Scotland’s Jesus: The Only Officially Non-racist Comedian (11 page)

But these declining viewing figures are a concern. Experts estimate if they don’t stop falling, by 2032 the show will be forced to travel door-to-door, contestants trying to win viewers over by singing through their letterboxes. It will constitute a sorry procession, forced to trundle its way from town to town in cages set upon little wooden carts, Simon’s brain atop in a nutrient-filled jar, the whole affair pulled along by a team of blinded stray dogs, relentlessly driven forward by a cackling hooded driver dangling an Asda Smart Price sausage from a fishing rod.

I’m enjoying the
X Factor
iPhone app where you can hit a button to clap or boo the acts. To get a rat in a lab to do that they’d have to give it some kind of reward – perhaps by making the singing stop. A lot of the show seems to involve cutting back to the judges’ faces as they run through the three or four emotions available to them. Except Louis, who always has the startled look of a sleeping pensioner who’s just heard a noise downstairs.

Louis always says ‘You deserve to be on that stage’ to everyone he sees, when realistically that would only be true if he were standing in front of a gallows. Simon needs to find a way of getting better judges on the show – perhaps with some sort of televised judging contest. Gary Barlow’s performance is utterly compelling. His voice has a faraway, hollow quality, as if during a séance his body’s been seized by some blasphemous entity. I keep expecting him to interrupt someone covering ‘Valerie’ with a haunting monologue about the indignities his soul is suffering in hell. Perhaps his ghost can only rest if he uses boot camp to get the bands to solve his own murder. When the triumphant spirit explodes as incandescent light from a screaming Gary’s nose, mouth and eyes, we can all tap the clap button.

I’m surprised Britney Spears managed to get a job on the US
X Factor
. The last time she went near a judging panel they took her kids away. Britney is pumping weights, and doing yoga and kick-boxing. She will soon hold the title of fittest woman alive that no one wants to fuck. Her fans vented their anger about her lacklustre UK shows. I saw a bit of Britney’s dance routines on the news – in fairness, I thought I was watching Libyan rebels dispose of Gaddafi’s corpse. It’s hardly surprised that Britney doesn’t look totally focused – in fairness, she’s probably trying to work out where she is, who she is and why a voice is telling her to kill. I wonder why famous people even get mental disorders. What tips them over the edge from their usual happy setting of just wanting the whole world to worship them?

Nicole Scherzinger says she’s been feeling lonely since her split from Lewis Hamilton. She confessed that she has no friends in London and has been reduced to dining out with her own staff – as if they were real human beings! Nicole had to fork out thousands for a flight upgrade after
X Factor
bosses booked her into economy. Luckily, she could put it on her card. If she’d had to busk for it in departures she’d still be there when plate tectonics had solved the problem. Of course, these days former
X Factor
winner Steve Brookstein travels for free. Simon’s had his skin made into a natty set of matching luggage. To this day he swears that when he opens the shoulder bag he sometimes hears a plaintive ‘We’ll make another album soon, won’t we Si?’ drifting up from features a casual glance might assume were just blemishes in the leather.

You remember Steve Brookstein? ‘What’s the time?’ ‘Steve Brookstein time.’ That one.

I had my fingers crossed that James Arthur would win
The X Factor
, so that we’d never hear of him again. Do be careful, James. It appears that Simon’s tucked a clause in your contract that should your album flop he can hang your ornately inked pelt from the wall of his walk-in humidor. Fans queued overnight to meet James. I’d queue up overnight to see him, the same way I would have done if I’d been alive in Victorian times and had the chance to see Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. James can now enjoy what being an
X Factor
winner means. Constant Twitter abuse, one failed album and a brief part in a shit West End musical. James said, ‘I’m probably going to get my teeth fixed. It’s not a vanity thing.’ Well, it is, and it will be like putting twenty-six-inch rims on a wheelie bin.

Fellow
X Factor
champions Little Mix say they’re bidding to crack America. Shouldn’t they start by trying to crack Britain first? Little Mix show just how little you can achieve without any talent or hard work. Little Mix. Less a band name, more a description of the group’s gene pool. They look so young I just don’t feel comfortable playing the usual girl-band ‘In which order would you?’ game. OK, if you insist. I suppose I’d behead the blonde one first, then beat the other three to death with her corpse. The girls are proud to say they’re teetotal and never touch drugs. They get high on life! And suffer from a desperate addiction to the approval of total strangers. They want to inspire their fans. Good! About time little girls had some proper role models. I can’t be the only parent getting fed up of all that ‘I want to be a vet, I want to be a nurse’ bullshit.

