By overwhelming demand, Harry Harvey continues the harrowing tale of the sacrifice of his Ego on the altar of XFactor.

While Women’s Beach Volleyball is my spectator sport of choice, I have also watched on television innumerable sessions of young men in shorts engaged in vigorous body contact at the Millenium Stadium, and it has always seemed to me a vast space – a verdant savannah surrounded by a mighty wall of Welsh persons in national dress of red rugby shirts, waving daffodils and leeks, and singing a lot.  But, bizarrely, the place turns out– like Her Majesty the Queen and Sylvester Stallone – to be a great deal smaller in real life than you’d imagined.

It’s impressive, nevertheless, as the North Gate is opened after 3 hours’ waiting (and wondering what the hell I’m doing) and a crocodile of now mute and frustrated Cymraeg songsters are issued with a sticky label bearing a discouraging six-figure number, crawl into the hallowed space and head straight for the loos, to be immediately rerouted by liveried stewards, presumably foreseeing a potential flashpoint developing, towards seating in the ground level section of the north stand.

Suppressing the urgent urge to deal with a pot of coffee drunk at five thirty, followed by two hours on Arriva Trains Wales and three hours corralled on the walkway by the Taff, I grab a seat beside a confused, morose-looking family from Port Talbot. I engage them, as is my habit, in affable banter while spending a few minutes trying to guess which of them is the prospective performer – for none look like obvious candidates. It turns out to be a long-faced girl with bright red lips in startling contrast to the eau-de-nil complexion that a winter spent in Port Talbot tends to produce. There is something in her demeanour and the way she moves that suggests her only chance of being selected to confront Simon, Cheryl, that Irish bloke and Daniiiii will be as one of the small number of disaster acts brought in to add comic relief and make the viewing punters feel better about themselves.

I give the girl an encouraging smile; she is not visibly moved.

By now my own normally robust sanguineness is showing signs of failure; paranoia grows; I’m convinced that my only chance of reaching the high altar lies in being picked for the ‘strange-old-git’ category, and the doubtful glory of featuring in an obscure YouTube clip for a while – and even this is beginning to look hotly competitive – it seems that there are many stout little Welshman who harbour a secret Harry Secombe within, itching to get out – and they’re all here.

What are they thinking of – I think. How can they have the gall to expect to be taken seriously? Then, with a stomach-churning jolt, I see the eau-de-nil and red lipped girl looking at me – that’s just what she’s thinking about me.

I need a change of scene. The Port Talbot granny – the most grounded member of her party, I guess – consents to guard my space while I penetrate the concrete intestines of the Millennium Stadium and find the men’s loos.

It’s all hustle and bustle in there, with young guys inexplicably changing their clothes and teasing up gelled and spiked hair into the random disarray first made popular by Mr Ken Dodd. More are singing earnestly at the urinals, while a cacophony of Welsh warblers warms up in the broad concrete corridors.

Feeling more comfortable now, and fairly hungry, I look for food. All that’s on offer are giant frankfurters, the size, colour, texture (I’m guessing now) and smell of an Orangutan’s phallus, dished up with scarlet sauce in a doughy torpedo. I remain unfed.

Heading back for my seat I look for the friends I’ve made outside while shuffling down the Taff, Alisha and soul-singer Wade. I spot them, wave and wish them luck. I need it more than they do.

A new cheerleader and acolytes have appeared down at the edge of the turf. They are waving their arms expansively in an effort to work up the punters into a vocal frenzy with the arrival of a real live camera that swoops and zooms on the end of an elongated multi-directional boom. A wave of ecstasy passes through the crowd as the possibility of actually being on the telly looks suddenly real. I sink with uncharacteristic discretion into my seat, conscious of the merciless ridicule to which my fastidious offspring will subject me if they spot me displaying any enthusiasm on what I have designated a research activity.

There is a surge in excitement level as one of the high priests of Xfactor makes an appearance in the stadium. It is the small, pointless and enigmatic Dermot O’Leary – enigmatic for a lack of any identifiable skill, talent, wit or personal attribute (apart from a kind of aggressive blandness) to explain his presence on our screens. Wearing a tight-fitting shirt and clean jeans he bounds up and down the aisle closest to me while the camera tracks him and he grins insipidly, shrugging off terms of endearment from attention-seeking Emmas and Kylies.

Down below in the margin by the grass, fifteen or so small black booths like old-fashioned military field latrines are being erected, as more loud bursts of X-Factor theme are released to raise a desultory cheer from the 2,000+ aspirant stars and their connections, who have now worked out that they have a less than one in twenty chance of ever getting to sing in front of Simon and the gang next day. The cheerleader tells the punters that they have just the one chance, so get it right, and if not given a golden ticket which is a passport to the inner sanctum tomorrow, to accept their rejection and get out without arguing. It seems there’s a team of junior producers and A&R people lurking in the booths. A queue forms outside each of them – the filtering process has begun – and it’s very efficient. Soon each booth is spitting out disgruntled performers who have been rejected, followed by the very occasional whoop and leap for joy from one of those accepted to join the handful allowed to appear in front of the Gods and Goddesses of XFactor.

I don’t want to prolong the experience and, frankly I’m beginning to get a little bored. I skilfully jump a convenient queue outside audition booth 6, remembering to insert the earpiece of my phone and play the opening bars of my song’s backing track, which (wise virgin that I am) I’ve had the forethought to download so I would perform in a key that matched my vocal range.

After a quick burst of the synthetic strings that lead into the ballad I am about to assassinate, I extract the earphone, eject a small gathering of grenouilles from my throat and amble into the what turns out to be an open-fronted field latrine facing out across the hallowed turf.

The big shock, apart from recognising at once that the key I went to so much trouble to embed in my head has already fled (could be the beginnings of a rap here) is that there is a geezer sitting on a high stool in front of the X-spot. For some reason (my natural sanguineness, perhaps) I’ve been expecting a female, not a surly, bored, cynical-looking bloke. I feel a tightening in my larynx, and I know as soon as the first notes have squeezed their way out through my arid throat that it’s going to be the disaster act or nothing for me.

‘Fraid it’s a “no”,’ the auditor says, and waits for me to burst into tears or hit him.

Bravely, I do neither. I grin knowingly and retreat from the latrine to have my number crossed out by a pretty girl with thick marker pen (to deter second chancers). I make my way up the aisle down which O’Leary has been strutting, quietly dealing with the natural resentment that comes with rejection, and I remind myself that there is some consolation in knowing I wasn’t bad enough to be selected for the public ridicule category. I can’t find Wade and Alisha to see how they got on. I’ll just have to wait until the Cardiff session is on TV.

I exit the Stadium and after a brisk stroll across Cardiff Bus Station, leave that city stronger and wiser – sort of. I apologise for failing to produce first hand observations of confrontation with Simon Cowell and flirtation with Cheryl. But I shan’t be trying again.

For those who now feel they must see the real thing (minus grenouilles), I’ll be performing on a date to be finalised, some time in late June at the Globe in Ludlow, during the town’s Shakespeare Fest.

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