Did You See That

ITV’s X Factor returned tonight, for it’s annual slot leading up to an inevitable Christmas number one.

Things have changed around slightly this year, with the ever so smug Dermot O’Leary taking over from Kate Thornton as presenter.

In a scheduling move which maybe unprecedented, Dermot O’Leary was hosting prime time Saturday night shows for both ITV1 and BBC1. Because before X-Factor had finished, National Lottery 100 to 1 started on BBC with, yes, you guessed it, Dermot O’Leary. If Dermot is also presenting Big Brother’s Little Brother tomorrow, he will officially have taken over your TV. Where will he turn up next? The new host of Newsnight perhaps? The Sky At Night with Dermot O’Leary?

It got me wondering as to how this man has become such a hit with the TV bosses. Dermot always comes across to me as so convinced of his own funniness that I imagine he hears canned laughter in his head after his every utterance. Although thankfully he didn’t have to say too much in this opening episode so he was about bearable.

Anyway, back on the X Factor the new line up continued with Dannii Minogue and Brian Friedman recruited to replace the sacked Louis Walsh. Of course, one could make the point that Dannii Minogue seems to have no particular qualification for judging the talent of others but I think that would be churlish.

We were reminded of Louis Walsh’s sacking from the very beginning which suggested to me it all was a publicity stunt and he quickly re-hired half way through the program as Sharon and others complaining about a lack of chemistry, and Brian seemingly carrying the can.

And what of the talent? Well, we had the usual rag bag of absolute no hopers and the potentially very talented. Stand out acts for me were:

• 14 year old Emily singing Randy Crawford’s Almaz
• 79 year old Joy from Kent, who played invisible instruments (prompting Simon to ask if he could see them - No Simon, they’re invisible), although she may have been better suited to Britain’s Got Talent.
• Nikki, who sang “I Will Always Love You”. I think the last performer of the day must be statistically more likely to do well judging by the number of people who have turned up at the end of a bad day and been excellent. Or is that just part of the format?

So that’s episode one out of the way and we can look forward to the X Factor being a regular fixture for the rest of the year. Don’t try and fight it. Just enjoy it for the throwaway nonsense it is.

Emily sings Almaz

Nikki sings I Will Always Love You

What did you think of the X Factor?

Saw this advert today during the Formula On GP which cracked me up, as championship leaders - and teammates - Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso take their rivalry off the racetrack. Much has been said about possible friction in the team so it’s nice to see this light hearted advert starring the two drivers, and a great little cameo from Mika Hakkinen at the end.

Ok, so I may be alone in this, but I am persevering with ITV1’s Tycoon although I’m starting to get the inkling that this format is heavily flawed.

In the latest episode, we were told that another business would be “closed down” to leave three left for next week’s live final. In the end, it didn’t happen and all four remaining businesses went through - but the whole concept of closing down any of them is crazy since they were all profit making businesses. Would Peter Jones really close a profitable business because it was making less profit than another? It was understandable in the early weeks when some of the businesses were clearly going no where, but all the remaining businesses seem to have a future as a profitable business and “closing them down” for a TV show is bordering on insane - whatever “closing” them down actually entails considering there are actual people, brands, contracts (apparently), products and intellectual property that will remain beyond the life of the program.

And  it seems the eventual winner is going to be chosen by the public in a phone vote and live final. Why would a tycoon’s success be subject to the whims of a voting public who have seen a heavily edited (and then re-edited/chopped up for a shorter slot)? The winner should be entirely down to their business success and nothing more. I really wanted to like this program and right up until last week I remained positive, but this has descended rapidly into the file marked “dog’s dinner”. Sorry Peter, you screwed up.

ITV1’s Tycoon was much heralded but after two disappointing weeks in the ratings, it was pulled from it’s slot and now has been reformatted as a 30 min show (half its original length) and is showing at 10pm.

I watched the latest episode and I have to say it was actually very entertaining, and Justin was hilarious with his David Brent style approach to running Tycoon tower whilst Peter was away in New York. I’d suspect his lines had all been scripted by Ricky Gervais, if Ricky Gervais hadn’t been made a point of showing us recently how distinctly unfunny he can be.

So, personally, I think this is a great show, but obviously I’m in a minority on this one. So if you saw it and didn’t like it, use the comments to explain why. If you haven’t seen it, visit the website and check it out. You can watch it online and at full screen.

