Ex-Factor

This blog, as you may have gathered, is not about anything in particular. I just write about stuff that catches my attention, generally amuses or appals me. Sometimes it’s a bit tricky to find a decent subject on which to release my evident cynicism but this week I have been thrown a lifeline, this week it’s easy thanks to one Shayne Ward, or, rather, his fans.

Shayne, you may remember (or possibly wish to forget) won a television series called The X Factor a few years ago. He won by virtue of the fact that he can hold a tune and was fairly easy on the eye – seemingly all that is required on such projects, the winner merely being cast as a pawn to be manipulated in the game of moneymaking that motivates the people behind such broadcasting activities; free to be discarded once the last soulless pennies have been squeezed from their monotonous vocal chords.

You’ve probably not given Mr Ward much thought over the last two years, the marketing machine that plays him like a puppet not having infiltrated every possible media outlet for a while by virtue of the fact that he hasn’t released an album over that time. OK, but so what, right? Who cares? Well some people do, apparently, because The Shayne Ward Fan Club (they even get capital letters) have finally had enough of waiting and have taken to the streets in protest. They blame his record company, Syco (owned, perhaps not surprisingly, by Simon Cowell), for delaying the release and they’re not happy.

"We want the album, we want it now!" they chanted whilst displaying banners and placards bearing their hero’s image. "We, the fans, want a new album, we want a new tour and we want Shayne to be given the chance to shine like the star we know he truly is," one said in a frankly breathtaking expression of solidarity for the ‘singer’. These people, let’s not forget, have taken time off work to go out and express their feelings. My favourite quote was this one: “He's not just a pop star, he's the people's champion.”


Still, despite rather grand reports that the protesters ‘took to the streets of Manchester’, the collection of a dozen or so friends in a corner of Salford probably didn’t bother the general public too much and neither was there much of a bill for the Police’s time, one wouldn’t imagine. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a bigger expression of public disgust when the album actually is released.