Hey, I’ve got a great idea! Let’s make all the blokes sing The Beatle’s most overplayed song. “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary makes me fluff the lyrics…”

When last we left boot camp, things were looking bloody bad. Thankfully, things improved a bit in this one. Better performances all round, finally some solid choices from the judges as to who goes on to the next stage.

Frankly, there was more singing and less bullshit in this episode. The X Factor succeeds for me when they’re not trying to spin out old cliches.

I like to look at the contestants and imagine how they’ll perform in the live shows. With the second part of the show, the talent was pushed to the forefront, and unsurprisingly a lot of the talent seemed to be in the over 25 category. Some really outstanding voices.

In the groups, I thought Ghostt were pretty good. The female groups looked like they’d rolled off a production line. Cloned.

The outrage moment came when wedding singer Gav was ditched in favour of Icra. Tell me now that Ikram isn’t going to be this season’s Chico? Icra can sing, but as Louis said, he’s not a serious performer. Nice guy, but doesn’t deserve to be there.

On the bright side, we now know which groups each judge is taking on:

• Simon – The Groups
• Sharon – The Girls
• Dannii – The  (Lucky) Boys
• Louis – The (Unfortunate) Geriatrics

So, there ya go. Apparently next week is a bumper X Factor weekend and we’ll find out who we’ll be seeing at the live shows. See you there…