Do you have the X Factor? No but I do have a massive wang.

The Inbetweeners Series Three 8/10
The X Factor 6/10

This week’s TV digest will focus on some nobs acting like pricks and some dicks singing in front of a panel of golden wangs. In honour of one (or both) of these programs it may also contain one or two phallic references.

So let us get started with the Inbetweeners. For those of you who don’t know the Inbetweeners follows some ‘typical’ teenage boys (typical in that they are colossal wankers) and is written by at least one of the brains that brought us ‘Flight of the Conchords.’ Will, a socially awkward geek has to transfer from a private school to the local comprehensive to complete his A-levels. There he is befriended by three misfits: lovable but easily led Simon, brash and boastful Jay and Neil who is as thick as two short planktons. Series Three finds the quartet in the upper sixth and still pre-occupied by the holy trinity of booze, parties and ‘clunge’ (a new word for me but one that apparently refers to a vagina as in the phrase “Balls deep in clunge.”)

I am so ashamed that I like this program that was I to be watching it in your presence I wouldn’t laugh, quite the opposite. I would dig my nails (specially grown for the occasion, you didn’t just drop in) into my thighs and think of Gordon Brown speaking on fiscal prudence instead of letting you know which nob joke or teenage sexual fallacy I found so amusing. I have to admit that the show does parallel some of my school experience (although the characters do seem to be a little old for some of their behaviour) I certainly met a Neil and the Jay character can be found in all schools private or comprehensive. In honour of Jay I will leave this section with my top three sex boasts that I remember hearing at school:

3. “Yeah we do all sorts, last night she tit wanked in front of me.” It turned out he believed a ‘tit wank’ was when a girl QUOTE: “Wanks her nipple till milk comes out.”
2. I had sex at the top of the Eiffel Tower with a French girl I met in the lift. I don’t have her name or number because she didn’t speak English.
1. I broke my wrist when I was fingering a bird on the bus and it hit a bump.

Now that we have dealt with that filth let us move on to the glitter infused, self-congratulatory public stooge fest that is the X Factor.

The X Factor is currently in that awkward phase of the program where most of the nutters have been weeded out but the field still stinks of mediocrity. Few of us in the public have much invested in any of the acts and at this point we can all pick out at least five contestants who will be making their way to the openings of grim shopping centres over the next five weeks or so. Yet we watch. This weekend’s shows offered the following highlights:

• The Arctic Monkey’s arrangement of ‘Diamonds are Forever’ being dragged out from somewhere.
• Katie singing a song from the jungle book.
• Rebecca Fergusson appearing with what appeared to be her abscess twin attached to her hip.

I would like to comment on one final thing, the length of the program. Where the hell is all the extra content coming from? The format certainly hasn’t changed. I have a theory; let us look at the Cream egg: 1.They are definitely getting smaller each year. 2. You can’t destroy or create energy. Conclusion: that bastard Simon Cowell is shrinking our cream eggs and using the left over energy to make the X factor longer than ever.

Tut tut Simon Tut tut.