Talent shows are sources of discontent

It's bad - by which we mean amusing - enough that The X Factor result has already been called into question by claims that the phone system collapsed allowing Leon Jackson to edge out Leland Palmer (Rhydian Roberts) and claim the right to ruin the Christmas charts. Ofcom is looking into it - although, surely anyone stupid enough to trust ITV to run a properly managed phone-vote after the year they've had probably deserves to be fleeced - and some Welsh radio stations are going to boycott Jackson's single until there's a recount.

A gathering conspiracy base is suggesting that Welsh voters were more likely to encounter an engaged tone than voters elsewhere, doing down the boy from the valleys. Talkback Thames have denied any such thing would have happened, pledging that, erm, actually, they're just incapable of putting a system in place which would count all the votes.

Meanwhile, in America, Light of Doom are claiming they've been kicked off The Next Great American Band because the organisers more-or-less bounced them in to having big drums on a cover version of We Will Rock You. They don't seem to have thought that, perhaps, the problem would be covering Queen rather than the nature of the cover.

Actually, they have thought of that, claiming they didn't want to do it in the first place. It's a pity, actually: a bunch of guys who are happy to be pushed around so much would have been a delight for the major labels to mould.