So far, so good. I placed four bets yesterday. (Oh, the joy of a Paddy Power account, opened for Eurovision purposes last year.) One down, three to go. Here they are, so you can track my progress and laugh be amazed at Chig's predictive powers.

Carol Thatcher to win I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! £3.00 at 1-6
CORRECT (and well deserved). The absurdly low odds of 1-6 mean a life-changing 50p profit!

Westlife’s ‘You Raise Me Up’ to win Record of the Year (Sat 10 Dec.) £2.00 at 9-4.
Serious competition seems most likely to come from the Sugababes or McFly, but if Westlife could win this meaningless award last year, with the really weak 'Mandy', they can win it with this, one of their most successful singles ever. And Irish boybands have won it more years than not.

Journey South to win The X Factor (Sat 17 Dec.) £3.00 at 3-1.
Yes, of course I want gorgeous, sexy, talented Shayne to win, but methinks he will 'do a Gareth' and come second to these two, who have supposedly been winning the televote most weeks already, with Shayne only winning once, quite early on. It won't matter a jot to Shayne, who will be the star of 2006 anyway. (Think Steve Brookstein, in obscurity with no record deal, versus G4, on a second album and all over the telly at the moment. Winning don't matter.)

X Factor winner (regardless of who wins) to have the Christmas Number One single. (Sun 25 Dec.) £3.00 at 8-15.
The Christmas Number One is going to be very exciting this year, as it'll be revealed on Christmas Day. (Pity the poor sods who'll be processing the data, as well as everyone in a record shop on Christmas Eve.) Not only that, but one single will go into the lead from Monday 19th, and then, only on Thursday 22nd, will the X Factor winner's single be unleashed, giving it just three days to overtake (probably) Westlife & Diana Ross (or The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl, if there's an outbreak of nostalgic good taste). I can barely contain myself. If Shayne wins, I expect the single will be better than Journey South's, but will it matter? Will it heck. It's Christmas - the public will buy any old shite related to reality TV programmes, as long as it's within a week of the programme being on. Let's just be thankful that no other contestants are allowed to release their singles first, so we won't be having a Chico Christmas. A Cheeky Christmas was bad enough. (Sorry, I cannot lie. I secretly quite liked the Cheeky Girls. They once let me touch their bums. So there.)

So, do you think Chig's going to be in the money?
Who do you think will win these last three?


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