Star Academy series 2, removal show 3. And then there were eleven. Just as there were on Wednesday.

Barry's back, Barry's back, into the light coz Barry is back... sorry, a bit distracted already. Betcha berates Baz for boozing and chatting, and "it was hard" when he was watching the show from his sickbed in the Witanhurst eyrie. That is too much information, sir. Your Song is his song, there's no space for a piano on stage, so he's sat on The Westshite Memorial Stool. Almost a note-for-note recreation of Elton John's version, and I don't think quite as good as Oleta Adams' cover on the "Two Rooms" album.
Betcha: "Less vocal is better." Dogsby: "Average, you wouldn't sign someone on that," he has never signed a hit record ever. David: "Not brilliant, but a step in the right direction." David and Dogsby get into a row about the rights and wrongs of trying something new. Full coverage on BBC3.

We're on to song two, from Simone, who warbled badly on Wednesday. She's more confident when performing Stevie Wonder's As. Does Mr Wonder double his royalties from karaoke shows or something? The marker version is Mary J Blige's work with George Michael, and Simone doesn't do anything. Decent karaoke, nothing outstanding, and a tiring voice to work with. Never knew a 90 second song could take so long.
Betcha: "You are a singer." Dogsby: "She's got basic talent, done OK." Robin: "Better than Wednesday, not incredible." David: "She did it."

Who's next? Alistair, who finally showed some passion last time out. "Stuck it up my trousers and gave it some." The Air That I Breathe gets covered, and it's better than the Simply Red version even before the band strikes up (; He's got an intoxicating half-whispered sound, like the best crooners he doesn't stick to the notes and phrasing as written, but improvises. He's good. He's real good.
David: "Yes, there was a mistake, but he sang like he meant it." Dogsby: "Too nasal." Stick some more white powder up your nose, Dogsby. Robin: "Good enough," Betcha: "Sounds a lot like Nick, one down, two to go."

Song four, and it's Lorna. She's hacked off with the comparisons to cabaret. Betcha doesn't know what Lorna's identity is. Lorna's fan club, Katie from Ayr, has set up a supporter's group. She's reworking Bryan Adams' Heaven, and it's the Boring Bry version, not the DJ Sammy mix. It's good, but Heaven is not the sexual song she's delivering, it's more innocent than she's playing. Blimey, too much sex on BBC1 at ten to seven.
Betcha: "Brilliant at the theatre, not the singing." Betcha: "Nerves got to her." Betcha: "You're not a cabaret singer." Robin: "Sounding more pop than before." David: "Starting to get there."

Next: Gary, performing Babybird's You're Gorgeous. More sex, this is all about rough screwing on the bonnet of a car. Very family friendly. The menace is there in the verse, then he goes all expansive and bright on a song that lurks in the dark recesses of planet pop.
Betcha: "He's built on Wednesday." David: "Going in the right direction." Robin: "Better on Weds, perhaps." Dogsby: "Unconvincing and like singing into a mirror." Amazingly, I'm in agreement with Dogsby. Gary: "I sung to all the gorgeous people out there, [points to Dogsby] you're not one of them." Ouch.

Recap time. Best: Alistair, worst: Simone by a mile.

Oh look, it's Louise, the show's initial lightning rod to attract press coverage. Her Celebdaq dividend this week: £0.00. Performing How Do I Live, the one we know from Leann Rimes. We know it, she doesn't, extending a note and missing out half the next line. It's all iconic hand gestures here, the BB psychologists would have a wonderful time analysing this. I don't, it's crap.
David: "That was good. Nothing new." Betcha: "Like those girls from Neighbours who release records. Missed the moment." Robin: "Safe choice, it's not going to set people afire." Dogsby: "Bland in the extreme. It was. It began and finished and didn't move me." Dammit, Dogsby's nailed it again. He and David are having another contretemps on BBC3.

