Good evening readers! We’re watching X Factor live tonight. Even though it’s a pre-recorded show, we’re going to be live blogging it!

If you’re looking for extra chat action, hit the X Factor board on the forum.

7:50pm - The girlie group is in Cannes with Cheryl. She’s standing on a balcony talking down to them, and there’s no chance they can hear her from the balcony. But they all nod along.

7:52pm – Simon and his clothes horse buddy Sinitta (bedecked in gold, no less) have a stern word with the boys – if you screw it up, it’s the end of the line kids.

7:53pm – Dannii’s head has been attacked by a manky turban-type thing, while Emma Bunton promises to impart everything she learned in the Spice GIrls.

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Tonight’s X Factor is going to be an interesting state of affairs. As I mentioned earlier, Simon will speak to Alan Turner about claims he lied about not knowing his father.

We’ve written here in the past about the sob stories used on The X Factor to get the public interested in the contestants. Many a hard luck story has propelled a contestant further in this competition that if they’d relied on singing talent alone.

What’s new here is that Simon/The X Factor team are giving Alan an opportunity to respond to the press allegations on national television. This is quite unprecedented if you ask me, and makes us wonder if this publicity counterstrike is about the right to reply, or if they recognize Alan Turner as a viable contestant who might sell records by the bucketload.

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OK, we’re moving into the part of X Factor that I love – the run-up to the live shows – but before that, 24 contestants are set to become the final 12.

If the figures are to be believed, roughly 182,000 applied. I don’t know about you, but when I hear those figures, I often wonder about how many candidates are potential basket cases. Anyway…this week’s episode sees our shortlisted singers visit the Judges houses. Well, probably not their real houses. Let’s face it, would you let an X Factor applicant into your house?

Tonight, each category – Girls, Boys, Groups, Old People – will be represented. At this stage, there are six acts in each group. The delightful Cheryl Cole is mentoring the girls, Simon Cowell has got the boys groups, Dannii Minogue is mentoring the “it’s my last shot at fame” group (AKA the Over 25s). The ‘fabulous’ Louis Walsh is mentoring the groups, which is ironic since he’s been auditioning for his own girl group separately. Well, I suppose he’s got the qualifications for it if anyone has.

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There’s an odd entry in this week’s Top Ten chart – Faith Hill’s There You’ll Be.

Now, Faith released the track originally in 2001 to accompany the Pearl Harbour soundtrack. It was a massive hit for her, but the UK pop chart hasn’t heard much from Faith in a few years. So why’s her song suddenly back in the Top Ten?

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X Factor judge, Dannii Minogue has decided to let bygones be bygones with fellow judge, Cheryl Cole, even though her group ‘Girls Aloud’ have been beyond bitchy about the Aussie star.

In past interviews the girls have said that Minogue should get all her plastic surgery reversed as men just didn’t find her sexy, and Minogue hit back calling them the bitchiest group in pop.

“It’s true that Girls Aloud have said some unfortunate things about me, but you can’t hold on to things like that,” Dannii told the News of the World. “When we do get to spend time together, I hope we get on. I don’t ever want to go through the same atmosphere as before.”

Dannii also denies that relations between the pair are frosty backstage: Read more & comment »

Big Brother housemates awoke this morning to find that the heaven and hell divide had been removed and they can all be one big happy group again.

Darnell, Rachel and Kat celebrated with a great three-in-a-bed cuddle and Mohamed looked positively delighted!

But you gotta feel sorry for the housemates who are now going to have to watch Rex paw his girlfriend Nicole 24/7!

The Sun has reported that M People singer, Heather Small, has signed up for this years series of Strictly Come Dancing.

The show kicks off on BBC One on September the 13th and Heather is said to be just about to start rehearsing with her partner. It’ll be a busy few weeks for the singer as she is also gearing up to perform her song Proud at the Olympics handover concert in London on August 24.

Tom Selleck is rumoured to have signed up for this years series of Dancing With Stars.

The older readers out there will remember Tom as the star of Magnum PI in the eighties, people like me remember him as the man with the sexy moustache in Three Men and a Baby, but all you young things will know Selleck as Monica’s hot older boyfriend, Dr. Richard Burke, from Friends.

