I should be enjoying my holiday in Southern France courtesy of RCI (Thanks to Jeff Cummings for amortising an Extra holiday into Points).

However, I am here under the cloud of my father’s unexpected death, arising from a massive heart attack on 8th August whilst in hospital to have a second knee replacement.

The truth is that I feel guilty … but Why?

My father had been severely disabled for several years .. unable to walk for more than a few metres before grumbling of his extremely sore knees. The surgeon had advised him that it was a relatively risk free operation with a 95% success rate …. yet father remained frightened of that 5% .. the 1 in 20 risk that things could go wrong. Was he right?

All the family remained convinced that the better odds lay in the 19/20 chance that things would go swimmingly and it was true for knee #1. Dad was a perfect patient … no history of medication and a textbook recovery leading to an early return to knee #2.

Again surgery went perfectly, but father went downhill in hospital, feeling unwell almost from the outset.

On Sunday 8th August, my father succumbed to a massive heart attack and died although there had been no earlier indicators of problems.

Now I am on holiday (a late start after the funeral), but it doesn’t feel like a holiday. I remain guilty for persuading him that he was daft to focus on the negative. Was I wrong to do so … would he lived otherwise? I don’t know.

What I do know is that the family persuaded my father that he would enjoy a better quality of life with surgery. That was certainly true after knee#1 when he walked more in 6 weeks than he had done in 6 years … and relished the experience.

Needless to say that knee#2 was a different experience which I can’t help feeling led to his death. Until that operation my father had been extremely fit with no medication and only the wonky knees giving him the problem. Did the extra surgery introduce the stress that led to a heart attack?

Now I am left with the eternal conundrum … did I hasten my dad’s death by persuading him that surgery was the right answer?

I can’t help feeling that I did. Would you have done differently in my circumstances?

To the left a familiar sight .. a label showing when a product will be enjoyed at its best.

It is important to note that Best Before only indicates when a product will be enjoyed at its best and does not mean that it need be thrown out after that date.

However, the Display Until date was a guide to store owners to remove from shelves. To my mind, this assured purchasers of a decent shelf life at home.

The label to the left was photographed on a recent Warburtons loaf purchased from Tesco. On this occasion, you will see that this pretty much guaranteed two days life if you picked up this loaf ahead of its Display Until date.

And if it was nearing the end of day on 6th June when you visited, you would expect a discount.

Maybe I do Warburtons and retailers a disservice, but I have seen the Display Until date move backwards a day in the past around public holidays .. seems convenient that the product can stay on the shelves a day longer just because it is a holiday?

Move forward to today and Warburtons appear to have dispensed with a Display Until date altogether, with only a Best Before date showing (at least in the Tesco stock). 

This is subtle, but must be worth £millions to retailers as they now have an extended opportunity to sell their bread without a discount expected by consumers who are used to seeing the Display Until date as the sell by date.

At first sight, this appears to be of every benefit to retailers with none for consumers and at point of purchase this is certainly true. I have contacted Warburtons to ask them to explain the reasons for change (and the prior manipulation of the Display Until date around holidays) and I will report back.

However, maybe there is something more in this that we should all embrace – and that is the fact that we waste too much food in this and probably every other ‘developed’ country. Perhaps this simple change will help avoid bread being thrown away two days early into supermarket skips and that we should still be happy to buy it.

Those that know me understand that I am a bit of a food snob. That means that I like to eat good quality produce turned into delicious meals. I keep chickens for eggs and have some limited capacity to grow fruit and beg in the space that I have allocated out of the rear garden to this. 

But the truth is that as corner and specialist shops have continuously disappeared from towns, the supermarkets have become dominant and perhaps arrogant forces in determining what we will eat (Amazingly, Tesco now takes in £1 in every £3 spent on groceries in the UK today) and imposes strict criteria on the appearance of fruit and veg that we buy today. That means that much of the food that is available never makes it to our shelves and is therefore discarded just because it may not be pretty – why are supermarket cucumbers always straight?

In my opinion, supermarket shopping is the biggest contributor to food waste. Not just through supermarket rejection of food that does not meet the strict specifications, but also by virtue of the fact that the dearth of local specialist shops means that we tend to bulk buy for a week (or even a month in some cases) and in doing a large shop, we fail in any number of ways to buy sensibly :

• to properly consider menu planning
• to be seduced into purchasing additional items
• to Buy one get one Free that we don’t need
• to miss use by dates that are approaching
• to shove stuff into a large freezer and forget about it until it is covered in freezer burns and unappetizing

and then the food rot sets in when we have bought just too much.

