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"  With Wagner and Waissel dumped out last weekend, The X Factor gets down to the serious business tonight as the public must finally make their mind up who they want to win. Will Matt&amp;#039;s rugged good looks and falsetto win the day? Is One Direction-mania too strong? Does Rebecca fit the mould of a champion? Or could Cher and Tesco Mary pull off an upset? Reality Bites will be following the action live tonight right here and on our Twitter account (@dsrealitybites), so stock up on some festive party snacks and stick with us. 21:24: That&amp;#039;s me finished for the evening. Keep up to date with Reality Bites in the week on Twitter (@dsrealitybites) and we&amp;#039;ll be back next Saturday AND Sunday for the final! 21:18: Well, that&amp;#039;s all folks. A solid, if not quite spectacular semi-final. Matt should scrape though, despite his vocal problems. Rebecca and One Direction look like shoo-ins. Tesco Mary looks in danger, but Cher can&amp;#039;t have done herself any favours with her attitude towards Dannii Minogue. Who do you think will be leaving tomorrow? 21:15: Probably One Direction&amp;#039;s best performance so far and they may be peaking at the right time in the competition. It&amp;#039;s as cheesy as well, but it was good to hear all their voices and have them doing a vaguely credible song. I&amp;#039;m still having nightmares about &amp;#039;Summer Of &amp;#039;69&amp;#039;. 21:11: Last song of the night? It&amp;#039;s One Direction of course. *girly screams*. They are doing &amp;#039;Chasing Cars&amp;#039;. Zayn&amp;#039;s grandad died in the week. Hankies at the ready. 21:05: Do we believe that Rebecca is really Louis&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;favourite ever&amp;quot; X Factor contestant? Even more than 2 To Go? Better than GirlBand? I refuse to believe it. 21:03: Rebecca sings &amp;#039;Amazing Grace&amp;#039;. It wipes the floor with everything else tonight. Louis Walsh nearly explodes with enthusiasm. Not only does she have the &amp;quot;likeability factor&amp;quot;, she is his &amp;quot;favourite contestant ever&amp;quot;. 21:01: Cher Lloyd gets a bit surly with Dannii Minogue. &amp;quot;Ballads have been done,&amp;quot; she whinges. Send that girl to bed without any supper. What a madam! Next up... Rebecca Ferguson. 20:56: Cher Lloyd&amp;#039;s VT goes beyond desperate. It makes Big Brother contestants and WAGS look camera-shy and and nonchalant by contrast. She also tells us that she&amp;#039;s going to be doing a hugely emotional song. It turns out that it&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Love The Way You Lie&amp;#039; by Eminem and Rihanna. Jesus. Is that what kids call emotional these days? Someone send her a copy of Nirvana&amp;#039;s In Utero right away. 20:53: It feels like that may have been Tesco&amp;#039;s last song on the show. The tributes from the judges about how she&amp;#039;ll never have to work in the checkout again, felt like a goodbye. I think she may be nudged out by the young pups. 20:48: Tesco Mary is shedding a tear. Apparently it&amp;#039;s because of her mum, rather than the fact she just murdered that song. The judges utter the usual platitudes about her never having to work at the checkout again. Someone pass me the red wine, I need a drink. 20:45: From the dodgy to the even dodgier. Tesco Mary belts out &amp;#039;The Way We Were&amp;#039; and it&amp;#039;s one of her worst ever performances. Bring back Auto-Tune, ITV. 20:40: A ropey performance from Matt. Someone give that guy a lozenge. Some problems with the notes/pitching and all that technical gubbins. Simon Cowell complains about the stairs and dry ice. They were probably the best bit of that performance. 20:36: We&amp;#039;ve had the Club Classics. Now it&amp;#039;s ballad/serious song/hankies at the ready time. Matt Cardle up first with &amp;#039;She&amp;#039;s Always A Woman&amp;#039;. I don&amp;#039;t know about you guys, but I can&amp;#039;t take anything serious tonight thanks to Dannii Minogue&amp;#039;s dress. She definitely has a shower scrubber/loofah attached to her shoulder. 