One quick pickup from last week's Vote For Me videos, where we spotted Alex's soundtrack was She's A Star. Caro got the equally appropriate Independant Woman, and for Alistair... The Battle Of Who Could Care Less. Hey, I'm just reporting this.

It's interesting that the three surviving contestants are numbers 8, 9, and 10 on the selection lines. Coming to air, there were less than 1000 votes between Alex and Alistair the top two. This week, I'm going to completely ignore the comments of the Pap Panel, even though it includes Jonathan Woss; and edit out the gabblings of Patrick "Golden Handcuffs" Kielty.

Carolynne sings first. She's wearing a black dress, long skirt, high heeled boots. First performance: Man I Feel Like A Woman. Everyone knows Shania's tune, and perhaps this version doesn't quite measure up to Ms Lange's standard. Caro still gives it everything she's got, and more. If there's any justice, she'll be through to the last two.

And now, a personal puff piece from Sir Paul Fab Macca Whacky Thumbs Aloft.

Alistair draws second. He's got red t-shirt, black jacker, and is performing If You Come Back. Apparently, this is by a popular beat combo called Bleeugh. It's a perfectly serviceable rendition, better than many he's done, but clearly a distance behind Caro's stomper.

Alex has the plumb draw to close the show. A blue top tonight, with ripped short sleeves, not the usual green numbers. About ten years ago, she did "Words" far better than Ronan Bleating. Tonight, it's Baby Can I Hold You Tonight. Very quietly, very softly building to the chorus. Does it have to end? Yes. Shame. All in all, possibly a little shakier than Carolynne, streets ahead of whoever it was that went second.

Cat is joined by ten old friends, including the lanky midfielder Peter Brame and the half time orange Louise Whothehell. Pat is with Camp Caz, and plays her showreel. Oddly, it doesn't mention that she was invited to skip the queues and audition directly with Grant and Betcha, thanks to her shagging Ben from A1. Caz reprises Underneath Your Clothes. "All the things I deserve." She really is giving it her all, we can but hope that it's going to be enough.

Team Alistair are in the dance hall, where we learn that Al just missed SA1 last year, and was also called in for a second shot. Plenty on the high and whiney Dogsby, no mention of his dismal track record at Eurovision 2002... He's reprising Wherever You Will Go, suggesting that his knowledge of music wouldn't have him invited back to I REMEMBER LAST TUESDAY LUNCHTIME. He's atrocious in the verse, but belts out the chorus as if he knew it.

The Republic of Alex has set up embassy in the dining room, with ambassador Valerie Sinatra from the mile high travel tower. Alex had to send in a tape to get an audition, didn't come through the system. We've heard "Yellow" enough, so it's back to the qualification shows, when the heat was unbearable, and Beautiful. That was indescribably good. I won't even bother to try, words just don't do it justice.

Er, recapping the last three performances, it's clearly Disadvantage Ali.

Claudia Winkleman recaps the last week: the winner's flat, and the PA in Brum. Cripes, were there that many of us? Don't think I've made my BBC debut there, but I'll have to review the footage carefully...

We have a result. Third place leaves us right now. Goodbye, Carolynne. She ran close, I'll see about finding out *how* close next week. Farcically, there's now a 115 minute break: the remaining two come back at 2135 for the finale.

Elsewhere... a really, really bad day for Interior Minister David Blunkett. He's rapped over the knuckles at Oxford court after expressing sympathy for a man on trial. Newspaper editors have been hauled before the judge to apologise for less.

Meanwhile, extreme right-wing former Conservative minister Norman Tebbit passed judgement on Mr Blunkett's plans for a compulsary identity card. "I don't support him, it's not a workable idea."

This raises the bizarre spectre of a senior Labour, left-wing, politician being even further to the restrictive right than the wings of the Conservative party. The mind boggles.

Now we are two. Alistair has a quick run through his best moments on stage, and then a somewhat longer run of not so good moments. (You can't spot the slight bias here, can you?) Anyway, he's lending his touch to Everything I Own, and he's changed into a yellow t-shirt and black jacket. Looks good, better than his singing. It's technically perfect, but there's little emotion. Credit for singing something written more than two years ago.

I've been comparing Alex to ultra-indie US singer-songwriter Melissa Ferrick. She's performing Imagine. Yes, the old John Lennin number. And it confirms that the version we all know is weak because Lennin is weak. The middle eight of that performance would just have to be the greatest spine-tingling moment of the series. There are very, very valid comparisons with Eva Cassidy, and she is amongst the greatest vocalists of our time.

Now, why is Chris Moyles on the stage? Oh, it's Daniel B'dingfield. He's performing If You're Not The One with Ali. Alex (wearing a red top with string for sleeves) is doing Gotta Get Through This. Both contestants are too far down in the mix, and B'Dingfield is dominating both duets. Disadvantage Dan, I'm afraid. This isn't your promo opportunity, this is theirs. Butt out. "Please vote Alex." Ah, we always liked B'Dingfield.

