Here's a brief checklist for tonight's X Factor. See how many you can tick off.

1) Louis tells a performer that 'you really owned that stage'. (Not sure. Did he?)
2) Simon overstates Leona's talent. (Yes!)
3) Louis says of Ray that 'the mammies love him'. (Possibly not, for the first time.)
4) The MacDonald Bros. disappoint yet again, because useless Louis has assigned them a slow song AGAIN (ie. Fernando), when what they really should be doing is a rocky, up-tempo number (ie. Voulez-Vous?, Does Your Mother Know?), in their own style and their own clothes (ie. jeans and leather/denim jackets). (Yes, sadly I was right. They'll be in the bottom two.)
5) Ashley sings out of tune AGAIN and gets away with it AGAIN. (Yes! Verses were okay, but choruses flat as pancakes. Also fluffed the words slightly AGAIN.)
6) A judge tells a contestant that 'you made that song your own'. (Yes! Louis said it to Ben.)
7) Everyone mispronounces the name of tonight's special guest, Björn Ulvæus. It rhymes with 'churn', not with 'worn', but will anyone manage it? He's only been famous for 32 years... (Yes, sadly, Kate Thornton gets it wrong every time.)8) Eton Road do one of the best performances again, but Simon slags them off unjustifiably, because he's really worried they're going to win. (Yes, again.)

I've already had texts from my Swedish friend, asking me to send a copy of tonight's programme over to Helsingborgs for him.

Here's what they're all singing in tonight's Abba special:

Simon's team:
Nikitta - Dancing Queen
Ray - Waterloo
Leona - Chiquitita (She didn't know the song before this week.)
Ashley - The Winner Takes It All (He didn't know this one before either.)

Sharon's pair:
Ben - S.O.S.
Robert - Take A Chance On Me

Louis's groups:
Eton Road - Does Your Mother Know? (So suitable, musically and lyrically!)
MacDonald Bros. - Fernando

I'm looking forward to that Eton Road performance. They're really starting to impress me.

Does anyone know if there's some repackaged Abba 'product' coming out soon? I'm not aware of any. (Update: Yes, there is. Thanks to Ice in the comments box. An album called 'Number Ones' is out on Monday. It contains their nine number ones and 22 other tracks. Everyone already has Abba Gold. Why bother?)

If not, this week is a welcome break So, this week is a continuation of the blatant album plugging that's dictated the themes and special guests so far. Here's the evidence:

Week 1 guest: Lionel Richie: Album released five weeks earlier. Single released three weeks before the show - failed to make the top 40.
Week 2 guest: Rod Stewart: New album released two days later.
Week 3 guest: Tony Bennett: New album released two days later.
Week 4 guest: Björn Ulvæus: Yet another repackaging of Abba's hits released two days later.
Week 5 guest: Rumoured to be Julio Iglesias, who has a new album out on Monday. What will the contestants sing? Seven versions of Begin The Beguine?

I think I'll consult the album release schedules for the next few weeks, to see who the rest of The X Factor's guests will be.

UPDATE (after programme one):

My scores for tonight's performances (out of ten):
Nikitta = 5 (Flat all the way through.)
Eton Road = 8 (Excellent, sexy and in tune, although sometimes they look a bit like 'The Odd One' and his backing group.)
Robert = 7 (Based on the reprise - I had a phone call when he was on!)
Leona = 6 (I just don't like her style of singing, but I'm trying to be objective.)
MacDonald Bros. = The blond one rescues them again vocally, but this was as karaoke as I'd feared and that guitar solo was weird. I love this two, but I wish they could shine.)
Ray = 9 (Amazing! Thoroughly professional, confident performance. Great to hear Waterloo done in a totally different (swing) arrangement. It worked!
Ben = 9.5 (I wrote down 'sounds like Meat Loaf' before the judges said it, and I meant it in a good way. This was superb.)
Ashley = 5.5 (Okay verses, but lost the tune in the choruses. He's okay on the low notes, but not in the high notes. For some reason, Sharon says the complete opposite of this. Does she know the difference between high and low? He also forgot the words at the end. During the song, he also sang 'about WHAT we've gone through' twice, which just grates when we all know the words of Abba songs so well and know it's 'about THINGS we've gone through'.)

My bottom two: Nikitta and Ashley, but it'll probably be Nikitta and the MacDonald Bros. Simon will save Nikitta, Louis will save the boys, and then Sharon will be torn, because she has criticised both acts, but she'll send Nikitta home, for the sake of reducing Simon's four acts. Hopefully. It's gonna be tense!


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