.. in the morning (well, it was yesterday at 1.15pm)
..on the early train (ok, using a rake, you’ll break open the ’secret’ door in the garden).. Apologies for abusing one of Leo’s great songs

Tsk at little Leo Sayer, denying us the chance to boo and jeer him as he was duly evicted from the house. Instead, he saw his bottom and engineered an argument that would allow him to leave the house with his dignity (?) and ego intact. How on earth was he still granted an Eviction Show interview? Surely (and I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong) if you walk, you don’t talk, at least not to Davina. Perhaps she just wanted to make sure he knew that if he’d stayed, he would have been evicted last night, instead of Carole.

Yes, the second person to be officially evicted from the Big Brother house was Carole Malone. I’ve never really warmed too much to Carole, although she wasn’t the evil bitchy cow I thought she would be. It’ll be interesting to see just what she has to say about the whole experience in the Sunday Mirror in the morning – and hopefully she’ll reveal which celebrity she felt was ‘constantly acting, and resorted to tears too often’. Just a bit of a guess, but my money is on Shilpa.

Carole also didn’t seem to understand that if Leo had stayed in, it would have been him sat there talking to Davina. I’m fairly sure that once that bit of info sinks in she’ll have a few scathing comments to make about him.

At least Dirk survived the chop, even though his behaviour over the whisky was a tad bizarre. I’m still hopeful he will win, but he needs to distance himself from Shilpa, who is becoming more and more manipulative as the show progresses. The house is also looking a little bare – will BB be bringing in more housemates to replace the 3 who have walked? And does this number of absconders spell the death knell for future series of Celebrity Big Brother?

So we’ve seen our first eviction of Celebrity Big Brother, and surprise surprise it was one of the Goody Clan. What was a surprise was that it was Jackiey, rather than Jack.

Yes, we can all heave a sigh of relief that the excrutiatingly uncomfortable antics of Jade’s mum will hopefully fade from our memories as she fades from our screens. So why the surprise? How on earth did Jack amass any votes at all? I don’t think I’ve seen him speak, I certainly haven’t seen him do anything, so I can’t believe that people picked up their phones and voted for him.

Perhaps spelling Jackiey’s name right caused problems? Perhaps many lost the will to live and just shortened it to Jack? Well, it would explain a lot!

Having said that, I don’t think the experience was any good at all for Jackiey. She seemed to be constantly on edge, very paranoid, easily upset and quick to pick up the wrong end of the stick. The others seemed to lose patience with her very quickly, for instance when she was trying to sort out the takeaway order, or when she asked for lemon juice. Perhaps she seemed like an easy target? After all, even Jade didn’t do much to defend her in the house. (Mind you, there is absolutely no way I would go into Big Brother with my mother. And she’s relatively normal and a very intelligent woman. My kids have also said I’d be their idea of a nightmare housemate)

The eviction itself was very cruel, and not just for Jackiey. Why couldn’t BB announce it while they were sat at the dining table, and at least let the woman have 30seconds to put her shoes on and say goodbye? Why am I even surprised after watching the horrible way BB evicted Vanessa two years ago? It looks like there will be a variation on the same theme today when Cleo and Carole receive their punishment for talking about nominations. At least for them its just to go up for eviction, not actually be evicted.

I’m seriously hoping that Leo Sayer will be up for eviction after the nominations. It looks like he’s winding up most people in the house with his constant self-aggrandizement – its been a long time since I saw someone that far up their own backside (well, not since Sezar, perhaps)

One final word on Jackiey’s eviction.. I only wish it had been before she inflicted that swimsuit on the civilised world…

Donny Tourette: Loud mouthed prat or frightened little boy hiding behind his stage persona?

I know that Mr Tourette’s whole point of being is being debated on the forum, but I’m hoping its all an act. If he can just tone it all down a bit, he could end up being very entertaining.. and its worth hearing his foul mouthed outbursts just to see the look on Danielle Lloyd’s face.

He’s already rubbing his fellow contestants up the wrong way – I don’t care what they say in the Diary Room (its not like the real Big Brother – at this point they’re still very aware that they have to project and protect their public personas) Jermaine Jackson MUST be horrified at Donny’s antics – gobbing in the hot tub, feet on the counters, stubbing out his fags wherever he wants too (including on previously mentioned food preparation areas), weeing in the shower. Leo wasn’t overly impressed at Donny’s nakedness in bed. Danielle isn’t impressed full stop. Jo O’Meara declaring she’d sleep on the floor rather than share a bed with ’someone like that’. Ken Russell having his hair ruffled on a permanent basis.

