O'Leary's shame

So, Sky Plus. I've had it for less than a week and I've already used up a quarter of the hard disk space. All it takes is a couple of films a week and it'll be full up within a month.

I was going to write about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (probably about the way everyone is smugly and self-deprecatingly competent), but I haven't watched this week's episode yet.

I did watch episode one of season four of the X Factor earlier today though. After the cliffhanger at the end of the last show where the Borg came along and assimilated Ray, I was expecting a fascinating episode, but it was not to be. All this bother about poor old Bear Grylls staying in hotels when he's doing his survival programmes, and a bit of misunderstanding about the Queen not having a strop (BURN THE DIRECTOR GENERAL! BURN HIM!!), but no-one cares about the utter pantomime paraded as real life drama which is the X Factor.

I'm no fan. I just can't stand the way that every episode there's the usual bunch of no-hopers that are put forward through the unfilmed stages just so they can be humiliated by the judges, followed by the discovery of the tragic yet relatively talented performer. As they leave the audition room weeping at their success, Labi Siffre's Something Inside So Strong comes on (because clearly when Labi Siffre (or whoever wrote the lyrics) wrote the lyrics they were thinking of some little squirt who can warble their way through "I Will Always Love You" like Mariah Carey in a yodelling contest with a goat).

And Cowell's going on about how having some fourteen year old singing a song competently vindicates him for allowing youngsters on to the show as though he's Princess Diana and this is all some sort of social project to provide Britain with a new Michelle McManus.

Then you've got Osbourne and she's all "Oh, I really miss Louis" and (rather cleverly) "I'm really sorry but... ...you're through!" (because, right? If you hear "I'm really sorry", right? You're all thinking, like, "Oh no, I'm not through", right? But then, right? She's all like, "You're through!" right? And like it was all her doing a little trick on you.) Like she didn't try to ruin an Iron Maiden concert just because the lead singer criticised talent contests.

And throughout it all, not one mention of poor old Thornton, sitting at home (perhaps eating a microwave dinner, maybe sitting in her underpants, possibly an unfinished easy sudoku from a free local newspaper sitting on the sofa next to her), her dreams of Saturday night stardom in tatters.

Mind you, it's better than DanceX.

What I watched on television yesterday:

• Nothing. I have a life sometimes. It was Saturday, after all. I'm in a new house. I've still got loads of unpacking to do, I need to buy new furniture, do a bit of weeding in my garden, work out where to put my pictures up etc.

In reality, I didn't do any work around the house. I just sat in my underpants and watched the cricket as the dust gathered around me. Much as it pains me, I fear I may be turning into the male Kate Thornton.