I try to avoid switching on the radio these days, if my ears are not assaulted by a rapper repeating the same line over and over while in some forgotten corner of Cambridge University reserved for undead poets Seamus Heaney raves about the poetry of the streets they will be assailed by some screeching soul diva of the Whitney / Mariah genre.

Today however I was pleasantly surprised when I plugged in the blender and the radio came on instead to cheer me up with Fairy Tale Of New York. Now that’s what I call Christmas Music.

I only mention all this because of the continuing kerfuffle over the version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah recorded by XS Factor winner Alexandra Burke, the newest member of the screecherarchy. Alex’s version of H… what, sorry? How could I plug in the blender and hear Fairy Tale Of New York?

Well I suppose I should explain lest you think we live like pikeys.

Some years ago as our children started to make noises about flying the parental nest we decided to downsize. Our old place was like a cross between Hogwarts and a Tardis. A bungalow we though, that’s the thing for a disabled person whose wife hates hoovering stairs. By the time we were sorted child two, Cleo Hart, had gone. Child one, Brother Bastion, went soon after. Bliss. Child two returned bringing an apartment full of stuff.

“You’ll have to put all that in storage” we said. "Don’t be silly," said child one," I’m only going to be here for a couple of weeks until I get something sorted out. "I’ll get the furniture in my bedroom and put the kitchen stuff in your kitchen. You can use it then.”

That was nearly three years ago. His stuff has slowly spread out of the bedroom into the rest of the house, his kitchen equipment is still in our kitchen. We have never used it.

Two years ago child two, Cleo Hart, announced she was going to live and work in France.”

“Will you need any help getting all the stuff from your flat over there?” we asked helpfully.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, “my stuff is English, it will never be happy in France. It’s going to live at your house and I’ll get new French stuff. The furniture etc can go in my bedroom (note: not the spare bedroom but ‘my bedroom’) and my cooking things can go in the kitchen.”

We have a lovely kitchen, plenty big enough for a couple and with lots of modern fittings and equipment. We can’t remember the last time we saw it.

And this is how I came to connect a plug near the blender and have an unseen radio start playing.

I digress however, this post was about the X Factor winner’s lousy version of Hallelujah!

The original, is a multi – layered poem, its title is of course an exclamation of religious or orgiastic ecstasy but on another level with lines like “you tied me to a chair” it could be a song about Max Mosely’s sex life.

Squeaky clean Alexandra was not required to sing the song’s dirty – sexy bits, lines like :

There was a time you let me know
what was really going on below
but now you never show it to me
do yah?

Obviously not the right image for one of Simon Cowell’s acts. Another of his proteges was Mr. Blobby you know. Perhaps the song’s bitterness, despairing self pity and sexual innuendo were diluted because they feared another contestant Rachel Hilton might win. Rachel has five children all with different men. Obviously she showed it to far too many people.

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