We contine with Peter, who is introduced to "Blister In The Sun." And he dances like Angela Chase, all limbs flying. He's got one fan letter, from Claire, aged 11. Today's song is not from the MSCL soundtrack, it's Oasis's Don't Look Back in Anger. It's a grower. He's the new Reynars, and compliments don't come *much* higher than that.
Dogsby: "Worst by some way, and not developing. He'll still be there." Betcha: "Singing quieter caused incredible nerves." Robin: "Needs to work in improving the vocals." David: "Tough call."

Song eight is performed by Paris. He waltzed out of the dance class yesterday, and had a bad contretemps with Kevin the instructor. Lazybones. Waterfalls was a hit for TLC, and will remain a hit for them. Too much vibrato in his vocals. Concentrating on the detail, not the emotion. And putting in a pisspoor falsetto break can't be a sensible move.
David: "Wednesday was an off day." Robin: "You should be up here." Betcha: "You've an attitude." Dogsby: "Tackling Kevin head on might be the bravest thing you'll ever do. On stage, you came through." Ah, Dogsby (and the others) are all wrong.

Three remain, and it's Alex. She doesn't know what she's doing to deserve the praise. Alex has visited the MSCL canon, and plucked out REM's Everybody Hurts. She won't know about the power cut in New York that brought the video to life, but will know *that* was the soundtrack to Brian and Angela.
Dogsby: "A little nervous, but that's five in a row." Robin: "Great." David: "Pulled it out in the last thirty seconds (when the "hold on" bit started." Betcha: "That will have helped a lot of people." The host asks if Alex was nervous, "wouldn't you be?"

Song ten is Carolynne, who has been finding life a little hard. She's doing Unbreak My Heart, the old Toni Braxton number. It's very good without ever quite crossing into A-list territory. And she was performing in a broken heel!
Betcha: "Fantastic, superb singer, and the image is there tonight." Dogsby: "First 30 seconds were really poor." Dogsby is always wrong. Robin: "I liked it." David: "If that's average, then I wish everyone was that average." Once again, pay-to-view boxing between David and Dogsby is on BBC3.

Final performance is from James, doing Billy Joel's She's Always A Woman To Me. Adequate, a missed note in the second verse, no emotion. He's in trouble.
Betcha: "Alistair was better." Robin: "A kind of nightclub performance." Dogsby: "He wants to go." James: "No I don't." David: "He wants to get better, and he can."

Results in about an hour.

But back to the Hutton enquiry. You know the 45 minute claim, the one that claimed President Sadaam could fire his weapons in three quarters of an hour? Today's Grauniad reports that it's hearsay. Second hand. Recycled and distorted evidence.

Three points: 1) Once again, Mr Bliar has been caught telling blatant untruths. On June 4, the soon to be former prime minister Mister Tony Blair told the House of Commons: "It was alleged that the source for the 45 minute claim was an Iraqi defector of dubious reliability. He was not an Iraqi defector and he was an established and reliable source." This is a lie. This is a barefaced, cover-yer-ass, total and utter lie of the greatest order of fibbitude.

2) It's not right for the BBC to publish something on the basis of one, single, anonymous, uncorroborated source; yet it's perfectly in order for the Government to launch a war on the basis of one, single, anonymous, uncorroborated source quoting another, single, anonymous, uncorroborated source.

3) Would we all be better by asking Pete Waterman to construct a good-looking but completely disfunctional cabinet from public applicants? It worked well* for the pop group Hear Say.

* For definitions of "well" that include "being almost as big a laughing stock as STBFPMMTB.

So, who stays and goes in tonight's Star Academy Showdown? If there's any justice, it's trouble for Simone, Louise, and James. Not hugely impressed with Paris or Barry, the other six should be safe.

Straight into the jury go the top eight in the public vote, in no particular order: Alistair, Barry, Peter, Paris, Gary, Alex, James, and Carolynne. Bit of a surprise that the Grate British Public disliked Lorna's choon so.

The teachers vote: Robin - Louise, David - Simone, Betcha - Simone, Dogsby - Louise. We have a tie, Dogsby's vote counts double, because it gives him more chances to be wrong, so Louise No Press remains. This is the wrong decision.