It was a Super Sunday for sports lovers with three huge events taking place in the UK.

The Tour De France (ITV4) started off in London this year and made its way down through South East London and North Kent to the cheers of packed streets. As far as I know, all the riders made it to the end and none were happy slapped or had their bikes stolen in the towns of North Kent where ASBOs are replacing GCSEs as the most common attainment that kids leave school with.

Also on ITV was the British Formula One where Lewis Hamilton came third, continuing his run of a podium finish in every race so far.

Over on BBC One was the climax the Wimbledon fortnight with Roger Federer beating Nadal in a five set thriller. In previous years, Federer has worn a white blazer but now he has added full length white trousers to his elegant post match constume. What’s all that about then?

It was week two in Tycoon Tower, as Peter Jones continues to try and create Britain’s next Tycoon.

We started off this week with an X-Factor style look at some of the auditionees who didn’t make it on to the show. There was a predictably wacky range of suggestions, such as making photo frames from the cremated ashes of loved ones and erotic material based on scratch and sniff technology.

Back in the Tower, the contestants were finding mixed success. They got a pep talk from Pete Jones where he told them that “Cash is king. Work harder and make more money”. Not sure if then advised them that lunch was for wimps and greed is good.

Justin is turning into Tycoon’s own David Brent, and his mumbling product pitches made Peter send him off for a one to one session with Paul McKenna. Elizabeth saw this as a great reward and was brought to tears. Week two and the second time she’s cried. The session with Paul McKenna had a great effect on Justin, although they didn’t as far as working out what to reply when someone asks “why would I want to sell your product” - a question that sent Justin to pieces again when Peter asked it in the weekly meeting.

The contestants had a visit from journalists and got to practice their PR skills. Tom naively believed this chance to meet visiting hacks would be a opportunity to sew up a distribution deal for his kids newspaper and was disappointed when it didn’t happen. He later got the chance to show it to the head of a picture agency who slated it and suggested major changes, which Tom accepted without question. He then relied upon a former editor of OK to put a mock up together - not a bad idea in itself - but Peter Jones picked up on the fact that Tom didn’t have much input to give and was happier taking a lead from others.

Peter Jones took Tom down the end of a pier to discuss his fate, which I thought may involve a sleeping with the fishes, but in the end Peter just closed him down and sent him on his way.

I can’t remember how long ago we were told that business was the new rock ‘n’ roll, but I heard it again this week to herald the launch of ITV1’s new business show called Tycoon. It’s some hybrid format pulling together strands from other popular programmes like Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice.

Business giant, Peter Jones, has selected six business start-ups to come and work in “Tycoon Tower”, on London’s south bank. Each startup aims to be the most successul business of the group and their prize is to claim the profit generated by all of the companies as their own.

The Contestants

Cathy and Helen had an idea for garden-wear and accessories aimed at female gardeners, which they called Girley Gardens. Peter thought that their focus was too narrow and asked them to rebrand with a more universal concept - “sod” was their reply and he loved it.

Justin’s business was to produce plastic bag dispensers which would make it easy to carry round and then reuse carrier bags. He was hampered by his habit of turning to jelly when Peter Jones was in the room and needing to phone home for support

Tom wanted to launch a free student newspaper called Snap. He failed to impress with his amateurish mockup and by not admitting that there was a competitor in the marketplace in the form of a newspaper published by Piers Morgan. Peter then, hilariously, described Morgan as ” the biggest, most respected editor in Britain”. Notoriety is not the same as respect. As entertaining as I find Piers Morgan, his reputation as an editor took quite a blow when he was sacked for publishing fake photographs of British troops abusing Iraqi civilians.

Ian lives at home with his nan ordinarily, so I was a little concerned to her well-being when he moved to tycoon towers were 10 weeks to develop a business which aims to import and exclusively sell a radio controlled helicopter. During the show they all get to pitch for additional funds that Peter makes available and Ian got all £20,000 of it to buy stock.

Elizabeth wants to market a vodka based fruit drink but she struggled to come up with a name, stumbling from Vopple to Just Be, and then to Fruka, not before asking strangers in the street for ideas too. Peter was tempted to “close her down” but she got all teary eyed and promised to move mountains for him.

