Get off my Christmas, Cowell.

SIMON Cowell has stolen Christmas. He’s a great waxen faced grinch with black Weetabix hair and a waistband up to his nipples, camply stroking his chin as he sits at his big desk of televisual judgement, imagining all the hearts across the country he has broken.

Know what he does when he goes home? He gets in the door, strips down to his y-fronts (waistband still up to his nipples) climbs aboard the turbo-charged Stannah stairlift that runs throughout his entire mansion and whizzes up to the bathroom, where a sunken bath is permanently filled with 24 carat gold pebbles. He leaps in, splashes about, flicks a couple of pebbles across the marble floor and grins to himself.

“This is the best Christmas I have ever seen in my entire life, ” he says, before ducking his head under the gold and having a snooze.

In the past, Britain used to look to the Christmas pop charts for a spot of festive cheer. The nation would turn as one to the special edition of Top of the Pops, brimming over with excitement to discover which song had climbed its way to the peak of the most important top ten of the year.

History has allowed us to open our presents to some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. The Beatles. Michael Jackson. Pink Floyd. Queen. Rolf Harris. Westlife. Bob the Builder.

Three times, Band Aid has ascended the Christmas charts to raise millions to help the poor, channelling the unique spirit of generosity that envelops the festive season.

Even the novelty records have a beloved place in the public consciousness. Mr Blobby may have been a spotty pink travesty, There’s No one Quite Like Grandma may be on literally nobody’s iPod and the world still hasn’t worked out how that duet by Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman ever wound up happening (I’m looking forward to one by Mel Gibson and Lulu) but they have all become cheerful memories over time.

2005, however, is not a cheerful memory. In fact, the Christmas single in 2005 is not a memory at all, because it was That’s My Goal by Shane Ward, the most forgettable heap of schmaltzy guff by the most forgettably bland X-Factor winner, a flash-in-the-pan aural surfboard riding a wave of mass hysteria with a one month lifespan.

At least Steve Brookstein had the decency to fade hilariously into obscurity, thereby becoming memorable by the back door. Shane Ward is a nothing. He’s Justin Timberlake as sold by Matalan. I don’t want him to be a part of my Christmas.

2006 gave us Leona Lewis. In 2007, it was Leon Jackson. Alexandra Burke came in 2008. And this year it’s all set to be Joe McElderry.

I’m sure they’re lovely people and I’m envious of their singing talents, but musically these people are pond scum. Vocally coached marionettes warbling aspirational lift music, peddling Disney emotion drawn in brushstrokes as wide as a steamroller. It puts my teeth on edge and makes my soul itch.

Know what they are? These Christmas Cowells, the Shanes and Leons and Joes? They’re fonts. They’re Arial and Times New Roman and Wingdings and Garamond, stylised shapes which only exist as a delivery method for some other kind of content. Fonts. Eggcups. Carrier bags. Tube stations. USB hard drives. Hollow conduits with no cultural value beyond their design aesthetic.

And at least fonts can deliver Shakespeare and eggcups can hold boiled eggs. X Factor winners deliver the X Factor Christmas single, a pre-written slice of generic audio so vacuous it practically sucks out your brain and replaces it with monosodium glutamate.

You’re left tottering round with a head full of flavour enhancer, mindlessly bumping into lampposts like a blindfolded toddler and incapable of experiencing any kind of genuine emotion for the next three days.

There is one glimmer of hope, and that’s a campaign to get the impeccably brilliant Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine to number one.

Cowell has branded the initiative to beat him to the top spot as "cynical", which is like Usain Bolt being called “short” by one of the Borrowers. You can help the cause by downloading it, although you have to do it before tomorrow for the sale to register.

It’s a protest vote to show we want the real Christmas single back. Because the only place for Simon Cowell in my home on the 25th is as a small plastic effigy sat atop my tree in a fairy dress, with the waistline at the nipples. And I’ll be drinking port and flicking rubber bands at it until its head falls off.