Gentleman Jim

All the newspaper criticism is by journalists in comfortable armchairs who have only ever seen the X-Factor on their TV screen. I’ve been in: I’ve stood on the cross. Twice. The first was at Man U’s Old Trafford football ground where I got a yellow ‘card’ and then a red ‘card’. Not for twice incurring the indignation of a referee, but a yellow pass for pleasing the first producers, then a red for pleasing the second. ’Oh, how nice!’ said a lady producer looking at me on a screen at my saying ’I'm going to sing Some Enchanted Evening.’ I did: and they did, give me the red pass that got me onto the first cross in front of Louis Walsh, Danii Minogue, Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowell. I knew nothing then. Not even that the vocal chords are the first and worst to be affected by dehydration.

During all day of waiting, interviews, and talking in front of cameras, I never partook, even though I had wondered why (it was thoughtfull generosity) the organisers had stacked hundreds of bottles of water about the waiting room. Ah, me!

I didn’t even have the average veiwer’s general knowledge of the X-Factor. Louie Walsh, somebody told me when I asked. And Dermot O’Leary. This was to get through to Bootcamp!

Semi-rigid with nerves and fear, I moved out from the curtain and found myself walking straight towards Louie Walsh, as if into an engineering interview. Louie was not looking for purposeful resolve, somebody to trust with a multimillion pound project; he was looking for likeability. ‘No.’ I heard him say. The two girls had their heads together, smiling at something I was sure they were cooking up. Behind them the audience in darkness I could not see and mercifully forgot. Simon; eye-contact, straight on, interested: ‘What’s your name? What you going to sing? A nod: ‘Ready when you are.’

At ‘Once you have found her . . .’ I linked into mine the arm of an imaginary girI beside me. At ’Never let her go!’ my hand holding hers, I raised both our arms slowly reaching their height as I reached the E.

‘No.’ said Louie. Simon said: ‘Is that what you do? Raise your arm and somebody elses?’ He was sitting slightly sideways to me, as if also to view the others. ‘Yes. I feel I should act the song.’ I explained. ’You’ve got a YES from me.’ said Simon, and he looked expectantly at the two girls. ’No.’ said both, similtaneously, shaking their heads. Louie seemed to be looking keenly at me, but my concentration was on the two girls. ‘Will you reconsider?’ I said. ‘Reconsider?’ repeated Danii. ‘Why should we?’ asked Cheryl. I glanced at Simon. I felt he was with me. I said: ‘Dickens left behind his writings. Michael Angelo left his paintings on the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel. You will leave behind the poeple you discover. If you want to hear what one of your eighteen-year-olds will sound like when he is my age, provided he is good and works hard, put me through. ‘That’s the best reason you’ll ever hear for converting two No’s into Yes’s.’ announced Simon. Louie spoke. ‘What’s the most difficuilt you find about singing?’ ‘I’d find it hard to learn a song that has no melody.’ ‘What song, for example?’ ‘Anything sung by Limp Biscuit.’ Louie looked pleased and appeared to glance down at something on the console they were sitting at.

Until that afternoon I’d never heard of Limp Biscuit, But that’s another story.

‘Sing something by Limp Buiscuit.’ challenged Louie. Oh, if only I’d heard them! I can mimic, and I’m sure I’d have made sounds that would have pleased him. But I had to say that I’d love to but I’ve never heard of Limp Biscuit until that day. ‘Well,’ said Simon. ‘You’ve got three Yes’s.’

Time for me to go. I smiled, bowed and turned on the cross and had taken just a couple of paces when I heard, as if making up for the fun they’d had with me, the lovely melodious sound of the girls voices in unison: ‘Goodbye, Jim!’

Quelling the impulse to turn, throw up my arms in a grateful, distant embrace, throw kisses, bow to each of the men, Instead, what did I do! I kept by back to them and did a little jump and sidekick and said to myself You’ve done the wrong thing, kept on walking until out of sight round the curtain.

Dermot O’leary’s congratulatory hug was somewhat restrained, but then he rarely congratulates contestants my age and his height. He’s quite a muscular guy. I made the best cheerful show that I could, then grasped my wife, lifted her off her feet and swung her round. To the cameras we walked happily down the corridor and out the door, but I had the feeling that I’d blown Bootcamp already, though it was not until a few weeks time.

‘Oh! Not so good, eh!’ Holly Willoughby’s comment before the camera puzzled and at the same time firmed my doubt. Not knowing whether she meant my singing or my inexusable and stupid-bordering-on-rude sidekick. What is the studio, media, entertainment equivalent of streetwise? Well, that’s what I lacked. Before, Holly had been bright, bubbly, lovely, positive; had even said I was ‘always charming’. Now there seemed to be a shadow over our interview on the sofa. She seemed even to distance herself, perhaps as a signal to the cameraman.

Which profoundly saddend me, and for which I could not blame her.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 30th, 2011 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Life, x-factor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.