A source told the National Enquirer: “Executives wanted an older hunk to bring in the baby boomer audience. Tom is incredibly popular with women 40 through 65, and producers were ecstatic when, at Steve’s urging, he expressed interest in competing on the show.”

I can assure you that I don’t fall into the 40-65 age bracket…….but I still definitely would IYKWIM!

Gok Wan has admitted that he attends regular counselling sessions when he is filming for his hit Channel 4 show, How To Look Good Naked.

“When you’re filming a show like this and you’re dealing with women who hate their bodies, you need somewhere to let it all out,” Wan told The Mirror. “I’m not a doctor or a psychologist but I have to take it on as their friend, and I realised I was feeling quite stressed out with it.

“If you can imagine eight of your best girlfriends, all of them going through the most horrific time and needing you, and only you, it’s a lot to take on board. You become a sponge. Of course I do take it on because I care for them but I need to get rid of it as well. Read more & comment »

For today’s task, heavenly housemates will be competing against housemates from hell to build models of the ‘Millennium Dome’ and ‘St Paul’s Cathedral’ out of cake.

The current Head of House Rachel will decide the winning team. The winning team will then decide amongst themselves which one of their team members will become the new Head of House.

Head of House Rachel will be called to the Diary Room later today. Big Brother will explain that for today’s task heaven will compete against hell to bake London.

One team will tackle Sir Christopher Wren’s epic St Paul’s Cathedral whilst the other team will recreate the Millennium Dome. Rachel must decide which side of the house will bake which landmark. Housemates are told that the winning team will receive a ’special reward’. Read more & comment »

The first housemate rumour to come out after Big Brother launched tonight was that Mario, the cross between Matt LeBlanc and Sylvester Stallone, was previously in prison. He apparently featured in a Bravo show called Brits Behind Bars, and you can apparently see him in this sequence found on YouTube…stop your browser at 0.55.

It’s not confirmed what his stint in jail was, but I did read that it was to do with a domestic violence incident with his former wife.

This is all very interesting, because the overwhelming feedback on our forum is that Mario (who’s real name is Shaun) and Lisa are familiar faces. I’m personally pondering if Lisa is an actress or something, because I’m sure I’ve seen her on TV before…

Anyway, having watched the clip above, do you think the inmate in question is Mario? I’d love to hear what you guys think…

Good evening folks. We’re blogging the Big Brother 2008 launch night, as it blinking well happens (said in the voice of the E4 presenter). Here’s the action as it happens…

9:03PM - Davina’s giving us the walk through the house. There’s the jail, the solitary confinement cell, the deadly uncomfortable bedrooms. Oh, that bathroom is some tacky shit!!!

21:08PM - Gossip - the housemates will have to budget for basic privileges such as hot water and stuff. They have to hold over a token for these things if they want them.

21:15PM - Mario (42) and his girlfriend Lisa (40) are the first couple to go into the house. Seem to be a bit full of themselves, don’t they folks? And does that dude look like Joey from Friends or what? Lots of wonderful trivia, including that Mario used to be in the freemasons - the secret society or the dance act?

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If you’re used to catching up with Big Brother on the web while you should be working, then you’re in for a shocker this year folks!

Word has just reached us that Channel 4 are cancelling the live feeds and are replacing them with downloadable clips. According to The Sun, a pilot of this new method was run during Big Brother Celebrity Hijack earlier this year.

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OK, I wrote the Britain’s Got Talent final post yesterday, and there’ve been some interesting comments on that thread that I’d like to highlight and respond to.

First, I don’t think there’s anything the Britain’s Got Talent producers can do to fix the vote at the phone-in stage. The most they can do is influence the voting public through the video links for each contestant.

Why would they do that? Well, dear reader - let’s assume teenage girls are a key demographic of shows like BGT and X Factor. Let’s also assume that those teenage girls are very trigger-happy with their phones and text votes. Now, let’s take a wild, wild leap of fantasy and imagine that the producers of the show make money from phone votes. Lots of money. No, obscene amounts of money.

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They’re calling it a big fix over on our forum, but dancer George Sampson has won Britain’s Got Talent 2008. The final line-up was:

1. George Sampson
2. Signature
3. Andrew Johnston

George won after performing a pumped-up version of Singing In The Rain which finished with him getting drenched on stage. It was all very visually stunning, but you can’t help wondering what set George apart from all the other dance acts who participated.

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