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It was always going to be a messy X Factor weekend. The faltering format had so much to cope with, it was amazing they kept Saturday’s show to little over an hour. as you’ll be aware, Frankie was kicked out mid-week, or left of his own accord, according to how you took the news of his gunning gak-faced indiscretion. that news had to be relayed in backstage scenes so staged, he may as well have been reading from a script and dressed like a pantomime goose.then there was the business of re-recruiting his replacement. The contestants booted out in the first live final were all on hand to feel the hideous grip of rejection all over again, grinning unconvincingly backstage and shaking like newborn calves.and on top of that, the show started late because of some mysterious gremlin-tinkering with the machine’s innards. as a result of that last problem, we were subjected to watching choice cuts from the audition phases again whilst goodness knows what happened on the set. Probably some weird occult ritual ordered by arch-demonic wizard Simon Cowell, to settle things down a bit. They probably sacrificed a virgin child beneath the moon. At least Frankie could be sure he’d avoid the sacrificial knife. He could whip off his underpants, bare his tattoos and prove he wasn’t chaste with one flash of that ridiculous bum-ink.Lady Gaga versus Queen week! It makes no sense! but then, nothing makes sense any more in the weird world of The X Factor. All you can do is sit back and watch it go even more off-kilter, week on week.Kitty went first, using her VT to tell us how her poor dad had talked himself into wandering Cheltenham town centre in a sandwich-board, urging people to vote for his daughter. if you think about it, nothing says ‘The end Is Nigh’ more effectively than a grim faced man telling you to ‘Vote For Kitty’. as we all know, Kitty idolises Lady Gaga but, because of some confounded rotation scheme or other, she was forced to go for the Queen option after Misha B grabbed Born this Way. Singing Don’t Stop Me Now whilst sitting in a chariot, the theatrical people appeared to get their Lady Godivas mixed up with their Queen Boudica, but at least we were spared scenes of Kitty aping a naked noblewoman as she belted out her decidedly flat version of one of the songs from Queen’s Greatest Hits vol. One. Gary continued to offer advice after last week’s ‘you can’t dance babe’ debacle. this week the fat one from Take that ordered her to ‘wear less make-up’. The demanding dolt. and, in the meantime, Kelly continued with her bloody-minded mission of making NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. but it was dope dough, it was dope. Or something.WHO KNEW YOU WERE DOING UPTEMPO, OWWWW?!Craig’s Colgate came next, his weight fluctuating wildly now but his voice always reliably one-note and monotonous. Gary gave him some pointers backstage, using his own range of about four notes in a mediocre octave as a guide. when Craig the coal-man came onstage doing Gaga’s Paparazzi, he might have been complaining about a dice-game. He wants to play a proper dice-game – not this rubbish dice-game you bought from Woolworths. He wants to play Yahtzee. Proper, proper Yahtzee.Kelly was pleased. She wants contestants to make songs their own, you see – and Craig did that. He DID THAT. hello, hello, hello, hello, etc…Time for Pick n Mix! They combined a little Gaga with a little Queen whilst Romford Pickle did that head-waggle thing she does every week. She’s the Pickle from Pick n Mix you can’t decide if you love or hate, and she robs the others of any attention with her serious expressions and determined body-rocking. On top of that, the littlest Pickle (the blonde one) showcased her unbelievably deep voice, leading to suggestions she may have had testicles hidden beneath her luminous yellow skirt. Unfounded suggestions, we hasten to add.Some tactical critique reverberated from Gary’s side of the front bench. He wanted a game-changer from them – an acoustic guitar or a performance in which they all self-immolate. ‘Do YOU wanna do something different?’ he asked the Pickles… and they all looked at one another, mystified, as if to say ‘we just do what you lot bloody well tell us, week on week, you complete idiots’.At this point, Dermot’s autocue must have started running backwards. even the main anchor stopped forming adequate sentences with half an hour to go. To add to the confusion, in the extended mid-point ad break, an advert for The Black Eyed Peas Experience on your XBox. Apparently, in level one you have to ditch your back catalogue of pleasing hip hop / RnB tunes and massively sell out. It looks like a great button-basher.next onstage was Janet Devlin covering Queen’s Somebody To Love. ‘I work hard – every day of my life’ she sang, unconvincingly (considering she’s not of working age). Janet’s staging is getting a little bit tired, but at least we were spared her uptempo efforts. Louis found it captivating but the rest spent five minutes arguing about her comfort zone. Happy birthday Janet!Marcus Collins, we discovered, has been possessed by the spirit of Bruno Mars and is now incapable of performing without clicking his fingers and waggling his knees in a suit and dicky-bow. another One Bites The Dust was his effort and it was possibly a little bit one-note for him to really go to town with it. He ended up going halfway to town, stopping at Greggs, then going home again with indigestion.and here’s Misha B with the tune she swiped from under Kitty’s nose. a stripped back Born this Way, which thankfully was lighter than usual on the girl screaming HA HA HA for no apparent reason. ‘She’s like a little Chaka Khan!’ shouted Louis, who seems to be living in his own world where X Factor contestants are recently-spawned clone-sprogs of past entertainers. so far we’ve had a little Chaka Khan, a little Gary Barlow and, last series, a little Lenny Henry. Louis evidently needs help. as does Kelly, who told Manchester ‘y’all need to pick up the phone and vote for your own’ before shouting ‘MISHA B’ in a thoroughly intimidating manner.but who will replace Frankie now he’s gone and ruined everything with his coke-hungry hooter? after yet another ad break, we were set to find out. Unceremoniously, as it turned out, with Dermot blurting it out and Amelia wander back onstage to belt out The show must Go On (can you see what they did there?) with her newfound my Little Pony haircut after an overlong montage covering all the interminable drama. GET ON WITH IT.On to Sunday’s show, where Lady Gaga performed in a rubbish Halloween outfit left over from a fortnight ago, with most of the staging involving her sitting in a confession booth which hid her from plain-sight. The very definition of ‘rip off’.when it came to kicking people out, fate did not smile on poor Kitty. Having already lost out on her favoured Gaga tune to Misha B, she then found herself battling her nemesis in the sing-off. and, furthermore, she lost out. despite all her best efforts, the week devoted to her idol had seen her ejected from the show, and no amount of Cheltenham sandwich-boarding could keep her in the running.The X Factor is a cruel, cold and hard-hearted mistress. you have to wonder where next for the Lady Gaga impersonator from Gloustershire?Back to the corporate parties, one has to imagine, where she’ll return to disappointing pissed up office workers at their annual Christmas shindigs. That’s the nature of the Fame Monster, unfortunately. Get used to it, Kitty B.*     *     *Live Final 1 – Review Live Final 2 – Review Live Final 3 - Review  Live Final 4 – Review Live Final 5 - Review Judges Houses – Review Bootcamp show 1 – Review Bootcamp show 2 – Review Audition show 1 – Review Audition show 2 – Review Audition show 3 – Review Audition show 4 – Review Audition show 5 – Review Audition show 6 – Review Audition show 7 - Review