Mof's Column! 'How I Gave In And Fell For The X Factor'

If you're reading this, you're invariably a fan of the Trof establishments. This means you're probably hipper than a box full of hip-replacements. As such, there's a strong chance that you don't think much of the X Factor franchise. You're probably more into listening to Pavement records or growing your own herbs. That's cool. However, there's a place in your life for X Factor AND being an achingly cool type.

Alternatively, you're one of those people who are ACTUALLY cool and don't buy into what you're supposed to be digging. I'm a new convert to this way of thinking and it's like coming out of the chrysalis. You see, like Pixie Lott sang recently, in the most apt lyric of The Noughties, "I good beat never hurt no-one". And X Factor is one long tight snare.

You see, the whole thing is like the pop equivalent of Wrestling. It's all spandex, rigs, pantomime booing and cheering and, let's be honest, Simon Cowell isn't a million miles away from the WWE mogul, Vince McMahon. Hell, they surely share the same all-thumbs tailor and stump-handed hairdresser. In both cases, these shadow-hearted rascals conduct the kind of puppetry that makes nay-sayers hoot. "The entertainment are just brain-dead saps! They don't have any say in anything! It's a pointless farce!"

However, the artists are second fiddle to the way the casual viewer is roped in, siren like, and forced to submit at the audacious, pompous and mind-bleaching brilliance of such an incredibly orchestrated programme. Compared with main rival, Strictly Come Dancing, X Factor flashes a eye-crumbling white toothed grin, which sends Brucie & Co stumbling and tap-dancing into dark corners muttering about posture and other things that only listless Colonels find important. When they finally emerge, they find that their paso doble is being obliterated in a hail of burning fireworks and more hooks than a Abu Hamsa lookalike competition.

Yet, away from the pop veneer, there's staggering moments that make you invent whole new emotions. Anyone who saw John and Edwards rendition of 'Oops I Did It Again' will invariably still be scratching their head somewhere and feeling simultaneously, the moment of orgasm and a family death. Quite simply, there's no other television programme that can steamroller an entire nation the way X Factor does. Once, I thought it split the whole country into two camps. Those that hated it and those that didn't watch it. However, now I've learned how brilliant it all is, I figure that no-one in the world really dislikes the show. Some relent after sniping about it for years... everyone else just wondered what took you so long. If you're still moaning about it, you're probably an Elbow fan who yearns for more pedestrian kicks. You can keep 'em.

Mof Gimmers writes for a variety of websites, newspapers and magazines. He also plays records or 'DJs' at Trof in the Northern Quarter. He's the staff's favourite DJ.