Strictly Come Dancing / X Factor: Results Show 7.10.07

As previously mentioned, I hate results shows: they go on for far too long and are basically the televisual equivalent of a long drawn-out session of prick-teasing followed by premature ejaculation. Nothing I saw tonight remotely changed that opinion.

The Strictly / X Factor results shows were, like the programmes themselves, screened simultaneously, in the standard big knob contest between the two broadcasters, designed to maximise their own egos whilst minimising audience satisfaction. If the BBC really was a public service broadcaster, they would put Strictly out at a time when there core audience wasn't really wanting to watch something on the other side. Anyway, it did mean I could flick between the two whenever one got boring - i.e. constantly.

Strictly was an excercise in recycling: here's the performances from yesterday, here's what the judges said yesterday, here's Mark Ramprakash doing a dance fom last year, here's Michael Buble singing a song that was a hit several decades ago, here's a dance off featuring the two dances you liked least yesterday - the two dances you don't want to see a second time, in other words, but here they are, and here's the judges deciding who goes home, choosing the same dance they liked least yesterday.

X Factor on the other hand had plenty of new footage, all of which was of people crying. I'm crying because I'm nervous. I'm crying because I want it so badly. I'm crying because I'm thinking of my poor dead father. I'm crying because I'm thinking about my kids. I'm crying because Sharon Osborne has made me think I'm going home. I'm crying because I am going home. I'm crying because I'm not going home. I'm crying because I have temporarily gone home before not going home to tell my kids / my poor dead father that I'm not going home, and now my kids / my poor dead father is crying too. Watching the X Factor results show makes me think of when Joanne Lees did that press conference after Peter Falconio was killed, and everyone assumed she did it because she didn't cry. To be blunt, unless you cry a whole lot on X Factor, the public will hate you and you may as well be a murderer for all the chance you have of winning. If you ever go on X Factor, carry an onion in your pocket just in case.

Sharon Osborne, who is the best at deliberately winding the contestants up and making them cry before telling them that in fact they are through to the next round, is also the best at comforting them by clutching them to her maternal, subtly surgically enhanced, bosom (although in one case asking a sobbing girl to please keep her dripping black make-up away from Sharon's designer togs.)

Which did make me think, which celebrity would be the person you'd most like to comfort you when you're sobbing your poor little heart out (and I don't mean "comforting" in the tabloid sense)? And which the least? My opening bids: Brenda Blethyn and Chris Moyles (I'm guessing you can figure out which most and which least without me telling you.)