I am equally guilty of these behaviours, but want to change. I want food to be eaten and not wasted and if removing display until dates helps that happen, then I am all for that. However, I can’t help but feel that is a very small tip to the iceberg and that supermarkets also have to act more responsibly … selling ‘mis-shapen’ food even at a discount rather than throwing it away.

Supermarkets have taken on power. With that power comes responsibility. Will supermarkets exercise that power responsibly? I am not sure.

… Well, who would have thought it?

There was a whole host of speculation that any thoughts of coalition or side arrangements would have been completed ahead of the markets opening today, but still we wait to hear who will form the next government.

It is an intriguing time because the Lib-Dems are unlikely to wish to move forward without some form of Proportional Representation being on the table and neither Labour nor the Tories would appear to favour that as the traditional first past the post has tended to work in both parties favour.

But now, we see that Gordon Brown has signalled his intention to resign. That seems to signal that the talks between the Lib-Dems and the Tories have broken down given that Nick Clegg has made no secret of the fact that he does not see Gordon Brown as a political partner. Gordon Brown’s willingness to flag his resignation at this time appears to support a likely repeat of the Lib-Lab pact of the 1970s.

With the cabinet meeting at 18.00 this evening, it seems likely that both ledership contention and briefings on Lib-Lab discussions will take place that could lead to a Prime Minister and a party that didn’t get first past the post.

What does that mean for the ehectorate? Whilst there is certainly an argument that says that when you stack seats from Labour, Lib Dem, National parties etc, then the amalgam represents the majority of the British people’s view. But is that a vapid argument? Somehow one gets the feeling that it pleases no-one.

Ironically, the biggest obstacle to the Labour Party winning a General Election might actually be Gordon Brown himself  – who can forget the bogot faux pas? With a new  statesman like leader and a further General Election, the tide could turn quickly back to Labour favour.

We are now faced with an intriguing situation where we expect Gordon Brown to carry on until the Labour Party conference  in September. Could we expect a General Election shortly thereafter to properly endorse a new leadership and Government? That seems likely to me and the only way to see the electorate fully endorse (or reject) the Labour leadership should the Lib-Lab pact hold Labour in power through the Queen’s speech next week.

David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown … do you vote based upon leader?

I have a hunch that most people do and my 8 and 10 year old kids are certainly focused on one person in particular.

Of course, when we all go to the polling station to vote in the General Election, we are not voting for whom we would like to lead the country, but voting to help select our own local MP.  Who leads the country usually drops out from the party with the overall majority,but this year a hung parliament seems to be the likely but unpopular choice.

It is poignant that Britain is set to move into a larger budget deficit than Greece in the coming year (according to the Daily Mail front page today) and the austerity measures proposed to deal with Greece’s situation have provoked riots leading to deaths. Britain is not Greece however and from all reports there was a certain level of corruption which also corroded Greece’s core economic footing. Britain should be better placed to recover from a short term deficit which has been introduced to stimulate our economy … something used in other countries too, without placing their credit ratings at risk.

But I said earlier, you are not voting for a leader, you are voting for a new local MP, but how many of you actually know your existing local MP? I am sure that most of the electorate would walk past their presiding MP in the street without even noticing. Not here, as ours could be the spitting image of ex England football manager – Sven Goran Ericsson.

How many candidates actually live in the electoral zone? I am amazed by how many actually live outside the area that they want to represent. Politics in the past used to be about passion and representing your neighbours and friends. Today, it appears that the job matters more to many who are indifferent as to whom they actually represent .. how can they understand local issues and hit any job running.

Is there even the same passion? This has been the quietest doorstep campaign in my living memory, to the extent that I don’t even know what the majority of the candidates consider to be the priority issues that they should address. I haven’t seen anyone going round doors and election literature has been thin on the ground.

There has been a great deal of talk about tactical voting, but judging from the dearth of information in my area, it seems clear that either there has been no campaigning for my Member of Parliament or there has been tactical campaigning by the parties to focus their attention on potential switchers … by using housing demographics to determine the likely way that people would vote and to target waverers.

What has all that meant for me in my voting choice?