Donny could go one of two ways. He could irritate the life out of the viewing public – and be voted out just after the vacuous Danielle.. or find his own little niche in the GBP’s heart, and be in there til the end.

But who is impressing me so far in the house? You can see all my initial feelings about them at Dreamy’s Blog.. but here’s a brief run down. Jo seems down to earth… Dirk ‘Face’ Benedict (Donny used the wrong f word there, I think) is my early winner (Ok, ok, so thats a hang over from all those pre-pubescent fantasies I used to have about him, when he was in Battlestar Galactica and the A-Team)… Leo Sayer and Ian Watkins need to chill and stop trying so hard… Cleo is marvellous – my other half shared Dirk’s sentiments about it being worth jumping in the hot tub fully clothed to have her look after him, Ken may be too quirky to come across well on the telly, which will be a shame. The rest need a little time to find their niche and settle into things.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how they get on when the initial ‘euphoria’ wears off

I can’t believe how devastated I am that Ben was kicked off last night. Admittedly, I don’t feel it was his best performances – but he was still 3000 times better than the gurning Scouser. (Is Ray lining up toothpaste sponsorship? Or perhaps tissue sponsorship after his murdering of You’ll Never Walk Alone.. I’m not surprised he cried, I was too.. nothing to do with any ‘emotion’ he showed in the song, more that a travesty was being perpetrated in front of my eyes)

I’ve linked to a couple of my favourite Ben tracks here: See Ben Singing One More Time

Perhaps its time for the hordes of tone deaf teenage voters to be removed from the equation? Or at least for their faddish effects to be toned down. Its time that the ‘judges’ were just that – impartial judges, with no tie to the mentoring process (from what I’ve seen, I doubt they actually do that much mentoring to begin with). Their comments SHOULD count for something – perhaps something similar to Strictly Come Dancing, where the judges votes count for half of the final vote – hopefully that would have prevented the ridiculous situation of the MacDonald Brothers being in so long – or for Ray being through to the final two.

Leona sang her heart out last night – probably the best I’ve ever seen her sing, and Simon Cowell must be rubbing his hands in glee at the thought of her being his million pound contract winner. Sharon must be bewildered and amazed that her star talent has gone out (although hopefully this could be a good thing, especially if the rumoured interest from EMI pays out, and Ben doesn’t now have to suffer a year’s ‘management’ from Simon, whose track record with X Factor winners isn’t really that great). I’ve still got my fingers crossed from two weeks ago, when Louis promised he’d get the Eton Road boys a record contract.. and I still maintain that the finallists (if Simon hadn’t done a shock two act eviction) should have been Ben, Leona and Eton Road.. At least I got one of the finallists right (makes a change)

I can’t begin to imagine just how smug Mr Cowell will be feeling this morning – guaranteed a winner, with both of his ‘rival mentors’ left high and dry – lets hope that something with integrity can be dragged out of this whole sorry affair, and that Leona emerges as a true winner.

In Tabby and Brad’s absence (happy birthday ) y’all have the joys of my X Factor Chat.. so here we go!

1. Ben Mills: Well, it couldn’t really be anyone else. Ben did an amazing job tonight, despite having struggled with laryngitis this week. Brilliant performance, spot on song choice, and he didn’t need to get by With A Little Help From His Friends.

2. Robert Allen: Robert sang You Are Not Alone, the Michael Jackson hit, but with his talent he’ll never be alone. He has such a totally soulful voice, which just shines now he’s curbed his Tiggerlike enthusiasm.

3. Leona Lewis: Her Bridge Over Troubled Water was far from her best performance, and, despite Sharon’s affirmation that it was flawless, there were problems – again with her lower register, and her tendency to screech at the top notes. But when she gets it right, boy does she blow your socks off.

4. The MacDonald Brothers: Yes, I can hardly believe I’ve typed their names in 4th place, and I shall do proper penance. Hopefully, this will be the kiss of death, and they’ll go out. With Love is All Around, they actually sounded tuneful, if a little Cheesy. I fear they will survive to next week.

5. Eton Road: I love the Eton Road boys, and on paper, I Don’t Feel Like Dancing should have suited them down to the ground. But there sounded to be something decidely weird with the sound production during their song, so I have no idea if they were harmonising or not. In all consciousness, and based on Simon’s opinions on the individual vocals, I have to assume they weren’t.

