Another year and another series of The X-Factor has begun and with it the only entertaining part of the entire show, the auditions. We’ve all laughed our ribcages apart at stuff like this:

and this:

But what about those ‘Inspirational’ auditions. You know the ones. A father of two whose wife has died, or the lady who has just recovered from a life threatening condition – all very tragic stories, make no mistake, but the way the show’s producers exploit this is nothing short of sickening. But I’m not here for an angry rant today. I’m here to just highlight how daft the whole thing is. Take a look at this.

Talk about over the top, and bringing the poor kid on the stage? Well what can you say, really. I bet the producers were stood at the side of the stage with the kid, waiting for the peak of the inspirational song playing in the background at ear splitting levels, “aaaand, now kid! Go go go!” They use music as a kind of emotional bully literally trying to wrench those tears out of our abused tear ducts. My empathy quickly turned to anger as I realised what was happening and the channel was promptly changed to some other crap on the box in the corner of the room. I long for the days when the best thing on a Saturday tea-time was The A-Team.

It really does get worse each series and I think it might have even surpassed the American talent shows for pounding your face into a wall of saccharine sugar bricks.

More of this instead please:

Which is also completely exploiting this man. Still, at least it’s funny.