You may think that sharing the name of ‘David Cameron’ makes it all a bit of a laugh and I would vote Conservative just for the fun of it all and potential attention should he win the overall majority and occupy the Prime Minister role.  But no! This is a serious time for Great Britain and the United Kingdom and there was a serious decision to make at the Polling Station this morning. Therefore I stood in front of my ballot paper and gave all the candidates some serious scrutiny (hence my question about how many are actually residents in your area) and took so long to decide that I was half expecting a tap on my shoulder to ask whether I knew what I was doing and whether I needed any help.

And do you know what? With an absence of information, my head just couldn’t separate the candidates (except for some ‘extreme’ parties that I would never support) and for a minute, I really did think about deliberately spoiling my paper in protest.

But what would that protest actually achieve? The papers would go into a discarded pile and would be ignored with priority given to the papers with a clear voting intent. Therefore, I did select one candidate and voted properly for them.

Maybe more so than ever because of the global economy, but local Politics has been dominated by National and International  issues such as World Recession, fears around the Euro Zone collapse arising from the Greece bailout proposals, Global Warming and of course more recently climate and the environment with Volcanoes and deep water oil leaks causing considerable inconvenience and potential environmental impact. Therefore, despite my earlier comments about voting for the candidate on the basis of best local representation, I did end up voting based upon wider politics.

The General Election is the time for you to have your say .. and whilst it may be tempting to stay at home or to vote for ‘none of the above’, I fear that is in every sense a wasted vote.

I am thankful that we do live in a demographic society with a free vote rather than e.g.  an oppressive Zimbabwean regime where you must vote and risk being shot if you don’t vote as expected. Having the vote in unquestionably one of the basic human rights that we enjoy to determine as a democracy just whom and how our country should be led … and that democracy gives us the opportunity to change it on a regular basis should we as a democracy also determine that to be necessary.

Whatever your views on the various political parties, do take the time to make your vote and have your opinion at least considered. If you and others like you decide not to cast a vote, then you are not really in a position to complain of you don’t like the ruling party after the votes are counted.

But … If David Cameron does actually win, I just know that the number of jokes and comments I get about my name are going to be of an order of magnitude larger and wearying. Maybe I should just get on with it and capitalise on it by opening a trinket shop or seeing if I can get a newspaper column?  ….. anyone want a David Cameron mug?

In my last post which was a bigtime complaint about RCI, I wrote about frustrations with the RCI Holiday Exchange search functionality when a promised ‘search .. had never been easier’ was completely unfulfilled.

I was so frustrated that I had felt the need to write to Jeff Cummings - VP for European Operations, but my letter was filtered and sent to Customer Sevices – that is the same Customer Services team that have never been able to answer my questions to tell me exactly when my issues would be addressed.

More recently, questions that I asked were simply ignored with inadequate responses and my last three emails had simply gone unanswered … and no obvious point of escalation and definitely an unwillingness to disclose exactly to whom I should address complaints if they were just going to be passed back to the team with which I had the issues.

And so, after very fair warning that I would do it if they wouldn’t answer my questions, I made my earlier public blog disclosure of my dismay at RCI as an organisation .. and suggested that Jeff Cummings was disinterested.

Well, maybe I am about to do a u-turn, at least in respect of Jeff. Perhaps it was because my despair became public, but I was shocked but extremely happy to receive a voicemail and a followup email from Jeff indicating his absolute willingness to talk. Therefore with the assistance of his PA, we set up a meeting by phone which we held on Friday.

We spoke for around 45 minutes and whilst it could be a bit of corporate flannel and giving a bit of hand-holding, I genuinely felt that Jeff was stepping up to the plate and discussing the matters frankly .. warts and all.

Jeff has given me a timetable for some improvements for points members that will encompass weeks and points searches that are planned between now and 2011. I will not share those here as it might lead to some missed expectations as I had when I originally heard back in January 2010  that the ‘Points search … had never been easier’ and found no material difference. What I will say is that RCI do plan to allow Points based members to book weeks holidays online ahead of a major points web revamp to allow holiday searches in the same way that one can search for Extra Holidays today. I have a question outstanding as to whether the weeks and points searches can be merged.

 It appears that all marketing materials in Europe are sent out in Jeff’s name irrespective of whether he has seen the correspondence. Personally, I think that practice needs reviewing and Jeff needs to see those materials and challenge/test what is said before it goes out to customers. A sense check of the new (I prefer to call it face-lifted) web search functionality would have revealed that it made little or no intrinsic benefit.  