6. Raymond Quinn: Ray was absolutely dire. Livin’ La Vida Loca is about as close to swing as you can get without being swing, but he oh so struggled with the verses. He didn’t even command the stage in the way he does normally, and I feel that he’s just used up his final life.

..but that winner won’t be Ashley McKenzie.

To be honest, he was lucky to survive last week, he’s never really fulfilled any of the potential he showed at his audition, and it was only really the Rod Stewart week where he showed any kind of spark – and I’m not sure if thats because I hadn’t really heard the song before, so had no preconceptions about how it should sound.

If you want to see my run down on all the contestants last night, you can click here: Live Show no 4

I truly feel that Ashley is out, not just because of his rather arrogant attitude, but because Simon let him down with some appalling song choices. Moonwalk last week was just horrendous, and last night’s song was abysmal. He couldn’t cope with the lower register, his phrasing was odd, it just didn’t sound right.

I think when Simon watches the show over, he will realise that Loius had no choice but to send Ashley home.. never mind giving him the evils Simon! It just makes you look ridiculous and you’ll have to have Botox to get rid of the frown marks on your forehead if you ain’t careful.

What on earth was Robert doing in the bottom two though? Sharon must be wondering what the British Public are upto. When we still have travesties in the competition such as the MacDonald Brothers (STOP VOTING FOR THEM – ITS NOT BIG, ITS NOT CLEVER) and Ray (SWINGERLOO IS WRONG ON SOOOO MANY LEVELS!), I can’t understand why acts which at least have potential, like Ashley and Robert, are in the bottom two.

Most bizarre.

Finally, a decision I can’t complain about. And its taken us to week 3 for me to stop shaking my head at the Great British Public.

Okay, so the MacDire Brothers are still there (have the people voting for them considered seeing their doctor, their audiologist or their psychiatrist? Perhaps a block booking to all three would do the job) – but Dionne and Ashley were definitely two of the worst performances last night. If you want to see my thoughts on all the songs last night, you can look at Lynne’s Blog And poor Dionne, whose performances have worsened week after week was inevitably going home. At least she’ll be spared Sharon picking any more dodgy songs for her (why on earth was she singing that song? She could have done an amazing job on Fever, which would have been endlessly more Big Band)

Just for a change, I can even agree with Louis Walsh. Yes, yes, I know, its not often I have anything in common with the weird little Irishman, but he was on the ball. Ashley was horrendous last night – but he can do better. I don’t think that Kerry will be able to raise her game any higher. She didn’t have a bad voice (well, she can sing better than I can) – but she just didn’t have any stage presence or any passion. There just was no X Factor – and that’s what the show is all about. Hopefully, Ashley will now realise that he isn’t as good as he thinks he is, and will buck up his ideas. Quite how well he’ll do with an Abba track, I have no idea.

It will be interesting to see just how well the boys do with the whole Abba theme. Of all the themes, this will probably be the one where Ben will struggle the most – having said that, his performance last night is still sending shivers down my spine.

I’m also dreading to see just how smug Simon is next week – the only mentor with all his acts intact. With both Sharon and Louis now down to two acts, they’ll both have to raise their game – and actually consider what songs SUIT their remaining artists.

And what don’t I want to talk about? How the flipping MacDonald Brothers are STILL in this competition.

They are souless, they are boring, they keep missing their harmonies (which was about their only strong point for me) – and the ‘ooh I know, lets get them to lift their kilts’ think was so contrived as to be ridiculous.

This week (again) I had them and Ray in the bottom two. Ray did so much better with Its a Wonderful World, but there was so much cheese and gurning in is performance, that I did wonder if he’d morphed into a character from Wallace and Gromit. Now, I can understand to a certain extent why Ray keeps missing the drop – but I have no idea who can be voting for the MacDonalds.

However, I’ve decided to stop declaring my favourite acts, one of them always ends up in the bottom two. Ben and Robert gawe outstanding performances, and Robert should never have been singing for his life. It was the same last week with Dionne – I hope she sings better next time, as last night she just didn’t make an impact.

Furthermore, even if the price is that the MacDire Brothers stay in another week – could someone please sack the stylists? Kate Thornton looked as if she’d chucked on an old pair of curtains, Leona had rummaged through Bet Lynch’s wardrobe, Nikitta had borrowed something from her granny… and I still don’t wanna talk about the MaccyD boys..

