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X Factor Xmas No1

Talent spotting in a world devoid of genuine talent

The X Factor's final 12 have been announced... so the count down to the Christmas No1 starts here. Yawn.

And the early favourites are… well, Strictly Come Dancing is looking more attractive than ever.

Fighting in the boys’ corner, mentored by Simon Cowell, are a frankly bizarre selection. The two that could really sing – Liam Payne and Mali Michael-McCalla – were overlooked in favour of Irish foetus Eoghan Quinn, the charisma-free former Bluecoat Scott Bruton and identikit boyband type Austin Drage.

Presumably after Simon had flipped a coin and got rid of other identikit boyband type Alan.

For the over-25s, Dannii’s category, sexy Spaniard Ruth Lorenzo and ex-con Rachel Hylton got through on relative merits – the best of a bad bunch – while chunky bland pool cleaner Daniel Evans got through on his sob story.

Sadly that meant the only contestant who looked and sounded like a star, Suzie Furlonger, went out, as did two others who shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Over with Louis, the actually-pretty-good four-piece JLS made it through, alongside girl band, er, Girlband and Bad Lashes who are both less viable challengers, more hen nights doing karaoke.

And finally, Cheryl kicked out the square-jawed but enormously dependable Hannah Bradbeer – suggesting it’s about looks rather than talent – but at least kept in quirky (and very cute) Diana Vickers (who the public just won’t get) and huge-lunged soulful belter Alexandra Burke.

Sadly she also kept one-note Winehouse wannabe Laura White but hey, nobody’s perfect.

We reckon it’s a straight race between Alexandra and JLS although the toughest call will be which one of the other sub-par acts will go out first.

Can they change the system and kick the other 10 out in week one and just get it all over with?

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