So is Jeff just giving me a little bit of charm and chatted with me by phone to appease an upset customer hoping that I will then go away? Maybe, but I think that the fact that we already have another call scheduled and a plan to meet face to face (at his invitation) next time he is in the UK sugegstes that he is fully engaged and keen to hear what can be done better, not just in terms of web search (which is the same as the operator search), but also with staff behaviours.

In summary, I felt much more re-assured following my call with Jeff, but of course we need to see real improvements in the RCI systems before I will be fully happy. At least there is some promise now …. shame that someone jumped the gun and spoke in giushing terms about the feeble improvements made without realising what customers actually needed in order for any search to be effective.

Jeff did promise to help me to try to secure a suitable holiday and today, I am happy to confirm that a summer vacation is now booked in (hopefully) sunny France.

There is now no other way to express this – RCI have shown incredible incompetence.

To clarify, RCI customer service and Management behaviours suck. I am not knocking either the timeshare resorts themselves or the idea of exchange. When it works it works fantastically.

To put it into context, RCI (should) provide a service to timeshare owners like me to help facilitate exchanges by accepting deposits from those who don’t want to use their accommodation one year and making them available to people looking to exchange to a different location. In the past that was performed only by phone, but with the advent of the web, they also introduced a web facilitya few years ago that should be much better to browse at leisure and confirm an exchange online.

I say should be better by web but I had to write to RCI Customer Service department several years ago pointing out major failings in their web search engine in trying to locate a suitable exchange holiday, principally that they are unable to pinpoint Global availability of units on a given date. Instead, they require that you pick a specific area to check. That means checking one by one to see whether anything might be available, but still I saw no signs of web improvements.

Since then, I have had occasion to write a couple of times about some issues, but those were sorted out fairly quickly.

Then in Jan this year Jeff Cummings (VP European Operations) put his name to a letter distributed to all Points based members telling us that our ‘Points Holiday search .. had never been easier’. Great I thought as I still had my 2010 vacation to book and want to be flexible and choose from the widest possible range of accommodation. I thought that I would now be able to see what availability there was worldwide with one click.

Now I should make you aware that this a membership based service that means that I pay an annual membership whether or not I make any exchange or deposit. If I don’t use my full exchange allowance in any year, then I must also pay additional fees to carry forward my allowance. Not unreasonably, if I do make an exchange then I also pay on a per exchange completed basis.

But here is the rub ..

Despite the VPs letter saying that the ‘Points Holiday search .. had never been easier’, the truth is that there has been no material enhancement at all. If I want to do a web search to find Global availability, then I must devote half an evening searching Region by Region and that sucks, especially as the regions make no geographic sense and are done at a very granular level. Not only that, but the second group of Units available under a straight Weeks search need the same stupid region by region search.

So … as a Points member, I have to search region by region TWICE to get a full view of global availability for any given date to see what is available via Weeks and Points banks.

Now here is what REALLY STINKS!! Remember that I told you that RCI is a membership based programme where we are paying for a service? You now know that I told them three years ago or more what was wrong with their system and how it could be made better. Well GREAT that they built that system, but oh no, not for the core member service to help facilitate exchanges that we pay them for. They selfishly built it for their own retail purposes to sell extra inventory that they purchased. So .. if I want to buy an Extra holiday, then I have all the tools I need to drill down and gradually filter the accommodation requirements until I find the perfect holiday. The tool is brilliant, but no use to me in facilitating an exchange .. which is what I pay RCI for.

I wrote to Jeff Cummings asking him to justify his statement that the search was made easier. I apologised for writing to him directly, but pointed out that prior requests and enquiries relating to web site strategy had led to nothing. In any event he made a statement and signed it .. he should justifyputting his name to it.

So what was Mr Cummings response? I can only tell you that as far as I am concerned, he couldn’t be bothered. That is the only inference I could make as I received no response from him or his office. Instead, I got a message from the Customer Services Team (Nora H……) that essentially said that Mr Cummings was too busy to deal with this and that was the job of Customer Services.

Now in my experience, when a customer feels the need to write to an Executive Office, then most reputable organisations feel the need to sit up and listen at the Executive level.

I entered into a long correspondence with that RCI Customer Service representative over the course of days and never getting answers to the most direct and pointed of questions. I keep being asked for patience, but patience is exhausted when I have waited in excess of three years and I get a slap in the face by seeing the ideas applied to systems that are secondary to members interests and were self-serving to RCI.