20:31: One Direction were without their mentor Simon Cowell this week. Now they know how Belle Amie felt! 20:27: One Direction doing Club Classics. More like youth club disco, in my opinion. Where are the Panda Pops and Haribo sweets? A decent performance from the lads, but the dance music theme has given the producers further opportunity to do some strange fiddling with the vocals. I&amp;#039;m still to be convinced that these guys are &amp;quot;the next great boyband&amp;quot; that Louis and Simon keep proclaiming. I&amp;#039;m still waiting for one classic performance. They seem like a good bunch of lads though. And they are fans of Digital Spy, so that&amp;#039;s some obvious brownie points. 20:24: One Direction up next *girly screaming*.  20:20: Simon Cowell says that it would be a &amp;quot;travesty&amp;quot; if Cher didn&amp;#039;t make the final. I&amp;#039;m guessing it&amp;#039;s curtains for Tesco Mary then? A decent, but not classic performance from Cher. A bit of rap, a bit of singing and a bow-tie from Louis Walsh&amp;#039;s wardrobe. 20:16: No, not that Cher. Cher Lloyd, you wallys. We really need a way of clearing that one up. Cher LLOYD plays &amp;#039;The Gran&amp;#039; card in her VT. She&amp;#039;s doing all of this for her apparently. Good ol&amp;#039; gran. Is she as good as Joe McElderry&amp;#039;s nanna though? She pretty much ruined Olly Murs&amp;#039;s chances singlehandedly last year. 20:14: Next up... CHER! 20:11: This is what you get when you vote out the most interesting contestants. Discussions about colds, flu and Lemsip. It&amp;#039;s like being at my gran&amp;#039;s. &amp;quot;Ooh, top up on your Vitamin C&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;Wrap up and drink lots of fluids&amp;quot;. 20:07: A strong performance from Matt, but not his best. It may have been his vocal problems, it may have been the song, but something didn&amp;#039;t do it for me. 20:05: Next up is Matt. He&amp;#039;s got a dicky throat. He&amp;#039;s singing &amp;#039;You&amp;#039;ve Got The Love&amp;#039;. And he&amp;#039;s got his guitar out. 20:00: Brian Friedman has been unleashed. It&amp;#039;s a mix of Eurovision and Flares nightclub. Mary does her best with &amp;#039;Never Can Say Goodbye&amp;#039;, but it&amp;#039;s all a little bit hen party in Yates&amp;#039; Winelodge up there. Louis and Simon distract attention from the performance by competing about who&amp;#039;s the most camp judge. &amp;quot;You like Gloria Gaynor!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;No, you like Gloria Gaynor&amp;quot;. 19:58: Mary Byrne up next. She&amp;#039;s going to be partying up there like it&amp;#039;s a Tesco Christmas party with a free bar. 19:54: Some questions: What do we all make of the Club Classics theme? Will we be getting some Dannii Minogue dance smashes? Have you got your glowsticks out yet? 19:53: Yeo Valley advert time. It&amp;#039;s always a highlight of the evening in the Reality Bites household. That and my chocolate sponge pudding. 19:49: A cracking &amp;#039;Club Classic&amp;#039; performance from Rebecca. She gives it a bit of pizazz on &amp;#039;Show Me Love&amp;#039;. Her dancing appeared to amount to little more than twisting on the spot and lifting her arm. But hey, it&amp;#039;s a singing competition right? 19:45: First up tonight is Rebecca. You know, the humble lass from Liverpool. She met Boris Becker and Liam Neeson on a red carpet earlier this week. But she&amp;#039;s still humble. 19:42: Time for some dramatic VTs and Peter Dickson shouting. Failure is not an option, etc., etc. You know how it works by now. And here come the judges. Dannii Minogue appears to have some used bog roll stuck to her shoulder. 19:40: Here we go people. The most exciting Saturday TV event since Noel Edmonds&amp;#039; House Party. It&amp;#039;s X Factor 2010 semi-final time. Get your party hats on! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-x-factor/news/a291309/live-blog-the-x-factor-semi-final/>