The students vote: For Simone - Barry, Alistair, James, Louise, Peter, Paris, Alex, James, Carolynne. For Lorna - no one. Well, the die is cast, it's wrong, but there's no harm to the serious contenders for the Final Four.

Well, the US junta has been trying its hardest to divert attention from the Hutton inquiry this week. On Tuesday night, it reveals exclusively to the BBC that it's detained four Arabic gentlemen for being Arabic gentlemen, and trumped up charges of importing a gun to bring down a plane. Yesterday, it blacked out huge swathes of the north eastern US to distract us from the evidence below.

It's not working, Mr Dick. Today, the inquiry into Dr Kelly's death hears from the BBC's Nik Gowing. He spoke to an anonymous witness, revealed by today's Financial Times to be John Scarlett. Mr Scarlett told Mr Gowing in January that he was "concerned about the credibility of intelligence relating to Iraq." Mr Gowing went on, "I recall distinctly [Mr Scarlett] probing me to find out how willing in the coming days and weeks the media would be to accept all that had been claimed in the government's Iraq WMD dossier from September." Mr Scarlett 'winced noticeably' when Mr Gowing raised the 45 minute claim and "did not choose to give the clear positive response I had invited".

Day four in the Hutton enquiry, and the first mention of soon to be former British prime minister Mister Tony Blair. He was the one who decided that Dr Kelly should face a second interview with the MoD to determine exactly what he said to Andrew Gilligan. Geoffrey Hoon, the discredited defence secretary, overruled his most senior civil servant to order Dr Kelly's appearance before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Stuff on internal civil service inquiries includes the news that a senior MoD official called Dr Kelly "several times" on July 16 and 17, the day before he went missing. The inquest has also heard that the September dossier changed the 45-minute claim from a suggestion to a bare-faced fact, without any additional supporting evidence. If nothing more tells us that the current UK government cannot be trusted on anything, this is it.

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Star Academy 2, elimination show 2.

Paris is the dreadlocked hunk of the show. He's performing Superstition, popularised by Stevie Wonder. Badly. Too much vibrato, and completely squeaking past the high notes. "Emotionally, that was lacking," says Carrie "Betcha that's not her real name, or hair colour" Grant. "I liked it," says Richard "Dogsby" Park, the man who is never right. "Nailed it," says David Grant. "Better than the original" says Robin Gibb.

Carolynne has long black hair and doesn't know when to stop her name. Run To You was originally performed by Bryan Adams, but only became a big hit when given a rave cover in 1992. (Two Pop Fact points for anyone who remembers by whom.) This is a ballsy performance, until she tries to put a soprano break into the song. Great stage movement, but we'll leave the sopranos covering rock hits to Nightwish. Dogsby reckons she's staying, and he is always wrong. Carrie isn't pleased with the vocals, but glad she tried something different. David prefers this to Saturday's effort. Robin loved the presentation, wasn't convinced by the vocal.

Nick has short spiky hair and a tight tshirt, and has been Dogsby's whipping boy lately. He must be good. Performing Every Breath You Take, the Police number, in a very dodgy karaoke style. Irishguy would do better. "Dreadful," says Dogsby, "you were never on top of that song." "I'm growing in confidence" says Nick. Host Patrick Kielty tells Dogsby to shut up. "Not bad," says David. "Doesn't need warmth, but sinisterness," says Betcha. "I've seen better," says Robin.

Simone is the Cameron Stout of the show. She's performing Loving You, the song where Minnie Ripperton spanned five and a half octaves without effort. Simone shrieks and wails, but missed the note. David - "Totally mad choice, good effort" Dogsby - "She's not a great singer." Robin - "The song let you down."

James also has short spiky hair and a tight tshirt. He's singing Tempted, a Squeeze number, and it's the best song of the night ... so far. "He's a pub singer" - Dogsby, who is wrong yet again. "Theatre star, looks like Darren Day" - Betcha. "Superficial" - David. Patrick reckons Dogsby is pissed, as well as wrong.