Lauren’s a glamour model with a natural hair extension product. Her image adorned her product packaging and Peter seemed quite taken with it.

The show didn’t deliver any hands-over-the-mouth moments of sheer awfulness as we found in early editions of the Apprentice, and Peter’s pieces to camera seem overly rehearsed, but it was an entertaining  hour and I’m looking to finding out how the contestants do as the show progresses.

The variety extravaganza that’s got the country talking reached its ninth and final night tonight, with the top six acts of the competition performing again to win the coveted top spot.

The honest truth is, most of the acts for me didn’t live up to their previous performances. Damon Scott’s monkey routine was entertaining but somehow lacked the spark of the first time I saw it and had some damb squib ending. Barwizards were good, but I still maintain I’ve seen dancing cocktail barmen too many times to think its as original as the judges seem to think. Kombat Breakers were entertaining but it’s always going to be hard for a dance group to engage with the viewer in the way that an individual can so I thought it was odd that Amanda “I completely agree” Holden suggested that could be heading for a win. Even the sensational Paul Potts wasn’t quite as moving for me as when he appeared on that humble theatre stage in the earlier auditions when his talent was so unexpected.

Probably the only act that stil had the wow factor for me was Connie Talbot, so my money was on her to win. In the end, it wasn’t to be and the winner was Paul Potts, who to be fair has shown himself to be an amazing talent. It was no suprise to hear Simon Cowell announce at the end that Paul would soon be in the recording studio recording his first album. Simon must be delighted because with this kind of act, you don’t need to find new material, you can unashamedly re-record the popular operatic classics.

This was a competition to find an act that could appear at the Royal Variety Performance. Truth be told though, the Royal Variety is usually a mixed bag and actually all six of these acts could be on the bill and it would be a better show for it. In the run up to the result, all six contestants explained why it would mean so much to them to perform for the Queen. As fond as I am of the Queen, I don’t quite get the hunger to perform for one particularly wealthy octigenarian. It seems Britain’s got talent, but none of them are Republicans.

Well done to Paul Potts - Britain’s Got Talent has been fantastic entertainment and I hope it’s back soon!

It was the last of the semi finals tonight and the last two places were up for grabs.

Here’s a quick run down of everyone did…

• Cheeky Bits - very cheeky dance troupe, and much better than the group that were on the previous night.
• Dr Gore - Oh dear. This was a disaster. Their first audition was funny and made you recoil in mock horror. This was just dull and boring and they got a rough ride from the studio audience.
• Mike the Comedy Impressionist - Some of the impressions were a bit hit and miss, but that’s true of most TV impressionists, so I’d say he’s at least as good as John Culshaw.
• Tony Laf - Moving version of Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven.
• Crew 82 - Cool beat boxing combo which led Piers and Simon to bitch fight over who was the most in touch with popular culture.
• Scott -Great dancer, but as the judges righty said I think, it’s surely tough for a solo dance act to compete when the quality of the other acts was so good.
• Bar Wizards - Entertaining routine, but I really feel like I’ve seen the dancing cocktail barmen act too many times to find this too exciting and am suprised the judges find it “unqique”.
• Connie - the adorable toothless wonder wowed the judges with her rendition of “Ben”.

Connie won the audience vote and the judges had to choose between Tony and the Bar Wizards. They chose the Bar stewards, I suspect because they didnt wan’t too many singers in the final. Connie must be the favourite to win this competition now?

It was the first of the live semi finals, and the show started with some funny banter between Ant and Dec and the judges. Ant and Dec have been around for years now and it’s easy to just take them for granted as a safe pair of hands, but I noticed last night that are actually funny and add a lot to the proceedings. I guess being massively paid stars in their own right gives them a certain confidence in their dealings with big egos like Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan.

Biggest disappointment of the night was Damon Scott. He was so funny with his monkey puppet and Michael Jackson routine when he first auditioned, but last night he really bombed. It lacked the energy and fun that he had shown before and it was actually like watching a car crash. He got emotional as the judges told him as much. I think it’s his likeability and the memory of his first audition that saw him through to he next final.

Paul Potts was the other entrant to go through to the final, after yet another fantastic operatic performance. Last night’s losers were Dominic Smith, MD Productions (which sounds oddly corporate for a dance troupe), Caroline Boyes and Klever Kanines.