Interestingly, when I first started corresponding with customer services, I asked that if Mr Cummings was so busy and routinely referred customer correspondence to Customer Services to deal with, then ‘Who within RCI deals with complaints about the Customer Service itself?’

Now this is at an impasse. Yet I still don’t have answers to my questions and RCI have refused to answer the critical question about whom I can escalate my complaint to .. and recent emails have simply been ignored that ask that one simple question.

I must also assume that the RCI Management are incompetentand have no concept of customer service as they decided that the priorities to upgrade search in the following perverted order :

1. Extra holidays (doesn’t serve any member core objective to facilitate exchanges at all)
2. Weeks Members search – who only needed to perform one round the region search to get a global view of availability – yet didn’t release this to Points Members
3. Points Member Search – we are still waiting for upgrades on both the Points and Weeks searches.

It is a doubly incompetent solution for Points Members because we are also disadvantaged when wishing to book from the weeks bank. Points members are not allowed to reserve Weeks based accommodation out of hours and must (Why?) phone during office hours to book through an operator, meaning that a Weeks based member can pinch a booking ahead of me. 

Now we have an organisation that apparently has an arrogant VP who can’t be bothered to look at seriously aggrieved customers complaints and a rude customer services department who refuse to answer questions. To cap it all there is no way to apparently escalate the complaint because the VP refers it back to the department that you have a complaint about in the first place .. and apparently, they can just decide not to answer your questions .. they often also answer things that you didn’t ask as if that provides a solution .. huh!!.

Exchange availability is a constant issue and the search system is geared up for helping when you know precisely where you want to exchange into, whereas in practice the constraint is about where you can exchange into which is subject to the limited availability you find when you want to travel – and that is a question that you cannot get an answer to quickly for all the years that RCI has been in business – incredibly incompetent systems development.

I now have holiday points to use this year but no easy way to convert them because of RCI getting their priorities wrong and looking after themselves by building a system to sell rather than serve the exchange members who pay for the service … and yet, they will charge me for rolling over the points balance to next year … that’s another huh!! from me. There appears to be no incentive upon RCI to make exchanges happen easier.

I am convinced that the Customer Services team have not an ounce of sensibility (at least the ones that I have dealt with), because they continually trumpet that the web site is not contractually a part of the service. That may be so, but in their rush to trumpet that excuse, they forget that the RCI Exchange Coordinators use exactly the self same search mechanism in-house if I phone up, meaning that they still can’t provide the expected levels of service by phone. It is also insulting my intelligence as a customer as I know that if members were to boycott the web service from tomorrow and insist on using the phone, then RCI would need to greatly increase the number of telephone operators. The introduction of the website was not primarily for the customers convenience, but as a way of RCI managing costs.

It is also a very poor show by an organisation to try and suggest that the web-site is a value added service in this internet age, considering that we are actually doing the job for RCI that we pay them to do for us when we use the website. RCI can’t have it both ways.

Honestly, I have never encountered a company so disinterested at the top about customer complaints made at an Executive Office level and I have certainly never encountered one who had no advertised process to escalate customer complaints.

If anyone is listening from the Executive offices in either RCI or Cendant (the parent company) and is able to give RCI any credibility in this regard, then please do leave a comment and contact details – I still await proper answers to sensible questions.

UPDATE 23 Apr 2010: Jeff Cummings has been in contact directly with me and left voicemail. We have now set up a meeting to discuss the situation further.

I bet that made you sit up.

We are not talking about THE David Cameron here .. the Conservative Party leader looking to become Prime Minister, but this David Cameron, not in Witney or London, but in Northamptonshire.

Unlike the Conservative Leader whose role is very much a United Kingdom role, my own present job has been subject to the effects of Globalisation where a job is exportable to a cheaper location.

So now, after 19 years of employment with BP in a variety of managerial roles including billing and customer service, IT project leads and more latterly in Financial Control (Sarbanes-Oxley), I now find myself under notice of redundancy that my present position will cease on 31 July this year.

I bear no resentment to BP at all in this regard; after all, were it my own company I would do the same thing to cut costs. But it does bring home at a personal level why we now see many, many instances of jobs moving abroad e.g. in call centres or centralising other service facilities in e.g. hub centres.

I think key to these decisions to relocate work must be whether the work can be done competently from another location with no or minimal impact to the ultimate customers. BP have made a wise choice in my situation; However, from personal experience, I have concerns that other companies moved customer services abroad to the detriment of the customers brand experience with either language, accent or even cultural knowledge being a barrier or simply the agents having insufficient authority via the outsourcing arrangements to resolve my issues, often leading to escalation.

