Somehow, watching the weekly X Factor performance of identical Irish twins John and Edward transformed from an experience akin to staring down the double barrel of a shotgun to something I anticipated with shameless glee.

 With the sheer dogged force of their Terminator-like tenacity, Jedward sidled their way into my affections.  They needed to stay in X Factor, to notch up as many landmark shambles in synthetic flammables as possible. Yet there are many out there less cynical, who were outraged that the terrible twosome keep surviving at the expense of those with inarguably better pipes.

Britain let me down. Never more will the brothers Grimes tread the X Factor boards.

Now I don’t really care who wins, mostly differentiating the remaining contestants by means of hairdo.

 We take a look at the best moments of solid Jedward gold:

Week 2: Diva Week.

 This was Jedward’s zenith, the moment they achieved greatness, slaughtering Britney Spears’ Oops I did it Again in red vinyl suits. All the classic hallmarks of Jedward ineptitude were in place - they even spectacularly missed the tuning of the opening “yeah yeah yeahs,” which is actually quite impressive, like hitting a teeny tiny target.

Of particular note was John’s ability to say the word ‘Edward,’ in a Dublin-Louisiana hybrid accent, as if it were a seven-syllable word. They went into the bizarre spoken interlude from Titanic as pouty teenage boys bringing a new definition to the word cringe. They emerged as the twin rubber-coated embodiments of the entertainment zeitgeist.

 Week 6: Queen Week.

 It seems absurd to loathe anyone so spectacularly naïve that they can ask, as John-or-Edward did, while being buffeted daily by national indignation: “What is backlash?” Hating Jedward is like hitting a womble in the face. Nevertheless as the show began the audience were baying for blood like extras from Gladiator. You half expected Simon Cowell to jump onto the table and bellow: “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?  Is this not why you are here?” With their quiffs and silver suits, the pair were like identikit La Roux Barbies, jacked up on pic-n-mix. They sang-spoke in their own inimitable fashion a mash-up of Under Pressure and Vanilla Ice’s 1990 rap Ice Ice Baby, which samples the Queen bassline. While they didn’t exactly kill your brain like a poisonous mushroom, they for once gave a pretty un-terrible performance, which seemed to quell the feral hoards.

 Week 7: Wham Week.

 While this week marked the moment of their downfall, the theme should have been utter perfection for Jedward, hypothetically topped only by a Bros week. The twins appeared the next morning on GMTV in matching studded leather jerkins. They are clearly the unwitting proponents of some sort of homoerotic marketing dream, masterminded Svengali-like by Louis Walsh under the wily guise of a chortling grandpa. All might have been well if the androgynous youths had performed Wham Rap and been able to falsetto, “WHAM! BAM! I AM! A MAN!” However, they sang I’m Your Man in an a typically tuneful manner. When Jedward got better, they just became average. They needed to stay painfully awful. 

 So goodbye Jedward. Never again will you rock the X Factor mike like a vandal, light up the stage and wax a chump like a candle.

See Jedward live at McClusky's this Saturday.