So watched the repeat this morning at 1.30am! Got to say I like Fearne Cotton on the Xtra Factor, that bit where she pretended to be the producer was really funny, but I didn’t get the joke when she said, “what is small, grey and gets sucked a lot , Louis Walsh!”. I have a slight idea of what she meant, but it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to tell you what I was thinking!
Anyway lets talk about the auditions this week. Didn’t Leon Jackson the guy who went to the Scotland audition alone, look a bit like Pete Doherty? I think he’ll do well, he’s got a good voice, and he’s going to be well liked by everyone.

My stand out singers this week are Beverley the school teacher from Luton, and Richard Wilkinson the shop assistant. Beverley sang Aretha Franklin’s ‘Think’ and she really went for it and belted it out. Reminded me a bit of Brenda from series 2. Didn’t know what Louis was saying about her being a backing singer because she was great.

Richard had a great voice, Sharon thought it was quite breathy and like a dirty phone call but the other 3 thought he was special. I thought she was right about what she said but you could still hear that he had a good voice in my opinion and hopefully he will prove Sharon wrong at boot camp. Now the groups, the 2 sisters, one husband and another friend who thought that they were going to fly through the auditions were knocked back down to earth by Simon when he told them straight that they weren’t good enough. It was hard for me to watch, because you can see these peoples dreams being shattered, and sometimes Simon doesn’t see how upset people are getting when he says his personal opinion in the way that he does, and it can be a bit too harsh, but that’s Simon for you!

I think Danni is doing really well on the show. She makes some great comments and isn’t afraid of telling people what she thinks. I don’t know if any of the rumours are true about her and Sharon not getting on, but if they are not getting on I just hope that they work it out because I love them both. I have to say Fearne, why didn’t you tell everyone in advance that you were getting Danni a date, I know I’m a bit young but I’m sure we could have made it work!

Russell Brand from Radio 2 was doing his radio show live from an Ice Cream van opposite the Pleasure Beach where I do the X Factor show on Sunday and we were invited to go on the show. We waited backstage for an hour and then had to leave because we had plans somewhere else (the pub, only joking!) The Mayor of Blackpool turned up late as he had been enjoying himself a bit too much being driven around on a motorbike. Would have been good to get on Radio 2 but we were also worried about what Russell Brand would have said or done! So it was probably a good thing we didn’t get on.

I’ll be watching next week, not sure when the return of Robert is meant to be shown, but I think it may be next week should be interesting to see. Keep smiling like happy 49 year old Julie who sang ‘When your Smiling’ and scared Sharon a bit!

Shaun