As planned I've just watched the grand final of the first series of Pop Idol from February 2002 where back then it was the essential event of the TV calendar.
However it looked at lot more normal than any episode of the X Factor as for a start the programme began straight with the opening titles without a ridiculous overblown
pre-titles VT with Peter Dixon's voice accompanied by "O Fortuna".
Finallists Will and Gareth had been fighting all week on their very own "Battle Buses" which were specially designed luxury buses with the contestants emblazoned onto them, where the inside contained DVDs, sofas, and plenty of other top of the range products.
In the show itself both the boys performed the two songs featured on the double A-side single that would be released by the winner which were the toe curling "Evergreen" originally written for Westlife, and "Anything Is Possible" which was composed by top songwriter Cathy Dennis.
Many criticised the song choices as they appeared to be aimed towards Gareth but thankfully, the majority of stuff subsequently released by Will (or "William" as the on screen astons had written) was nowhere near as bad.
The programme also included the judges getting their own back on hosts Ant & Dec who had ripped the piss out of them in sketches throughout the series. This involved a rather toe curling sketch with Neil Fox and Simon Cowell dressed up as the Geordie pair and I can't imagine Simon ever doing anything like that again.
The long gap of silence before Ant announced the winner was nowhere near as long as you'd get on this sort of show nowadays although at the time I was on "tenterhooks" and did cheer when it was Will who had won the series.
This was followed by a reprise of "Evergreen" where at the end, not just the final 10 but the final 50 joined Will on stage included Geordie train driver Aaron, future Eurovision competitor Jessica Garlick and even Rik Waller showed up.
I must have seen the clip of Ant announcing Will as the winner more times than The Daily Mail have moaned when someone swears on television.
Unsurprisingly I've only seen Michelle's victory in Series 2 once although I didn't see the live final itself mainly because we were driving up to the Holiday House for Christmas after I'd finished work at ASDA that Saturday.
To be fair though I lost interest in the series by the time they reached the live shows mainly becuase I'd just started my HND Media Course at college and the changes and demanding assignments made me feel very depressed up to the end of 2003.
I'm fearing 2009 could end in a very similar situation although this time, there won't be any light at the end of the tunnel.
Immediately after the final the tape had the opening to the new series of "Michael Barrymore's My Kind Of Music" which was meant to be his comeback show after the swimming pool incident in April 2001.
It wasn't his first appearance on television however as he'd been interviewed by Martin Bashir on ITV's "Tonight" in November 2001.
I can remember the day after it was on TV, when Jonathan Ross was guesting on Christian O'Connell's breakfast show on XFM and said that they cut out part of the interview where he went "Awight! Am I forgiven?".
By September that year when the inquest revealed Barrymore's carelessness to be entirely responsible for Stuart Lubbock's death, ITV pulled the plug on his shows and it was a rather sad end to the professional entertaining career of Michael.
And the appearance on Big Brother in 2006 wouldn't really fit into the above sentence.
As for tonight I plan to make a start on dubbing my audio tapes in M-Block until 9pm where I'll be heading down the Undercroft for Happy Mondaze.
Maybe I'll go easy on the drinks this week although on Saturday I'll be attending and DJing at bar girl Sarah's birthday do which should be a good laugh as you'd expect.
Right now I'm having a listen to Danny Robs do his stuff on Preloaded where for some reason he's still doing his Christmas Cracker competition.
He could still do the game itself with a different name and a different bit of music for the 30 second countdown itself and it would be entertaining without sounding ridiculous.
Let's hope he faces the expected consequences for not taking your Christmas decorations down.
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