X-Factor / Eliot Pollak / 08 December 2009 /

Fighting the good fight this year is more Cowell-spawn in the shape of Leona and SuBo, so even if he loses, he wins. Doesn't matter anyway, says Eliot Pollak, neither will be able to stop Joe/Olly/Stacey

Whilst the television ads of Morrisons and Waitrose may still portray the family Xmas as 2.4 children sitting in party hats around a nice turkey with granny having a cheeky snooze in the corner, the reality in Britain today bears no correlation. The kids are miserable. Dad isn't around. Mum's got her new partner over, and he hasn't even been CRB checked.

Also gone in this awful new world, is the excitement of gathering around the telly on Christmas afternoon to watch Top of the Pops. In better times, the nation's youth would tune in, and hang on to every word uttered by Sir Jimmy Savile in a bid to discover who would be Christmas number one. And no, Savile probably also hasn't been CRB checked so that much hasn't changed admittedly.

Alas no more. A tradition that started back in 1952 has fallen; caught Cowell, bowled Walsh. No, not Courtney. Keep up!!!

Since 2005, the number one slot has been grabbed by the winner of the X Factor, who reliably releases their single the week before Xmas at the immediate culmination of the series, in a brazen attempt to capitalise on the blazing media coverage around the show's finale. Even Shayne bloody Ward got to number one, and he's pretty much homeless these days.

Such is this dominance, it now appears inevitable Cowell will have his wicked way once more, and either Joe, Olly or Stacey will top the charts come December 20. Indeed, so depressingly total is Cowell's insidious influence, that even the two second-favourites for the top spot, Leona and SuBo, are both products of the Cowell stable, quite literally in the case of the equine SuBo.

Hence the real Xmas number one betting action is in the market 'X Factor Winner vs The Field' with the former a hot favourite. So the only question for punters to ask this Christmas, is whether there's any chance Louis Walsh will be undone by Westlife?

Modern people power is a curious thing. One suspects that if Suffragette martyr Emily Davison had been around today, she wouldn't have bothered chucking herself under the King's horse at Epsom, but rather she'd merely have changed her facebook status, and tweeted how much she loves Cheryl Cole. Nevertheless, assessing FB groups is perhaps the best way of gauging the public mood on this sort of thing

Over 300,000 people have joined a Facebook group promising to download Rage Against The Machine's debut single from 1993, 'Killing in the Name', in an attempt to shoehorn that to the number one spot. The original CD cover showed a picture of a Vietnamese monk burning himself to death - good luck using that Xmas image Morrisons.

All very nice. But Alexandra Burke's Hallelujah (last year's Chrimbo topper) sold a staggering 576,000 copies to hit the number one berth, leaving each member of the Facebook group to potentially have to buy two copies of the track to help it to the top.

In addition, a similar ploy was tried last year, with Facebook members urging people to purchase Jeff Buckley's version of Hallejuah rather than Burke's. The campaign was a relative success - but Buckley still only managed a distant number two.

Back the X Factor I'm afraid.

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