Lorna is the new Sinead Quinn. She's doing Dedicated To The One I Love, and very well. "A little too cabaret," claims Robin. "I didn't pick it, you did," retorts Lorna. "It didn't have enough emotion," alleged David, who was clearly watching some other program. "I don't know who you are," says Carrie. "You'll be staying," says Dogsby. Is that an accurate Dogsby comment? Blimey.

We were due to see Barrie tonight, but he's gone down with a throat infection and has been sicknoted off.

Gary is next, looks a bit familiar. He's brought in a guitar, and is singing Yog's Faith. You know the Mary Whitehouse sketch with the busker? That's what we've got here. "I see no talent" - David. "You changed it yesterday" - Gary. "No, you changed it" - David. "Fine performance" - Robin. "First non-defensive performance" - Betcha. Dogsby talks about how he wanks in front of the mirror, not about the song.

Louise used to be in Orchid and dates Jensen Button. You're Still The One, Shania Twain's breakthrough hit, has a perfectly decent run through. Nothing special, nothing bad. Dogsby "lost the bottle." Betcha and David waffle, Robin reckons "a bit nightclubby." David claims it's her best performance, which might be right.

Alistair is the nascent Jarvis Cocker of the house. We like him. Wherever You Will Go, the recent Calling hit. Done with lots of emotion, and the performance of the night so far. Betcha likes, Robin loves, David spotted the mistake, preferred the recovery, it didn't happen for Dogsby - reminded of the Hulk - so it's a real winner.

Alex is the angst chick of the show. Performs Baby Now I've Found You, with a gaze fixed on her shoes, a voice like molten chocolate, and more emotion than is possible. All the judges are completely blown away. I'm reminded of ... no, can't be, surely.

Peter looks like some Central European loon from Eurovision, performs Glad All Over and takes ownership of the stage. The pap panel isn't happy that he's concentrating on the dancing at the expense of the singing.

And that's it. Best of the night: Alex, by a country mile. Peter and James best of the rest. Nick, Simone, and Gary look to be in trouble in (checks watch) 54 minutes.

The inquiry into the suspicious death of Dr David Kelly began on Monday. Surprisingly, no one is reporting the claims from overseas that Dr Kelly's death might not have been a straightforward suicide.

Highlight of the case so far: Richard Sambrook (head of BBC news) on Alistair Campbell (chief liar for Tony B. Liar): "I am more convinced than I was before that he [Mr Campbell] is on the run or gone bonkers or worse."

So far, we know that BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan was perhaps a little loose with his choice of language. He went for the emotive word, rather than the dispassionate, factual one. Wow. That's his style, it makes for interesting radio, encouage it. We've heard how the BBC tried to shape a second report into the subject to support the first - unless you've been listening to the BBC's coverage of the inquiry, which hasb't mentioned this one. What we've not heard about - at all - is whether Dr Kelly's claims, as accurately reported by Mr Gilligan and Ms Watts, were themselves correct. That'll require slippery Ali to stand up and be counted.

It's emerged that there will be no formal inquiry into Dr Kelly's death, this inquiry will consider those circumstances and make the coroner's verdict a formality. Conspiracy theorists will say there's further evidence of a cover up.

So, back to Star Academy. The top eight of the eleven candidates will be safe. They are, in no order: Gary, Carolynne, Lorna, Alistair, Alex, Peter, James, and Louise. As predicted here, Simone and Nick are in trouble, but they're now joined by crowd favourite Paris.

At this stage, the judges vote to save one of the three. Unanimously, they vote to save Paris.

Now, the remaining nine contestants vote to save their remaining candidate. Gary votes for Nick, Peter votes for Nick, everyone else votes for Simone, Patrick is in grave danger of overshooting into the news, and the person who thought it was a good idea to run a live exit show immediately before the Nightly News needs to be shot.

We do it all again on Saturday. Cat promises that Barry will be back then. We'll hold her to that.

Listening in, as one does, to the Rolling Daily Hell conversation in the office next door (all fortysomething gasbags whinging about the state of the world all the time.) They were discussing the use of passports within Europe, and how, strangely, they still need to show passports to enter fellow EU countries.

