I’m disturbed people. Very disturbed. It seems you see Ireland is getting a bad run of it lately.
As a nation of (supposed) singers and scholars, we seem to be letting ourselves down on a huge scale these days
And by that I mean that we have, to our eternal national shame, inflicted the walking parody that is John and Edward on the viewing public.
It was bad enough when we came up with the concept that was B*witched (really dodgy 90s girl group, for those who have locked that particular memory in the dark recesses of their mind) and put that bloody turkey through for the Eurovision. As if that weren’t enough to eternally mortify us as a nation and question the very foundations on which our cultural heritage stands we just had to push it that one, sad, unbelievable step further and let John and Edward out of the country and on to the public stage.
I’d like to say that they are probably nice boys who never did anyone any harm - but that could not be further from the truth.
They have harmed every one of us - because each and every Saturday night, internet forums, Twitter and Facebook go into overdrive with utter indignation that these two eejits have been allowed airtime on perhaps the highest rated show on television at the moment.
And of course judge Louis Walsh gets the blame because he is Irish (and he put them through) and there are shouts of favouritism a plenty. I can guarantee if John and Edward (who I do have nicknames for but which cannot be repeated in a family newspaper) were from the South of lovely England, Louis wouldn’t have wanted to know and would have laughed them off the stage with the rest of us.
So, the result of their ongoing “success” (and believe me I do use that word very loosely) is that we are damned by association. If they are the very best that this country has to offer in terms of singing talent you can only imagination - with a sickening sense of dread and humiliation - just how bad the worst we had to offer would be.
It is not only their serious lack of talent that has shamed us so, but their staggeringly overinflated sense of self importance. These are two young men who think the world owes them a living. They truly believe that they are talented - that they can sing and dance and perform on a world stage along with the best of them.
Their mammy has obviously never done them the very real favour of telling them to catch themselves on and concentrate on getting a day job (or at the very least not getting a thump for being perhaps two of the most annoying creatures on the planet).
You would have thought at the very least their mammy would have sorted out their hair. Which again brings me to the point that the UK’s viewing public - by dint of X-Factor and nothing else - now must believe we are all walking around this island with hairdos which make us look like demented Tellytubbies but for this, I also point the finger most firmly at Eoghan Quigg. Him and his £15 ‘Quiggy’ cut did us no favours, make no mistake.
Now I know the Xfactor is supposed to really be no more than a bit of craic, and that every year we know to expect one or two jokers in the pack. But one has to wonder why these jokers need to be Irish?
These baffoons may have the comedy factor but that is at odds with that the competition is supposed to be about - and that is finding real musical talent. I’m sure that John and Edward don’t consider themselves the big joke everyone else does - I’m sure they are skating along on their own wee planet congratulating themselves on making it to week three. I’m sure they were deeply proud of their absolutely cringe-inducing performance of ‘Oops I did it Again’ on Saturday night - complete with over-acted Titanic moment. It is perhaps unfair that at the age of 18 these youngsters are being thrown to the wolves like this - but then that would require me to feel sorry for them. And believe me, I don’t.
To me, and many, many others, the joke is just simply not funny. It never was. It was mildly amusing in a “look-at-the-state-of-that” way, but that was all.
These young men should have more self awareness. They should listen to themselves, look at themselves and catch themselves on.
And then they should do the exceptionally honourable thing by bowing out of the XFactor, signing up for a panto somewhere close to home and leaving the rest of us to get on with trying to save our reputations.
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