Presumably the first inspirational message of empowerment for their legion of young fans will be, ‘Yes, you too can endorse goods or products as directed by your management.’ Simon wants them to focus on the music. Apparently, in their contract he’s even decreed their vaginas be covered in hot wax before receiving the seal of his holy ring.

Clean-living Little Mix have adopted ‘We won’t steal your boyfriend’ as their motto. It’s a self-help mantra that’s been used unsuccessfully by the members of Westlife, Boyzone and in the adapted form, ‘I won’t steal your boy’, by none other than Michael Jackson. They’ve been described as so likeable they could sell coals to Newcastle. That expression should be updated – how about, ‘They could sell a Federico Fellini boxed set in Newcastle’?

The girls were slammed for using an autocue. An autocue machine, yes, like they have down those autocue bars where hen nights sing ‘I Will Survive’. I hear that they were told not to learn the lyrics to their songs as Simon considers it essential to dull the winners’ powers of recall, so family and past friends don’t hinder reprogramming.

Sharon Osbourne returned to the UK to be an
X Factor
judge, confirmation apparently coming when a deserted ship, the long-dead skipper lashed to the wheel and the hold containing just a single chest freezer, bumped eerily into a jetty at Southampton. Her return means that Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne are living apart. They’ve stayed together through thick and thin – or Jack and Kelly, as they’re otherwise known.

They wanted to inject something new into the show so they’ve brought back Sharon – who, of course, has had so many new things injected into her you could bounce a coin off her face. Sharon’s set to do
X Factor
mentoring by Skype. Is Skyping right for an
X Factor
judge? Maybe I’m tiring of the show but the way I’d most like to see them giving advice is via an Ouija board. Contestants mustn’t worry, as they can ask Simon’s advice at any point, just by writing their question in urine dribbled from an upturned crucifix, then throwing it into the fire. The great thing about Sharon is that she speaks her mind – it’s just a pity that her mind appears to be haunted by the soul of an angry dockworker. Personally, I’ve missed Sharon’s little words of wisdom – to make up for it I’ve had to spike my nan’s tea with meths. I was sad that Tulisa’s been given the heave-ho. I liked Tulisa on there – with her boobs and hairy Greek arms you could squint and imagine Simon was still there.

Simon says he’s a workaholic; judging by his face, so’s his plastic surgeon. Simon looks like he’s had the Botox applied by someone whose only qualification is a three-week upholstery course they took in prison. On the plus side for Simon, at least his hair’s no longer the weirdest looking thing on his head.

What about that Simon Cowell biography by Tom Bower? It described the life of a tortured genius. Perhaps a slight overstatement, though I’d do anything to make that phrase just half true. He’s had so many affairs! Simon managed to keep them secret by only ever having sex with all these women in the privacy of his publicist’s imagination. The author had access to Simon’s entire inner circle – mainly soft toys who’ve attained a level of higher trust by having their button eyes removed. The book costs £18.99. Though if you sent me £9.99 I’ll gladly send you my summary in an old Pringles tube.

Simon wasn’t available for further comment. He’s believed to be in an aircraft hanger full of tenners somewhere, a leaf blower in each hand, gleefully shrieking beyond the audible human spectrum. And in a desperate search for scandal, hidden cameras have been installed in all the
X Factor
backstage rooms. This shit running for eight years isn’t considered scandal enough.

It seems that Simon was ‘feeling very low’ over the rev-elations about his private life, according to a press release to promote the revelations about his private life. A lot of girls Simon has slept with are coming out of the woodwork. Well, from the look of them they’re coming out of the waxworks. I don’t believe it he did it eleven times in one night – glamour model Alicia Douvall just doesn’t look like that sort of woman, the type that can count. I’ll bet Simon can, if the guy is hot enough. I’m joking – I really mean, if the guys are hot enough. I’m joking – I really mean, if they guys are paid enough. I’m joking – I really mean, if the guys are finished in the recording studio. Only kidding. Simon’s said he doesn’t care if people think he’s gay as it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Not true, Simon. If it turned out you were gay the homo-sexual community would be extremely ashamed.