I was impressed with how much time Rod Stewart gave the contestants though, and that he wasn’t just on the show to plug a new single – I can cope with a new album, especially after the great show he gave. He’s the definition of showman. And I definitely think it would be fairer to give the guest star the decision on who should go home out of the bottom two – it stops it becoming such a grudge decision between Sharon, Louis and Simon. Having said that, 4Sure didn’t perform well last night, and were definitely not in the same league as Robert.

I’m still hopeful that Louis is down to just one act next week – and that he stops messing around with Eton Road’s individuality..

If you’d like to see my individual run down of each of the contestants, you can have a look at dreamytimes.co.uk/blog/

Well, the first show has come and gone, and I’m left feeling incredibly frustrated at the Great British Public.

Brad has done a great job of detailing each act – if you want to see my view on each of them, its all listed in my Blog here: Live Show no 1.. TheNovaView

What on EARTH was Dionne doing in the bottom two? I can understand The Unconventionals being there – Louis should be hanging his head in shame at his mentoring of this group – but Dionne was absolutely brilliant last night. She had style, she had panache, she looked absolutely fantastic, and she owned that song.. but she had to go to the Song Off to stay in. Simon blamed it on her lack of personality, as her vocals were amazing – but I can’t really see that. She shone on the stage.

I hope the MacDonald Brothers are heaving very large sighs of relief. Pretty much every review I’ve seen of them had them firmly in the bottom two. Perhaps the teenagegirly syndrome is already kicking in, and they (and Ray) have managed to stay here. They’re going to need to raise their game much higher if they want to carry on performing in the X Factor.

Next week should be really interesting: the theme is Rod Stewart (so I’m assuming that he’ll be the guest star) and that will suit Ben’s vocals down to the ground. We’ve already seen him perform Maggie May at Bootcamp, so I have high hopes of him. Perhaps Louis will do a better job of song selection, as he’s getting first choice of the songlist, followed by Sharon and then Simon – I just hope he stops messing it up for his acts. And Sharon love.. try and pick better songs too, you did an abysmal job last night, the only one you got spot on was Dionne’s.. and look how the public repaid you.

I could cry.

For Nikki’s final show (ever?), she had a special treat. According to Nikki, they were ‘big, butch and dikey’ To the rest of us, they were the Harlequins Women’s rugby team. And some of them seemed decidely unimpressed with Nikki.

As she sauntered out of the changing room, she looked nothing more than a little girl dressed up in her daddy’s clothes. However, images can be deceptive, and Nikki got off to a good start. She was hoisted for lineouts, and even tried her hand at tackling, but inevitably, something would get the better of her – and it just happened to be a bit of damp grass. From here, it was all downhill.

The coach had the wrong idea when it came to encouraging Nikki to Run the Gauntlet: he should have had her imagining that it was a crowd of paparazzi, clamouring for a photograph. Lets face it, thats the closest she’s likely to get to them from now on. And was it just me, or did the ladies seem to enjoy the prospect of dunking Nikki into a bin of icy cold water? Perhaps the crew put them wise to the dikey comment.

At least the water was clean, which is more than can be said for anything in the House of Horror where Nikki was despatched next. Extreme Cleaning is one thing – but cockroaches in just one drawer? A rotting, maggotty fish in another? I may be a tad cynical, but something was stinking, and it wasn’t just the foodstuff. ‘I’m not doing it’ she declared, and crisis talks with her father were swiftly arranged.

‘Dad would you do it?’ she asked. No, came back the reply.

‘Would you do it for a tv show you were being paid to do?’

Unfortunately for Nikki, the answer was yes.

After shrieking and crying her way through the kitchen drawers, an upsurge of sewage was to be Nikki’s final challenge. After weeks of training in all matters plop related, and despite looking like a reject from BioWars III, it was all too much for her. And so, the series limped to an end.

I doubt we’ll see a return, and fervently hope its the last we see of the Princess. Perhaps she’ll snag a desperate footballer, and turn into a WAG.

Lets leave the last word to Nikki: ‘I thought, when I got this seriesm that I would get nice jobs that would help me learn how to do a working day… … but its been ghastly’

Can’t argue with that.

This article was written by Lynne Goulden, one of our contributors at Unreality TV. Check out Lynne’s own X Factor journal here.