The X Factor

Notes to judges prior to the first show of the 14th series.

Audience figures for the closing programme of Series 13 were 1,200,000 down on the closing programme of Series 14. In an effort to redress this, you are requested to try to come up with a few new apposite phrases to express your admiration for the efforts of the contestants. ‘You’re a star’ and ‘You really nailed it’ are all very well but are much overused and don’t go far enough in their praise if we are to get it through to the audience that the contestants are demonstrating an exceptional talent. We suggest something like ‘You’re going to be bigger than Streisand/Sinatra’ and ‘You really welded it’ instead

Notes to judges following the first show of the 14th series.

Two observations need to be made following last week’s note. (1) As far as we know there is no singer called Streisand Slash Sinatra. By Streisand/Sinatra we meant Barbra Streisand or Frank Sinatra, depending upon the sex of the person you are praising. (2) ‘You really welded it’ will be sufficient; whilst ‘You really bolted it down after first applying superglue to the threads of the nuts and bolts then welding them

together’ may be a more enthusiastic appraisal, you would do well to remember that the attention span of our audience does not stretch to more than half a dozen words

and consequently such an expression is entirely lost on them.

Notes to judges following the second show of the 14th series.

The praise for deserving performers was much better this week, although I think telling the anorexic girl from Poole that she could be bigger than Demis Roussos was a bit incongruous, if not hurtful. Speaking of which, being hurtful to undeserving

performers is just as important than praising deserving performers, booing and catcalling the judges being all part of the entertainment. I would therefore urge you to pay equal attention to this aspect of the show.

Notes to judges following the third show of the 14th series.

Reference to last week’s notes in which you were encouraged you to be more hurtful to those contestants deserving of such treatment, I would remind you that The X Factor goes out well before the 9 p.m. watershed, and expressions such as ‘You really fucked up there, you ugly slag’, although very possibly true, should not be used in future. Having said that I think we could get away with ‘You really ballsed it

up there, Sunshine’.

Notes to judges following the fourth show of the 14th series

Well done indeed. Going overboard in your lavish praise for Nick, referring to him as the new Pavarotti and then awarding him a total of 3 points, was a masterstroke, equalled only by telling Helen that she had a voice which would launch a thousand quips and then awarding her the highest points in the entire history of the show. Keep this up and we’ll soon be getting half as high an audience as Strictly Come Dancing. Try referring to the black one as a filthy spade lezzo, telling her she sounds like Barbra Streisand and awarding her half a point for trying.

                            

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Razzamatazz

Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things. Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things.

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