And finally, the self-penned tunes. Alistair is perfoming Bring It On. It's the best he's done all night. It's a sure fire Biggie.

Alex has something new, Maybe That's What It Takes, a cuddle up to your lover round the roaring fire song. Two very, very good songs.

Cat gives voting totals. 3.8 million votes. That's about 3 million in the past two and three quarter hours. That's big. I don't have voting figures for the POP IDLE finale to hand, but they must be in this area. Usefully, the phone lines close while Pat is talking to the old contestants. They close exactly as James is being the only one of the eleven defeated students to recommend voting for Alistair.

While Frank Naef is counting the votes, here's the interval act: Alistair and Alex performing Let It Be.

We have a winner. Four and a half million votes later, we have a winner.

Yes we do.

Following David Sneddon.

Coming after Will Mellor.

The winner of Star Academy 2003.

Is.

Ol' hot hands herself.

Comparisons with Ferrick, Cassidy, whoever be damned. We have our winner on her own terms.

The California election. Ah, what a to-do. On the substantive matter, this writer is firmly of the opinion that the current recall mania is an abuse of process, as if Mr Davis is so clearly the wrong man for the job now, he was the wrong man for the job last year.

On the insubstantive matter, I'm not voting for the only candidate to have groped an equally famous woman live on national television (Herr Schwarzenegger and Ms Van Outen on THE BIG BREAKFAST, December 2000). I'm being the usual Broadcasting House loyalist, and backing Brian Tracey all the way to a potential 100th place in the election.

Broadcasting House: intelligent late Saturday night conversation for the Californish. Except last week, when it was intelligent late night conversation on an uncertain date. (Don't get this joke? Shame on you for sleeping in till 10!)

After the California election next Tuesday, and before the European elections next June, expect another interesting election, this time in the Vatican City.

Conversation: The Conservatives are a rump party, with a heartland inside the M25, claims a history lecturer at an obscure London uni. It's the party of the suburban south east, the party of property prices and inheritance tax. Never mind unemployment when they can talk about the city of London; inner city renewal is less important than congestion charging.

The Election 70 programme shown on BBC Parliament last week was filled with innate racist attitudes, as it came less than two years after Enoch Powell's infamous "rivers of blood" speech. That always struck me as a worst-case scenario, a bit of scaremongering, not Mr Powell's prediction of what would happen. Over the mists of time, that distinction's been lost, and we can replace the "immigrants" of 1968 with the "asylum seekers" of 2003. They're all outsiders, they're all here to steal our jobs and kill our prosperity, they should all be send back from whence they came, and that's quite enough about the Conservatives.

When will the national media figure out that the Blues are a spent force? First, let's take confirm that they are coming down to minor party status, a process that won't happen in fewer than three electoral cycles. When they become the third party in Parliament twice in a row, and don't appear as the home for protest votes outside their corner of the south east, then we'll know. When's three elections from now, sometime around 2014? Eleven more years of pretending Iain Duncan Cough's brigade still matters. Then we can start recycling the jokes about the Liberals from 1970, how they could all fit into the back of a London taxicab.

Star Academy Update. Thanks to some careful planning, and letting the screaming girlies stampede, I got myself down to the NEC in time to nab a place about two rows back, and to the side of the stage. Good place if they're going to come out after the concert proper, as they did in Manchester.

Going in, I knew the order in which I'd like the three to finish, and the order in which I expected them to finish. I've not changed my preferences, but there might be some upsets in the public vote.

Carolynne first. She is very, very good. A hell of a lot better live than on the telly. There's a warmth and a resonance to her voice that is lost down the transmission line, and overpowered by cheesy backing tracks. Carolynne is a lot better at this performing lark than I've given her credit in the past, and she's great at the songwriting gig.

Alistair, it emerged recently, co-wrote one of the songs left in the blocks in A Song For Europe 2002. Had Al's duo gone to Tallinn, we wouldn't have been writing home about a song tied third. More likely another record low score. On stage, he lost it. He was tired, he had no vocal range, I really don't think he did himself any favours tonight.

Alex oozes star quality out of every pore. By dint of repetition and practice, she's taken complete ownership of Yellow, formerly the property of Coldplay. By pouring heart and soul into it, she's quietly denied Christina Aguilera the definitive reading of Beautiful. Had there been the time or the inclination, Alex could have taken Tainted Love or Everybody Hurts. Even on two songs plus a group effort, it's clear who was the star of the show.

The entire gig lasted about 40 minutes. The three have the performance of their careers to make in less than 48 hours, though, so we can forgive the short appearance. There was time to sign a few autographs, shake a few hands, and study the three up close. I hadn't realised how small Alex was, nor how hot her hand got from just brushing past hundreds of fans. At least one of them said the title of this post. Carolynne is big in one sense, Al is big in another, and those who don't watch the SA Red Button feed are never going to get that joke.

