11:25am Monday 14th December 2009
GEORDIE Joe McElderry has achieved every young man’s dream. He got to bury his face on Cheryl Cole’s shoulder.
Oh yes, and he won The X Factor too.
The wait to find out if he’d made the final two became too much for the 18-year-old performing arts student from South Shields in Saturday’s show. He found mentor Cheryl’s shoulder to cry on and a comforting pat on his head.
Of course, he did get through to face Olly Murs, from Essex, in last night’s final – and won, looking shell-shocked when he was announced the winner.
Stacey Solomon had to settle for third place, but seemed happy enough. “I came third,” she babbled in one of her more coherent comments.
For once, the best man did win. No more being a singing waiter at the Customs House, in South Shields, for Joe now he has a £1m recording contract and a potential Christmas number one with The Climb, his debut single released this week.
It’s been quite a weekend for him – five songs, including a duet with his mum’s idol George Michael, and the biggest TV talent prize available. All that and singing with Sir Paul McCartney.
It couldn’t, everyone keeps telling us, have happened to a nicer chap (that’s Joe, not Sir Paul).
The judges spoke of how nice and humble Joe was. None of that cockiness that afflicted others (you know who you are, Danyl). Joe was still thanking people for supporting him to the end.
He kept smiling until that incident with Cheryl’s shoulder. Headlines the next day reported that the chart-topping Girls Aloud singer wanted to have a baby.
Why doesn’t she just adopt Joe?
As she and Simon Cowell watched Joe sing The Climb one more time, there was a shot of them looking just like proud parents.
Cheryl told her young singing protege on Saturday that “if there is any justice in the world you have to be in the final tomorrow”.
FUNNILY enough, head judge Len Goodman was chuntering about justice too as Strictly Come Dancing reached the semi-finals.
His comment was directed to Ricky Whittle. “If you’re not in the final, there is no justice,” said Len to the Hollyoaks actor and his professional partner, Natalie Lowe.
For Ricky is a hit with the judges, but not so much with the public. Their votes, or rather lack of them, have put him in the dance-off twice.
BBC Breakfast sports reporter Chris Hollins and his barely-covered partner Ola Jordan, on the other hand, are very popular with the viewers’ votes keeping them in the competition despite Hollins not being the best dancer.
So the Strictly producers changed the rules, rather like they did last year so Tom Chambers would get through to the final (which he won).
In the semi-final, the judges didn’t have the final say, leaving the two finalists to be decided by a combination of judges’ marks and phone votes.
Chris and Ola ended up bottom of the leader board but public votes put them through to the final. Ricky and Natalie, top of the leader board, got through too.
The pair who suffered were The Bill’s Ali Bastian and partner Brian Fortuna.
Un-Fortuna-tely they were caught in the middle of the Chris v Ricky dual. Despite being the only couple to get the perfect score from the judges – five tens for their American Smooth on Saturday – they were knocked out once everything had been added up. Never mind. Ali didn’t go away empty-handed. She and Fortuna have become an item off the dancefloor.
Here’s to the very entertaining Chris and Ola taking home the Strictly glitterball.
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