Sense Wag & Wid

From my first day in England I'm astonished by the publicity of X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. Not only the gossip magazines and tabloids write about it, also the more intelligent newspapers. Specially X Factor generates a lot of publicity, because the winner is to release the Christmas song, a almost garanteed winner on top of the UK singles charge. It's big buisiness.

Except last year. X Factor winner Joe McElderry, for the first time in X Factor history, lost the battle for the Christmas number one when US rockers Rage Against The Machine got to the top with an eighties track following a Facebook protest campaign.

This year there's a new phenomenon to snub the elections: the anti-vote. When you disgust a program, you vote for the most awful candidate.

Meet the main anti-vote characters at X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing: Wag & Wid. Wag is Wagner, a Brazilian singer and former PE teacher from 54.

Wid is Anne Widdecombe, a former British Conservative Party politician.

What they have in comon: they are both unaccpetable dreadful in the competition. But there are two big differences: Wid is funny and she's more loved than hated.

Wag is so disgusting that the jury didn't even bother to say anything after his performances anymore.

Thanxx wrote on the site: “If you just fancy a really crazy Xmas number 1 this year… vote Wagner!!! If you despise all what the X Factor stands for vote Wagner!

“If you hate Simon Cowell and want to piss him off vote Wagner! If you want to help run the X factor into the ground and cause mayhem vote Wagner!”

Sunday Wag got voted out. Wig is still in. What's next?