If tonight's show is anything to go by, Carolynne might be staging the quietest and most unexpected comeback since Jonny Regan on BB3. Can she push the Alex Sibley figure into a distant third? Maybe even challenge her best friend for the victory? Certainly, Alistair's reception was lukewarm, and maybe some of the "Stop Alex" vote will go to Caro.

A newrain rule for international cricket. We like the Duckworth-Lewis rule. It ticks all the right boxes: reasonably simple, easy to apply, derives well from first principles, and gives accurate results. Well, usually. The ICC noted that sides chasing very high scores - significantly over the 250 par - would have the match unreasonably tilted towards them. To rectify this error, the ICC brings in a computerised system for international and professional cricket. It gives the result more accurately, but at the cost of being easy to apply. A computer is mandatory, not just a pencil and paper.

We've finally found out who will win the West Midlands regional licence. It's EMAP's Kerrang! radio. The Radio Authority reckoned this was the best of four rock format applicants, and outpointed two news applicants, a jazz one, a country station, and two pop 'n' prattle stations. Kerrang! will launch on 105.2 in the new year.

Pops 2: The video clip to Summer Nights, filmed on the same location as Buffy The Prequel. Then a rough cut (clearly omitting a Steve Wrong intro, good call) into John Waite's Missing You. An Al Griffin song, if ever there was one. Pilot perform Magic, which isn't, and Bowie's back (boom boom) with Modern Love. The Police sing So Lonely. Only dumbos think it's "Sue Lawley." Or that his new Send Your Love is much cop - a muddled mess is more like it. Then Chic's My Forbidden Lover, Stereo MCs' Connected, and the first Good Song of the night: Toyah performing Thunder In The Mountains. Her biggest selling record was that 1997 career revival hit, wasn't it. Worst moment of what's been a singularly crap edition, Robot Palmer's Addicted To Love video. Oh dear. There appears to be a large lampstand through my television set now. Like I said on Friday, do not remember him this way. Fuckwits.

"[T]he American people are 'really embarrassed' by the [Bush] administration's leadership." - Wesley Clark, on 10NN. Unlike the lead Dixie Chick, he's not been slaughtered. Wonder why...

Flops 2 tonight: T Rex performing one of their classic tracks, again. Must be the first time they've aired since the summer, we'll let them through. The Boomtown Rats perform Rat Trap, with St Bob being entertaining; Eternal reprise Stay, perhaps their most tedious track. The Mavericks play something new, The Air That I Breathe, a song that is crying out for a cover by Carolynne SA2. Some group called Sherbet next, four Aussie gentlemen wearing spandex. Er, no. Some scantily clad women gyrate to the beat of Now That We've Found Love. Er, no. This week's Previously Unseen is Jimmy Olsen's Blues, the one after The One After The Hit for the Spin Doctors. They were flavour of the month (June 1993, slightly sweaty plaid shirts,) but by October could only creep to #40. A video clip of David Bowie performing Knock On Wood, with some 70s bird. And a second track from the Mavericks. "It goes on and on," say the lyrics. Correct.

In its latest attempt to impress the economic vampires who read the Daily Hell, the government plans to tag those seeking asylum in the UK. Interior minister for the Hell, David Blunkett, told the BBC this week that he has no idea how many claimants were in Britain, and has muttered to Seciricorp that tagging would ensure he couldn't lose them again.

Keith Best of the Immigration Advisory Service branded electronic tagging "deeply offensive". "These people have committed no crime whatsoever. Electronic tagging would be unnecessary if the Government introduced policies that didn't encourage people to stay clandestine. The ridiculous thing is, it's a crisis of the Government's own making."

Keith Best was a Conservative MP between 1979 and 1987.

Liked these on the Top 40 Singles By Sales Volume chart:
37 - Foo Fighters - Have it all. Fifteenth single from the album, but who cares.
34 - Chemical Brothers / Flaming Lips - The golden path. Like neither group, like both groups. 26 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps. Yeah.
21 - Clea - Download it. Like the Sugarbabes when they were a close harmony group over orchestal backing. Apparently, they're four-fifths of the rejects from Flopstars 2, the winners going on to become Gals Allowed and Javine Hilton disappearing up her own wotsit. Who cares. Single of the week.
18 - Ultrabeat - Pretty green eyes. It's a grower.
16 - Metallica - Frantic. Lives up to the name.
14 - Underdog Project - Summer jam. So *that's* what Belgium has been going ape over.
08 - Evanescence - Going under. Yeah, they're goths.

On the album charts, Gagagagagagagagagareth Gates has been beaten to the top spot. He's been beaten by Muse. And Sting. And the hits of R Kelly. And Nickelback, Limp Biscuit, and the Chemical Brothers. And old albums from the Darkness, Coldplay, Starsailor, and Hayley Westenra. Yep, Gaga is the seventh highest new entry, at number 11. Eleven. Muahahahahahahahaha. Whose fifteen months of fame are over?!