to happen; other than a bunch of self obsessed casualties of the modern celebrity disease further sickening the wafer thin fabric of personality that allegedly still exists amongst our youth that is.


Naturally, there was the usual repetitive formula: The 'judges' arrive and every one cheers as ominous music follows them out onto the stage, the harbingers of doom. This is always followed by the acute awareness that having put oneself in a position where the credibility and personality of Cheryl Cole can make or break you is a bit like bending over in a prison shower with the soap already wedged between your buttocks and an ACME cartoon sign point at it. Well, it isn't observed that way, but it really should be.

Next the carefully compiled collection of desperate, attention seeking, brain dead fucktards are wheeled out before us to showcase how idiotic they are as a unit with some kind of 'team' performance. Once the audience has been stunned into disbelief, convinced that this really is the peak of entertainment and talent otherwise how could anyone have the gall to showcase it, the collective are removed and then hoisted back on individually, to sing, dance and ultimately cry.

The crying has become an implicit part of the performance these days. Sing, dance, cry. Almost as if being marked by a special board of Olympic judges with boxes that need ticking and ranking.

-Sing:  7 (sang someone else’s song not as well as they sang it...again)
-Dance: 1 (dancing that only someone now convinced that conviction is more important than visual effect   would attempt...again)
- Cry: 10 (perfect, instant, convincing, desperately selfish and transparent).

I could go on, but complaining about what should be self evident to a nation of perfectly well educated Brits with an incomprehensible depth of culture and intrigue at their finger tips BUT IS APPARANTLY NOT, is as tedious as the show itself.

HOWEVER, this Sunday, something marvelous occurred. The events of this particular episode of Twat Factor were so overwhelmingly beautiful that we shall claim that the only reason I shan't watch it again is so not to ruin it.

Dermot O’Leary, much maligned by those with an IQ over 17 but much loved but those with a chronological existence of under 17. Describing exactly why he is a terrible presenter that should be shot for having the gall to accept his massive wage for being a useless sack of unrecyclable, non bio-degradable waste, is remarkably difficult to get exactly right. This Sunday, Dermot O’Leary finally gave us the anecdotal example required to dismiss the babblings of the dribblingly idiotic that he has a value.

Dermot O’Leary accidentally blurted out at a clearly confused, unfit aging Whitney Houston who's dress had mimicked her career and come undone, leaving her partly exposed....he blurted out in general on stage filler communication, designed to make Whitney look good and set up album/tour plugging....he blurted out in the midst of what is the summation of what could be termed his 'talent'...."you don't take any punches do you Whitney".

It is only sad that his career has not been torn from his sweating mitt as he clearly realised what he had just said as soon as it popped out of his yapping bleat box. It was all down hill from there as he then proceeded to clap Whitney by pounding a closed fist into an open hand, the type of obscure idiocy that only someone aware of a mistake can make as they scrabble around inside their own tiny minds to find all the things that they absolutely must not do.

As the drivel wound down to it's gurgling conclusion, I sloped off to bed hangover finally absorbing the last throws of consciousness, but my slumber was all contentment, assured that somewhere, Dermot O’Leary was more uncomfortable than I.