Hello everyone!  I had a good week at work mostly doing letters, as the secretary was on holiday or at least looking after her grandson all week!  I enjoyed relaxing at home with my beloved each evening this week.  On Wednesday evening Julie from Pieroth came to give us a wine tasting session, so we were able to order our favourites.  Last night we shared a bottle of champagne from Waitrose, which was lovely. 

This evening we are watching the X Factor, as we record it for Cathy. Jamie gave a great performance of Radio Ga Ga by Queen to open the show, we enjoyed it despite Danni’s less than enthusiastic comments, Louis’s downbeat comments about him being only an OK singer, and Cheryl endorsing his act with a proviso concerning his hair, only Simon gave him a proper comment and the audience just loved his performance; the audience’s reaction was the most important for him. 

Lloyd as usual did not do justice to his song, ‘A crazy little thing called love’, Danni thought it was his best performance, Louis thought it was better than last week, Simon thought it was too big for him but commented that Lloyd seemed to be enjoying his performance more this week, and Cheryl thought he had come into his own; I suppose it was better than last week’s performance but still weak in our view.  Ollie gave a good performance of ‘Don’t stop me now’ but his voice was swallowed up in the music, so my beloved thought, but he always does put everything into his performance, despite his broken finger! 

My beloved thought Joe would be good in musical theatre but, he's not really a pop artist; he did well but not as well as last week in Simon’s opinion, but he did a quite good performance, but not fulfilling his potential.  The twins rapped and tried to sing ‘Under Pressure’ by Queen, incorporating a Vanilla Ice rap, but it was terrible as usual as far as I am concerned; Simon’s comment was that to comment on John and Edward, he has to enter into the ‘Jedward’ world and judge them within it!!  Simon does respect them for not whining about the attitudes of people. 

Stacey has a lovely natural personality and tonight she showed that she has, possibly, the best voice in the competition; it was certainly her best vocal.  I did not really like the song, ‘Who wants to live forever?’, but it did show off her vocal talent better.  I thought Danyl’s performance was very good, although we have heard better performances; my beloved wondered where Danyl the performer had gone, the show seeming to celebrate blandness in those who are not totally hopeless performers; he is just so afraid of being seen as too cocky, so does not perform as well as he initially did.  I have to watch it to edit and record it for Cathy, so she keeps up with it! 

This is the day that the Lord has made and, X-Factor notwithstanding, I rejoice and am glad in it.