"That'll be yer Schengen agreement for ya. France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the other countries of middle Europe have agreed that they'll trust each other's border checks. Britain reckons that she can't trust other people, and insists on doing checks herself. Britain doesn't trust the Schengen zone, so they don't trust us, and we have to show our passports "

"Well it's a disgrace. We should be able to go where we want to go without showing passports."

"You were only saying yesterday how it's a 'disgrace' that Britain still lets in 'thousands' of 'asylum seekers.' You can't have strong controls at the UK borders and completely free movement across the frontier."

Exposing the cant and hypocrisy of the Daily Hell: priceless.

If it's August 11, it must be the start of Exam Season. Last year, the collective hunter-gatherers managed to bag the prize for which they've been gunning since the mid 80s. The A level collapsed into its own mystic status, and thousands of students received ludicrously low grades that clearly didn't reflect their ability.

This year, the hunter-gatherers are going after a rather easy target, the GCSE. The General Certificate of Secondary Education came into being in 1988, combining two previously separate exam streams - the academic GCE and the populist CSE. (Or was it the other way round? I were young at the time.)

Like the exams it replaced, the GCSE was never designed to sort the best from the even better. Instead, it aimed to grade those who had worked reasonably hard, and learned how to pass the exam, from those who hadn't worked hard, and/or didn't know how to pass the exam. Even so, only half the year group scores a passing grade for their general education, defined as five GCSEs at grade C or above; barely a quarter scores three grades E at A level.

Because of its size, the GCSE has often been cornered during exam season, and hasn't always come out unscathed. In the mid 90s, an A* grade was introduced, ostensibly to challenge the more able pupils. Instead, it's effectively shuffled all the grades up by one, creating a new grade of barely-competent student at the bottom of the scale.

It's never been compulsory for anyone to take GCSEs, some independent and progressive state schools don't bother with them, but the lumbering beast has become the de facto benchmark for academic achievement at sixteen. However, the introduction into the ecosystem of AS levels, sat just one year later, may prove to be a competitor too far. Many schools are now thinking of allowing their more academic students to skip the GCSE, take AS levels a little early, and concentrate on the A level proper thereafter. Down this road lies the British Bac, an overarching certificate for academic students that proves they've taken a well-rounded education.

Tests at the age of 7 are nothing more than a political idea; tests at 11 may have some educational value; tests at 14 might well form the basis for a Minibac award. Less academic students might want to move from school into vocational qualifications, and there's no obvious reason why this shouldn't happen more generally at 14 rather than 16.

For those in academia, perhaps a three-tier pyramid, broadly equivalent to the current GCSE, AS and A level grades, with examinations to be taken at any time in the four years of study. Enforce a broad range of study - a language, a science, a social science or art, and basic philosophy to AS level, perhaps - and generate more academically rounded students.

For instance, I might have taken the following examinations:
Spring of 4th form: Biology GCSE
Summer 4th: English language GCSE
Winter 5th: Cookery, French GCSE
Spring 5th: Computers, English lit GCSE
Summer 5th: Physics GCSE, Maths AS
Winter L6th: Latin GCSE, "General Studies" AS
Spring L6th: Economics, English lang AS
Summer L6th: Sociology AS
Winter U6th: French AS, General Studies A
Spring U6th: Maths A
Summer U6th: Economics, Sociology A.

Net result: the A levels and GCSEs I got, plus bonus AS levels in English language and French.

The student would be able to apply for university places after receiving most of their results. At present, apps have to be in by October of the final year, and are generally contingent on predicted A level results. Under Britbac, apps sent at the start of the final year would still include results from the previous three years. Or we could delay applications until after the November exams, giving an even clearer picture of the candidate's potential, and allowing firm offers to be made before the June finals.

One advantage of this to politicians: the Britbac need not come with an overall grade, merely recording the areas where the candidate has met the grade, so there will be no way of generating grade inflation. One disadvantage to politicians: the Britbac need not come with an overall grade, so computing the infamous league tables of schools will become a more difficult exercise, though perhaps more statistically reliable.