Irish makes the world go round

In breaking news, the family of Marcia Hines has appealed to the public to help them find their matriarch. Mother Hines - as she is known to her immediate family - who was recently placed in a retirement village - disappeared from her room early Sunday. Fellow resident Ita Buttrose confided to this reporter that she was “completely confused as to how (Hines) managed it” as the escapee’s family had confiscated all her worldy belongings, leaving her with only a pair of kitten motif pajama’s, a wig stand and some night cream. It was later revealed that the pink curtains from Ms Hines room had been ripped to shreds and that every doily on the premise was missing. Anyone seeing Marcia is asked to humour her about her latest CD, keep her away from sharp implements, convince her to sing you a tune and to quietly call 000 whilst she’s warming her vocal cords.

Girlfriend looked scary last night, is all I’m saying . . .

Bobby joins the ever growing list of Idol’s on Fosse’s Dead To Me List by singing ‘Rhiannon’ by Fleetwood Mac and mangling the living fuck out of it. He starts high, realizes he’s out of his depth and immediately plunges the second line of the song by approximately two and three quarter octaves. It sounds rough and is really offputting. But not as offputting as the attempted falsetto. He sounds really nasal and struggles to get halfway up the note and basically butchers it, John Wayne Gacy style. I’m just waiting for Bobby to start collecting people’s heads and painting those sad clown pictures. The only thing I appreciate about the performance is his guitar playing – I will never EVER diss someone for being able to play an instrument. Two years of guitar lessons, people and the only song I can play is Walking On Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. Mark loved that he played the signature guitar riff from the original but thinks the Bobby ‘thing’ is in danger of becoming predictable. I think Bobby’s basically just a caricature of himself at this point and hope that his Tuesday night performance of an original song is better. Way better. Mark is also worried that Bobby is in a battle with himself. I immediately flash to Thunderdome and chant ‘Two Bobby’s enter. One Bobby leaves’. The housemates glance worriedly at me. Fosse is aware that it is around about now in the Idol Journey where I completely lose my mind. Mother Hines and her doilies wax poetic about loving what she does and loving that he does it so well. Is she . . .making less sense than normal? And is that even possible? Blame the outfit. Kyle makes a ‘Bobby’s going to blow me’ remark that handily deflects from him having to give any actual critique, into Kyle and Tamara are engaged and ooh look!! I found a heaping pile of I Don’t Give A Rats Ass. Irish is awesome.

Dean is singing Ryan CabreICan’tSpellHisNameButHeDatedAVeronicarerera’s ‘All The Way Down’ and I pre-emptively don’t think this is going to suck. And it doesn’t. It’s not going to change the world or anything but it’s still pretty good when compared to other Dean performances. On the whole, Dean has left the cheesy aspects of his performances behind and I, for one, am exceedingly grateful. It’s a little bland but the vocals are okay and there are no backflips. He CalleaPoints at the end just because he knows Fosse’s blood pressure has been too low today. Mother Hines rests a lamp on her Neck Doily and loves Dean lots. Mark calls it a crackerjack performance, praising Dean’s stage management and gives him a completely wasted bullshit high fiving This Is The Contestant I Want To Win touchdown. I already know Irish is a god, so I choose to call this Mark warming up. Kyle listens to me and just shuts up. Oh, and he agrees with Mark. Whatever.

I’m willing to bet hard earned cashola that Chris and Courtney Murphy didn’t play punchbuggy when they were kids on long road trips, I’d say they played Lets Be John and Paul and fought bitterly over who got to be Paul – which makes me wonder if they have another brother who was George and if they made the family dog be Ringo. Because both boys love them some McCartney. Listening to Chris soulfully emote (yes, I know that’s not the correct usage of that word) Paul McCartney’s lovesong ‘No More Lonely Nights’ at us, I note to Fosse that his voice actually sounds a bit like McCartney’s. He has however, chosen a disappointing song. What? He couldn’t Live And Let Die at us? And I would love to hear about Jojo being a man who thought he was a woman or something. I don’t know. Just get back to where you once belonged. While it is nice that he has mixed it up and given us a ballad, this wasn’t the one to pick and I recommend he speak to My Irish about ballad song choice brilliance (are we noting a theme yet?) Mark kvetches about his git-tar being slightly out of tune, then calls him beautiful and consistently excellent, THEN 180’s on Chris, saying Dean is a cold stone star and that Chris is lagging behind the competition. Say what? Y’all have slathered this boy with love, flowers and puppies all season and you turn on him now? Mother Hines smiles from behind her lace and frippery and thanks the band. Kyle calls it a slightly boring grandma sounding piece of crap. Sir Paul sends a lawyer over from London with a cease and desist order, a copy of his rocking bank statement and a photo of him getting his OBE from the Queen with a yellow post it note telling him to ‘Kindly shove it, love and kisses Sir Paul’.

Jessica loves Brandy. The singer, not the drink. Although maybe also, we don’t know. Either way, she’s doing the only song I’ve ever heard of Brandy’s, which is ‘Have You Ever’ and whilst I loved this to start with, a second hearing highlights all the flaws in Jess’s voice during this one. She blends nicely with the backup singers but when they drop off and she starts Trilling For Africa, it is disappointingly shrewish sounding. Slightly screechy in the high bits. She’s giving it her all, and I hope that its just her voice is still scratchy. I pop some honey and lemon in an express post envelope for her and then worry if that’s stalkerish . . . Oh, who cares, she’s adorable and I still think every house should have one. Mother Hines briefly resurfaces from behind the candyfloss confection jacket that threatens to put me in a sugar shock coma every time she’s on the screen to call Jess one of the most natural, blessed singers she’s ever heard. Mark acknowledges that Jess is the first contestant to perform without stringėd wooden thing and calls her voice her instrument. Kyle praises her look (Fosse wants her shoes, I think they’re too busy) and says she made him forget the other performers and their instruments.

