Despite the fact that i found myself watching it and seething again, by Monday morning i am considerably more chilled out.
I mean, come on - we didn't really buy ANY of it as anything other than an exercise in horse-trading and back-slapping by the UK majors.
For a start, i don't think anyone can argue that if we had a fair poll, there's no way anyone like the Darkness or Evanescence or Coldplay would win, and neither would Westlife or Busted. The nation as a whole would happily compromise on a song like the Black Eyed Peas or Beyonce, but even moreso on the song that was missed out that made it obvious that it was a BMG/19 fix-up - JT's 'Cry Me A River'.
I have NO idea what that 'Eurovision' style jury thing was all about, ESPECIALLY since one of the 'regions' was the phone/text vote results - how did they work out the results from the regions if they'd already partitioned off the phone and text results? There must have been, what - 20 votes that were cast in other ways?
Obviously I was cheering for Busted to win, for my sins - but if i was being impartial it was clear to me that musically the fight had to be between Bedingfield and Rachel Stevens and saleswise between Beyonce and Black Eyed Peas. But once Westlife won it with a horrible song by even their abysmal standards, i was left without even a smidgen of justice being done (apart from the hilarity of Brian's fat face, arse and gestures invading the screen).
But why should we expect anything else? For all its sins, Pop Idol isn't even half as contrived as that bullshit. I for one can't wait for next year, when Westlife's cover of a Gareth Gates song released the day of the show still wins.