Yes, in Bower’s book the cat is out of the bag. Simon’s a tiger in the sack. He’s ruined more springs than a Scottish weatherman. The book says he tried to shag Cheryl, but she told him she didn’t want to spoil the happiness she’d found. She was dying of malaria at the time. These endless stories about Simon being unlucky in love are his best chance of looking human since he stopped living with a professional make-up artist. You can’t make Simon seem human! I’ve got more chance of sympathising with a dry-stone wall that falls on a toddler.

Simon’s been likened to a Roman emperor – how times have changed. While Nero had the power to end a gladiator’s life, Simon orders the mentally challenged to sing ‘Mama Do the Hump’ while their leggings sag around their arse. Dannii Minogue had an affair with Simon. Now we know why she spells her first name that way; she wants to distance herself as much as possible from the reality of who she is. He said, ‘It was her sexy clothes and tits – it was genuine love.’ Remind me, in which of Shakespeare’s love sonnets does he compliment a lady’s clothes and tits again?

No wonder Dannii went from Simon to a rugby player. Once she’d bought the strap-on, she may as well use up its warranty. Dannii went to Twitter to ask for privacy, displaying the same logic as when she turned to Simon for love. Resorting to Twitter to ask for privacy is a bit like asking a zombie horde for a vegetarian gravy recipe. It’s said Simon liked to treat the female judges like ‘toys’ – presumably, then, Dannii was a doll who’s face has been repaired and Sharon was one that was used too much by rough kids then left in a carrier bag out the front of Oxfam.

Simon’s got a woman – Lauren Silverman – pregnant. It seems the conception was touch and go, Lauren almost regaining consciousness halfway through as she’d only eaten half the chocolate mousse. Simon claims he never wanted children. Which, to be honest, is probably the best thing to say when you’re in the music industry and Operation Yewtree are buzzing about. It’s the age-old story – millionaire flat-topped androgyne impregnates property mogul’s wife on ocean-going yacht. The woman’s husband must be gutted – after all, he only invited Simon on holiday so he could use his man-tits as a travel pillow. It’s Sinitta who I feel sorry for – if she doesn’t play nice with the new baby she’ll be put in a cattery.

I think he’ll be a good dad – surely there’s no way he’s able to sleep at night anyway. He likes the idea of being a dad. Of course he does. Who doesn’t like the idea of being a dad? Even women like the idea of being a dad. Never having to do the night feeds. Taking a week off work and then never really having to spend any time with the kid until it’s seven. Being a dad is great.

Except, of course, when it isn’t. When all you want is to be as far away from your offspring as possible. That’s why they’re called ‘offspring’, because most of the time you’d like to go off without your children and come back sometime around spring.

Then again, Simon has the money to make it work. As dads, which one of us hasn’t at some point wanted to turn our backs on the kid and climb into a helicopter, and, as it hovers above our home with a bearing set for the south of France, shower the nannies with £20 notes while shouting over the noise of the rotors, ‘Good luck, Consuela; the little fucker’s your problem – see you next spring’?

Simon hasn’t the patience to sit through fifteen seconds of a ventriloquist’s act. How’s he ever going to deal with a toddler saying ‘toast’ repeatedly for four hours? People in Simon’s circle said the pregnancy seemed very out of character. Which is an understated way of saying, ‘HOLY SHITBALLS! THIS AIN’T RIGHT! THE GUY’S MORE BENT THAN THE ZIMBABWEAN ELECTIONS!!’

• • •

I always wonder why, on
Britain’s Got Talent
, they cut back to Amanda Holden for reactions? Her face doesn’t fucking move! They might as well cut to
V for Vendetta
, or that crystal skull Arthur C. Clarke was always banging on about. I honestly don’t know if there’s more poison in Simon’s heart or Holden’s forehead. The reason Amanda Holden gets so many Botox jabs into her forehead is to prevent all the worry lines that would result from trying to work out how shagging Les Dennis fifteen years ago qualifies her to judge a talent contest. If Holden cries any more then I’m worried the salt water will warp whatever it is her face is made out of. Mind you, Simon’s face now looks puffier than the Puffa jacket that Puff Daddy would wear on a puffin-watching trip.