Lopez Blogs

It has been an insanely busy and tense week for my gorgeous little dazpanteloons and I. First off, Darren's abcess on his spine has returned and is now infected so he is on a waiting list for surgery (because i changed jobs last year, the new private healthcare doesn't cover pre-existing conditions! How ridiculous!). Marvelous. Then a recurring kidney problem I have has flown back with a vengence giving me all sorts of stomach type problems. Excellent! So we decided to just ignore that, make use of our annual Tussaud passes and visit Thorpe Park in Surrey. I must point out that my sing-a-long-a-mix cd that played on the way down was uniformly excellent with contributions from Prefab Sprout, They Might Be Giants, McFly, Bonnie Tyler and, er, Rolf Harris. The park was absolutely rammed to the brim with boys in bri-nylon tracksuits that were positively crackling with static electricity and girls in bright coloured tutus and leg warmers. It wasn't so much clang clang clang went the trolley, more clang clang clang went the sovereigns. Chavtastic. The highlight and the lowlight was the brilliant Stealth (above) which rockets you off at 80 mph in 2 seconds to fling you over the loop. Marvelous you might assume except it suffered a "technical fault" which meant instead of going over the loop, it hovered precariously at the top, then rolled backwards rather jerkily to stop just before where it started. There were screams, vomit and yes, piddle. Only 1 of which came from me :P Ok, on with the X Factor wrap up and highlights of the week....

THE X FACTOR:

God, you think Michael Jackson week would be a real chance for the acts to actually put on a performance. You thought wrong. It was possibly the most sinfully boring show of the X Factor ever. 9 ballads, 1 incredibly gaudy and ill advised rock number (druggie Rachel who must have been high to pick Dirty Diana) and a safe as a seat belt, by the numbers dance routine (JLS). It's the oldest (Daniel - still huge, and still got me wondering what the Brookstein he is doing there) and youngest (Yorkshire Pud boy with goddawful hair and unforgiveable clothes styling) who are way out of their depth and don't deserve to be there in the slightest. Even last week's good acts (Alexandra - given a carbon copy version of I'll Be There Mariah style to sing; and Laura murdering the first half of something so dull I can't even recall what) had totally lost their shine, though to be fair sounded way better than most. Austin Drag-Artist pretended he had come up with the David Cook version of Billie Jean until Louis Walsh outed him. Girlband (please read DanUK's rather entertaining view on the first few minutes of the show!) upped the vomit factor with Heal The World saying they chose the song because it has a beautiful sentiment. Ruth had the wind machine on again, prompting Darren to wonder if she gets particularly sweaty and needs additional cooling down? The highlights were a lovely restrained version of She's Out Of My Life by lovely Scott (hope they haven't stripped the funfactor from him now though) and a stunning version of Man In The Mirror by barefoot Diana (even if it is remarkably similar to the Natalie Gauci version on Australian Idol). God I am positively dreading Ray Quinn, er, I mean Big Band week next week.... bring on Abba week I say!

WEEKLY ROUND-UP:

• Girls Aloud appeared on the X-Factor to sing their infernally catchy (but with crap remixes and an even worse upcoming album sleeve) single The Promise. It was all very nice, though frankly the evil one (Cheryl) seemed to be trying far too hard, and sounded a bit ropey. Sarah looked hammered as usual, Nicola sounded amazing and I keep forgetting Kimberley exists. Still my number one single though. Oh! And Dannii (who i swear is drunk through most of the live shows) has a brilliant look of disdain on her face (she is probably agreeing with Mike PTA's view of Cheryl) on her face at 1m53s...
• The third in the Wicked series by Gregory Maguire (A Lion Among Men) is taking me a surprising amount of effort to get into. Perhaps the sheer brilliance of the first two books had my expectations set a little too high, and this one just hasn't grabbed me as instantly. I shall of course remain with it. I am nothing if not, if not loyal...
• There is a plethora of perky pop around at the moment. Of course Britannia High finally starts next Sunday, and tonight is the final live performance of Hairspray: The School Musical which has been mightily entertaining on Sky One (check out the video for You Can't Stop To Breathe as i call it. I mean have you ever tried singing along?!) And I finally heard the full length Same Difference single and i can reveal that it is as amazing as the clip makes out it will be with a goose pimply key change that will have extra lights and fireworks when performed live to enhance the brilliance of going up a note. Stirling.
• Sugababes and Pink albums leaked this week and both are quite good indeed. I expect that Adem, Aaron and XO will have some wise words about one or both of the sets at sometime in the near future?!
• Finally, there are a number of great new christmas albums (Kristin Chenowith, Sixpence None The Richer, Faith Hill) and songs (Lenka!) out there already, but i shall be saving my reviews of them until the 30 days of Christmas posts start to pop up from 25th November 2008. You have been duly warned...

TOP 21 SONGS OF THE WEEK:

21 ~ Annie, My Love is Better
20 ~ The Feeling, Join With Us
19 ~ Leon Jackson, Don't Call This Love
18 ~ William Young, Changes
17 ~ Rongedal, Hello Euphoria
16 ~ Infernal, Whenever You Need Me
15 ~ Take That, The Greatest Day (NE)
14 ~ Alphabeat, What is Happening?
13 ~ Miley Cyrus, Driveway
12 ~ Lenka, The Show
11 ~ Britannia High, Start of Something (NE/Video)
10 ~ Darin, Breathing Your Love
09 ~ Alesha Dixon, Boy Does Nothing
08 ~ Regina Spektor, You Don't Know Me
07 ~ McFly, Lies
06 ~ Pink, So What
05 ~ Jason Mraz, Make It Mine
04 ~ Sugababes, Girls
03 ~ Marit Larsen, If A Song Could Get Me You
02 ~ The Killers, Human
01 ~ Girls Aloud, The Promise (3 weeks)