Advent Anthems: 18

Last night I finally watched Fifteen Million Merits, the second installment of Charlie Brooker's wonderfully depressing series of dystopias. I was very glad I recorded it, because if I had watched it straight after the X-Factor final, I would have been up all night worrying that Little Mix had been sold into porn-slavery. Luckily that never happens in pop.

Anyway, it was rather excellent, with added backstage-authenticity presumably provided by co-writer and Person In her Own Right Konnie Huq.

But even MORE excitingly, the Huq-Brooker collaboration has extended to making babies! Can you imagine??! I suppose this child will be an expert at video-games and making Tracy Islands.

It's hard to think of appropriate captions when you think of Charlie Brooker.

Luckily this is the right time of year for baby-themed songs. I was going to make you listen to the Lion King version of When a Child is Born sung by Il Divo, but I hurled all over my keyboard, so we'll make do with this. (You clicked the link, didn't you? Idiot.)

Dylan sung by Maria Muldaur. (If you're pious, you can imagine Mary singing it in the stable.)



There’ll be a time I hear tell
When all will be well
When God and man will be reconciled
But until men lose their chains
And righteousness reigns
Lord, protect my child.

Advent Anthems 12: Sex, Cannabis and Cake Edition

After an exhausting weekend, with an ad-to-minute-of-actual-television ratio of about 3:1, Little Mix (aka Tulisa's "Little Moofins") were crowned champions of pop, beating Bruno Mars impersonator Marcus through Girl Power, Tears and Not Being As Thin As You'd Expect.

Really, they are inspirational young women. Did you know that they are the first group of girls to ever achieve anything? And that Jesy's seriousface is the best one in the business?

Teenaged girls cry A LOT.

Little Mix and Marcus got the chance to sing Christmas songs for their supper, but my highlight (apart from Leona Lewis' frankly bizarre cover of a Nine Inch Nails song) was the tremendously over-lusted-after Michael Bublé slurring his way through 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' like your drunk big brother who thinks he's super-sexy embarrassing you in front of your friends on Christmas Eve.



Fun fact: Bublé's ex-girlfriend (allegedly) described him as a "self-obsessed jerk" who craves "sex, cannabis and cake". She told News of the World (oh how I miss it) that "Michael saw himself as a real ladies' man who could schmooze any women into bed, and had done on tours. He told me I was too uptight and needed to loosen up.

"Many times he told me, 'I have the perfect, best-looking penis.'

"He bragged about how it gave the ultimate pleasure to women. I just ignored him. But he was good in bed."

Advent Anthems: 5

Assuming you watched Ms. Kelly Rowland 'putting it down' (i.e. disappointingly not singing 'Dilemma') on the X-Factor last night, and you also told all your friends you were watching Charlie Brooker's new show about pig sex on C4 because you're that sort of Guardian reader, but you actually watched Beyoncé being incredibly hot on ITV because you secretly read the Mail, you will thank me for reminding you of the glory days of Kelly, Bey and the Other One.

Well, you won't thank me, because this is literally the crassest Christmas song ever recorded. I think it's called 8 Days of Christmas because of Hanukkah (that's what Wikipedia says anyway, and I am nothing if not thorough in my research). Don't ask me, I'm not some sort of prosperity-gospel-promoting R&B star.

Though if I was, I might be responsible for "ruining Christmas" like Beyoncé. See what happens? You record a capitalism-themed Christmas song in 2000, and by 2011 you're stealing video games from Joe the Plumber. It's like a parable about the real meaning of the baby Jesus.

Anyway, "enjoy".

Admittedly, they strip, but it's witty, like a quip...

I was very excited to see so much female empowerment on display at the X Factor Final.

Screw the Daily Mail! Burlesque is totally ironic.

It's confusing though. I can't decide whether to be liberated by wearing no trousers, or by being as self-deprecatingly shy as Rebecca "Don't look at me" Ferguson. The two options seem to be mutually exclusive.

How to get into the final: don't be as gobby as Cher Lloyd.

Anyway, congratulations must go to Matt Cardle, who won the competition, and, it seems, a cat.

Or possibly many cats? I can't quite seem to lipread exactly what Harry from One Direction is saying to him here.




Remember Matt, no matter how famous your Christmas no.2 makes you, a pussy is for life, not just the festive season.

Why you should get drunk, eat as many mince pies as you can and snog someone at your office party...

I just read reallyquitetired’s post “adventageous” and the worthy sentiment of a Lenten approach to the season of goodwill. He’s right of course, Christians celebrated a good 1500 years of fasting and abstinence before our jolly pre-Christmas Christmas. And even in our judgement-averse culture RQT’s call for justice must strike some harmonic chord.