So, with the situation unlikely to change personally over the next few months and expecting to find myself unemployed and seeking new employment, what are my plans? Strangely, the answer is that I don’t fully know … I have ideas, but nothing more at this time. However one thing is clear; at age 49, this may be my last job and career change and I want to consider it wisely.

Under consideration as retirement is not yet an option…

• Something in Customer Services management  .. I am passionate about Customer Services and delivering a high level of service and too many companies fall short and give naive excuses .. e.g. we can’t confirm a delivery slot bacause that’s the way the carriers work. WRONG! That’s the way the carriers work that the company hired with a free will. But is that what customers want – To be told to wait in from 7am to 7pm?
• Something as IT /Web Project leads .. I have extensive corporate experience in delivering both new systems and systems enhancements to improve efficiency and productivity. In fact in my hobby time, I also build and run several websites myself, such as this one, with others being more geared to retail activities.
• Something in Financial Controls - whilst not accountancy qualified in any way, my role in IT and the introduction of the US Sarbanes-Oxley legislation led me into a role around building and testing the Financial Controls within the organisation and implementing models by which we became assured of the levels of strength of our controls and implemented new controls where necessary.
• Go into Consultancy and work on a per contract basis in any of the above
• Invest redundancy package in a new business? I had some success via my own websites in operating an affiliate business taking a share of the retailers profit margin by way of commissions. Should I go it alone in a niche area and carry stock and retail it direct and take full profit margin for myself? 
• Go FullTime as an affiliate? Whilst I have had some good success, for every winning site there are probably 10 that earn next to nothing. Do I have the confidence to do that as my sole profession? Maybe.
• Retrain for something completely different? I haven’t really thought about this avenue at all just yet.

So .. as you see, whilst redundancy isn’t usually a favoured option (and it isn’t for me) because having a stable job provides reasonable financial stability ..especially when you have a family to look after, enforced change can present opportunity or at least a good reason to sit down and consider choices rather than doing ‘same old’, ‘comfy slippers’ or whatever cliche you wish to throw at it.

Therefore that’s where I find myself now. After around a year of uncertainty and up and down mood swings as a result of that, it looks inevitable that I shall be leaving the employer with whom I have spent most of my working life to date. With that acceptance comes greater clarity about the short term and a renewed vigour that says David Cameron will not be idle for long …. and I have a great opportunity to shape the rest of my working life in the way that I want by concentrating my mind now on what I want to do now.

That said, if potential employers out there like the idea of having David Cameron on the payroll, then I am perfectly happy to consider any ideas for a new employment position that you may care to make (email jobideas@the-camerons.co.uk).

I suppose that I could also open fetes, events etc.. for a fee, but somehow I think that people might be expecting the Conservative leader to show up rather than me.

Onwards and upwards ……

Now that the General Election campaign is well under way, and David Cameron is at the top of the news headlines, being touted as the new Prime Minister, my name is a curse rather than just a talking point.

When my namesake David Cameron first became Conservative Party leader, I was bombarded with emails requesting that I speak at this function or another, which of course I politely declined. It would have been interesting to have accepted and seen the reaction when I turned up rather than the expected David Cameron .. and maybe profitable too if fees were agreed up front ;o).

Now with that novelty worn off, it becomes rather wearisome to be told that I will whip Gordon Brown (for goodness sake, he looks beaten enough already without any more punishment) and I will be Prime Minister in a few more weeks and residing at number 10.

Has anyone else reading this found that they shared their name with a celebrity of some sort … and did it actually ever bring any advantages to you?

BIG BAND WEEK

Big band week this week which stretches the acts considerably.

Olly

Bewitched – Steve Lawrence

Buy it from Amazon | Download from Play.com

Olly‘s turn to open the show this week and what an opener. He performed the track like he was born in the Sinatra era. No signs of nerves leadiing to a very confident and polished performance.

Olly should be safe tonight.

Lloyd

Lloyd – Fly Me To The Moon – Frank Sinatra

Buy it from Amazon | Download from Play.com

Lloyd took a battering last week for taking on a Leona Leis number and doing badly. Sadly, he didn’t fare any better this week with an extraordinarily shaky performance. Nor do I feel that he has a big enough and mature enough voice to take on bugger competitors this year.

