All I want for Christmas is a Number One.

So Leon did it. Well done him. I’m sure his mum is over the moon. Now, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t know who would top the music charts on Sunday, and neither did I really care. But it seems to me that this annual competition did have a rather worryingly large sector of this barmy nation utterly gripped in festive anticipation.

I was always under the impression that the race for Christmas Number One was a time for any old songster to give it a shot and whip up an irritatingly catchy ditty to flog to the masses. A time when cartoon characters and ageing crooners come back from the dead, hell-bent on reinventing themselves through abysmal pop tunes.

Quite frankly, I just thought it was another one of those over-hyped and over-played musical events to be completely blown out of all proportion. A bit like The X Factor. Although I must admit that as soon as I discovered that Rhydian was Welsh, I suddenly became viciously and patriotically supportive of the white-haired, opera-singing starlet and even considered getting one of those rather unsightly t-shirts.

But why is this show so bleeding popular? It seems that for all its faults, this country does have one major strength, and that is supporting the “talent” of lifeless, wannabe popsters. They can be young or old, fat or thin, singers or screechers. It doesn’t matter. People will still rack up their phone bills to vote for them, sport their hair-dos to copy them and pin up their posters to idolise them.

And of course, good ol’ fashioned, raw talent is bottom of the list. Which is exactly why Rhyd didn’t get it. Oh, that and the fact that he is a relatively normal youngster without the emotional baggage of a suitcase-full of personal disasters worthy of any English soap opera.

But, I hear you cry, Leon has only just started his crooning career whereas Rhydian has been professionally trained! Oh boo hoo. That’s precisely why he’s so damn good. You can actually sit there and watch the Welsh wonder and chill out. You don’t have to be teetering on the edge of your seat, digging your nails into the sofa and squinting tentatively, praying that he hits the right note.

And throughout the show he was just so unbelievably humble. And grateful. And generally just a nice guy. But without getting carried away, there is something about Rhydian, a kookiness and a quirkiness, which could bring a much-needed breath of fresh air into this rapidly stagnating and “same old, same old” pop music industry. These musical talent shows are simply mass-production empires churning out band after band and artist after artist with neither an ounce of individuality nor a smattering of star quality between them.

Yet the beauty of it all is that despite not having seized the X factor crown, the Voice of an Arc Angel will probably end up being ten times more successful than anyone else in the competition. And failing that, he can always marry Miss Jenkins. Or me.