Sidebar : Y’all may want to just skip the blathering, sycophantic bit that follows. You have been warned.

Seriously? I have to watch Irish make sweet sweet love to Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’ three times before I can shake off the delightfully warm toasty feeling I get from hearing him NAIL that song and actually write something comprehensible that isn’t just the written equivalent of me swooning. Damien starts off a cappella and pitches it perfectly. His vocals are brilliant, the arrangement is dope and I am head over heels in love, I am a smitten fucking kitten. He is incredibly good. I acknowledge to Fosse in an attempt to be as honest as possible, that I am a sucker for a pair of soulful eyes and a guitar on a boy, so basically I am helpless and at the mercy of my uterus. His voice is a gorgeous melange of Chris Martin, Jeff Buckley and Isaak himself. Fuck. Please be advised that I can no longer be trusted to be in any way considered even vaguely impartial when it comes to this man. I am besotted. Mark welcomes him back, applauds the arrangement, calls it beautiful and gives him a touchdown. You bet your sweet fucking ass you do Holden, because I would have had to hunt you down if you hadn’t. Mother Hines Aesop’s at him about not getting angry, just getting even. Kyle asks him to compare last weeks Disco to this weeks performance and Irish doesn’t know where to start – I suggest my bedroom and mentally chant my address at the tv screen (he’s married, he’s married, he’s married). Kyle calls it so perfect, its ridiculous. I sigh and rewind the tape again.

Lisa is doing some Coldplay song. I just find Coldplay a wee bit lyrically bland. Feel free to cast as many stones as you want, Coldplay fans. Lisa's fingering is excellent (shut up, on her guitar, perves) and she looks in her element, it’s the most comfortable she has appeared to be, but there is still the slight sense of gangly awkward teenager that you just don’t get with Jess. And I guess on one hand, that’s great because you don’t want everyone in the music industry to be the same - god we’d be stuck with a billion Britney’s - but on the other hand, she kind of makes my chest ache a little because I am so worried about her getting totally and utterly screwed over by some hideous, demonic, soul sucking industry type, you know? Anyway, she does her usual Lisa thing, looks sideways at the camera, awkwardly smiles, sings interestingly flatly, but by GOD I am bored. It is totally Music To Try And Kill Yourself By. Scene : our antihero has injected himself with smack in an attempt to drown out the wailing of the post apocalyptic neo nazi nine to five desk job he’s had to get to support his wife and young child and its gotten too too much and he’s sorry but he needs it to stop and the music swells as he starts to drift away and the light beckons him but his wife has called the fire department and they bust in the bathroom door just as he finishes talking to his childhood sweetheart who died of consumption at sixteen and who has told him to be brave and go back and face the world because its not his time to die and he is saved and hasn’t remotely given himself brain or organ damage because it’s The Movies. End scene. Roll credits. (as suggested by the good people at Fussy Fosse Films Incorporated). Mark could have listened to that for another hour and a half – Mark, if you need a nap, take one. He says some people find her boring, others beautiful and that he is smack dab on the beauty side and pimps some more for her to stay so we can hear her original stuff. Mother Hines was hypnotised by Lisa’s guitar back in Albury - which still doesn’t explain her outfit – and then apologises to Lisa for having to go through so much to get here. Here? So much? Marcia, do you mean you’re sorry she had to perform JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE to get to the week where she could play her fucking guitar? How about next season you and Mark just save us the fucking bother of watching and wasting our money on votes and next time you get someone like her, just pull them out of the comp until it’s the week you think they’ll shine, mmkay? Shut up, Marcia. Kyle says something, but honestly I was so busy scribbling hateful remarks about Marcia that I don’t have the first clue what he said. But Irish makes me happy.

Ricky wants to go home. There can be no other reason for him to sing a Robbie Williams tune. No other. He’s doing ‘Feel’ and it is too . . . shiny. Too new looking. Too well enunciated. There isn’t any grit to it, no grunge. I’m not asking him to carbon copy Robbie, but if you’re going to do Robbie, either be his clone or make it your OWN. Ricky kind of does neither. He is a little shouty. He is wearing his best leather jacket and two day stubble but the song is too low for him and this is the worst singing he’s done. I thought this might be the last week for Ricky and I think I may actually be right for once. Mark has his face dialled to Not Happy and he lets Ricky know in no uncertain terms that He. Hates. Him. Mother Hines tells Mark he needs a time out and sends him to naughty corner with no dessert. Kyle spins a fantastical tale of being Best Friends Forever with Robbie Williams, proving Kyle lives in a world where I don’t think at all that Robbie Williams would beat the living tar out of Kyle for so much as making eye contact. Kyle says good friend Robbie would have laughed himself silly at that. I know something else Robbie would probably laugh at, Kyle. Care to take a guess at what that might be?? Schmuck. Kyle calls it Ricky’s worst performance of the comp. I still think it was better than Bobby but obviously not as good as Irish.

I don’t honestly think it could possibly be anyone else tonight but Ricky who goes. He’ll have his pissed off face on, which is always fun. Joining him in the bottom three should be Bobby and one of the girls. Anyone basically, so long as it isn’t – and feel free to say it with me, here – Irish.

TallulahBelle out.