Lloyd could be bottom two tonight  … subject to the performance of the acts that follow.

Miss Frank

That’s Life – Frank Sinatra

Buy it from Amazon | Download from Play.com

With Louis Walsh’s return this week, can Miss Frank step up a gear?

I thoroughly enjoyed this performance which had Miss Frank’s own unique stamp on the song with a bit of jazz and a bit of rap thrown in for good measure. Keep this performance standard up and they can be a real contender.

Rachel

Proud Mary – Beyonce version

Buy it from Amazon | Download from Play.com

Rachel has been singing nervously since the live shows started and failed to get viewer support leaving her languishing in the bottom two with only the judges saving her last week.

There is no question that Rachel is talented, but she needs a performance that the UK public can relate to better.

Tonights’s performance was like a different Rachel had come out on stage. We saw a very confident young woman deliver a really punchy strong performance. Is it enough to sweep away past bad reviews and to start a clean slate with the public? This performance deserves a safe passage.

Jamie

Angel Of Harlem – U2

Buy it from Amazon | Download from Play.com

Jamie just doesn’t fail to deliver and tonight was no exception, but the song choice was stretching the definition of big band. Is Simon Cowell realising that Jamie is still little more than a rocker?

Jamie will be safe this week, but I can’t see him winning the contest.

Stacey

When You Wish Upon A Star – From Disney’s Pinnochio

Buy it from Amazon | Download from Play.com

Stacey is the competitor that everyone just likes whether she speaks or sings.She seemed to lose her way a bit tonight though I can’t place my finger on the problem.  Stacey does need to find more confidence in coming weeks if she is to have any chance of winning the competition.

This has been one of the weaker performances of the night.

Danyl

Feeling Good – Muse version

Buy it from Amazon | Download from Play.com

Danyl has shown the most natural talent for performance … or is it that he is comfortably extrovert?

For me, the song was a bit of a slow burn until we reached ignition but ended up with a bit of a damp squib. It wasn’t the greatest Danyl performance that I have seen, but Danyl is sitting comfortable for next week and maybe the competition overall.

Joe

Sway – Michael Buble version

Buy it from Amazon | Download from Play.com

Joe was one of the starts of last weeks show. He did well again this week with some added choreography. One of the best performances of the night. A real contender to win.

Lucie

My Funny Valentine – Ella Fitzgerald

Buy it from Amazon | Download from Play.com

A song that exposes mistakes, how would Lucie do?

Lucie sang beautifully and with emotion. The song was one of the hardest of the evening and Lucie took it all in her stride. Lucie should be safe again, but can she win? I am not sure.

John and Edward

She Bangs – Ricky Martin

Buy it from Amazon | Download from Play.com

John & Edward win the luck of the draw … the last act of the show usually picks up a good few more votes simply because they are focussed in people’s minds when the voting lines open.

Without even hearing their performance after the break, I suspect that they will be safely into next week barring a car crash performance.

So …. the performance.  It pains me to say it, but that was their best performance yet. HOWEVER, the extended choreography is being done to divert from the poorest vocals in the competition. They don’t deserve to take the place away from a true singer.

Conclusion :

Generally a big step from most acts, but for me the poorest acts of the evening were Lloyd, Stacey and John & Edward.

However, it remains to be seen whether Rachel has endeared herself to the UK public as yet.

My bottom two predictions are Lloyd and Stacey …. though Rachel could still creep in to the bottom two.

Well, I can feel pretty smug with myself for correctly predicting the bottom two performances this week.

The only flaw in my prediction was that I thought that nationalistic support would prop Rikki up with loads of votes that he didn’t actually deserve. This time, Scotland seems to have gotten it right though as neither Rikki nor Rachel shone in the sing-offs.

As for the judges decision …. I think that the voting situation this week was a farce because it effectively came down to a single judge’s opinion, rather than a minimum of two.

That said, I found myself agreeing with Simon that the right two were in the sing-off … I would even give John and Edward a bye from this week (though I wish it were a goodbye). John and Edward do however have to go soon; this is a singing contest and they just can’t sing.

At the end of the day, I believe that Simon saw that Rachel is pretty young and inexperienced, but without bad habits, whereas Rikki still came out each week and felt like a pub singer each time.

I don’t think that Rachel has a chance of winning, especially as she hasn’t clicked with the UK public, but she definitely deserved to be brought back from the head to head with Rikki Loney,