If there is any group more ignorant and reactionary than X-Factor viewers, it's something of a tie between newspaper columnists and politicians - put them all together and you have a real clusterfuck of stupidity.

It would seem that all three groups are getting their panties in a twist over performances this weekend on the show that they see as prime examples of that censorial buzzword of the moment, 'sexualisation' - a phrase that moralists on both the left and right can get behind because it uses children as an excuse for clamping down on any display of sexual liberation.

In this case, it was performances by Christina Aguilera and Rihanna that had them tearing out their hair. Led by notorious homophobe Jan Moir of the Daily Mail (who so upset the Twitterati last year with her comments about Stephen Gately), morons of all flavours have been lining up to join the shitstorm.

Lib Dem Equalities Minister Lynn Featherstone - a woman cut from the same miserablist cloth as Labour's joyless hardline feminist former ministers - complained about the 'unsuitable' pre-watershed performances. Pop psychologist Linda Papadopoulos - who's willingness to appear on any TV pontificating about any subject somehow qualified her to write a Home Office report of the 'sexualisation' of children (by those standards, expect the next Iraq War report to be written by Vanessa Feltz) - chimed in with incoherent rubbish about children "being bombarded with the message that being sexy and being sexual is the way to be appreciated or to be validated."

Mike Stock - responsible for some of the worst music ever recorded - said the show was "scraping the bottom of the barrel" (pots and kettles, Mike, pots and kettles...). The Mail also dug out some clown from Christian organisation The Mothers Union (who's head is chairing another government review of that dreadful sexualisation - sure to be an even-handed report, then) to whine "do you want a society where young people think their worth is defined by sex appeal – because this is what is being normalised."

Some 1000 plus compaints have been made to OFCOM, with a similar number phoned in by cretins directly to ITV.

Now, I didn't watch the show - I'm not stupid - but the stills and description hardly seem overly graphic. In fact, Aguilera's performance was, apparently, a toned-down version of a routine from her new movie Burlesque - which has a 12A rating. Fine for kids in other words.

You have to wonder what is wrong with these people. Are their lives so empty that this is all they can get worked up about? And are their memories so limited that they don't remember Pan's People and Legs & Co. on Top of the Pops? Or Hot Gossip on Kenny Everett's show? Do they honestly believe that kids used to grow up unaware of sex? Perhaps. They all clearly fear open sexuality.

As I've said before, once you set up a complaint culture, people with very personal axes to grind - either religious, moral or political - will go out of their way to find things to complain about. But this latest 'storm' shows that the British can no longer scoff at America over the reaction to Janet Jackson's nipple-flash.

It's a bad day for deaths. After Jean Rollin comes news that Blake Edwards has passed away, aged 88.

Edwards was best known for the Pink Panther series, which he launched in 1963 after a successful career in television, and which ran to nine films (including the three misfires made after the death of Peter Sellers and Inspector Clouseau, which both Sellers and Edwards were absent from).

Prior to The Pink Panther, Edwards had directed Breakfast at Tiffanys and the classic thriller Experiment in Terror and would go on direct The Carey Treatment in the 1960's.

Later successes included the vaguely raunchy comedies 10, S.O.B. and Victor Victoria, all of which helped change the public image of his wife Julie Andrews, then still saddled with her Mary Poppins / Sound of Music squeaky-clean reputation. In the latter half of the 1980's, his golden touch seemed to leave him, with films like Skin Deep and Blind Date.

Also passing away today was Barbara Mills (aka Barbara Caron), who had a prolific career in exploitation films during the 1970's. Her films include cult favourites like The Stewardesses, Sinthia - The Devil's Doll, Don't Just Lay There, The Love Garden, Sweet Georgia, Chain Gang Women and Acapulco Gold.She was 59.

After a night of confusion, it would appear that legendary French filmmaker Jean Rollin has died. We originally reported this yesterday, only for stories to emerge that it was a different Jean Rollin who had passed on. However, news this morning from Pete Tombs of Mondo Macabro seems to confirm that the initial story was, in fact, correct.

Rollin is best known for his series of surreal, erotic vampire films that appeared in the early 1970s, starting with the black and white Le Viol du Vampire in 1968. The films mixed the nudity and softcore sex that the backers required with amazing, psychedelic visuals - heavily influenced by comic books - and incredible music scores. They also had some of the best film posters ever!

At the time, the films were butchered, dubbed and retitled for English language release - if they were released at all - but in more recent years, they have been recognised as works of art. The series also included La Vampire Nue, Le Frisson des Vampires and Requiem pour un Vampire.

Rollin also shot the acclaimed La Rose de Fer, Les Démoniaques and Lévres de Sang in the early 1970s, before following in the footsteps on many other French directors of the period and moving into the world of hardcore in the latter half of the decade - usually under the name Michel Gentil, he made several efficient and sometimes interesting porn films such as Phantasmes, Douces Pénetrations, Hard Pénetrations, Discosex and Vibrations Sexuelles.

At the end of the decade, he returned to horror with mixed results - zombie film Les Raisins de la Mort was pretty dull, but Fascination and The Living Dead Girl were incredible, poetic, gory and eerily moving films. The less said about Zombies Lake the better!

The 1980's saw more porn, with a few thrillers and horror movies along the way (as well as uncredited direction of Emmanuelle 6). In 1997, he returned to the vampire film with Les Deux Orphelines Vampires and two years later he made La Fiancée de Dracula.

In recent years, his rediscovery as a filmmaker of note saw him appearing at conventions and festivals, and his latest film was 2010's Le Masque de la Méduse.

As a filmmaker, Rollin regularly struggled with low budgets and critical indifference, but his best films have an amazing, trippy, unique feel to them. Ironically, rumours of his death went around in the mid-90's, only to be proven wrong. This time, however, it seems there will be no happy ending to the confused situation.

Adult movie icon John Leslie has died, aged 65.

Born John Leslie Nuzzo, he began his adult film career in 1973, and would go on to appear in some of the best films of the Golden Age, including Talk Dirty to Me, Sex World, Nothing to Hide, Femmes de Sade, Autobiography of a Flea, Mary! Mary!, Babyface, Desires Within Young Girls, V-The Hot One, Dracula Sucks, Ultraflesh, Insatiable, Matinee Idol, Dixie Ray Hollywood Star and Smoker. He was often seen as a rival to Jamie Gillis, though Leslie would usually get the more romantic (or at least less aggressive) roles. Directors knew that Leslie could not only perform sexually, but was also a more-than-capable actor, delivering performances as good as anything you'd see in the mainstream.

In 1987 he moved behind the camera for Nightshift Nurses, and soon developed into one of the best directors in the business, being a pivotal player in the adult industry's creative revival during the early 1990's. Two sequels to earlier films - Curse of the Catwoman and Chameleons - Not the Sequel - marked him out as a director to watch, having a dark edge and solid plot all too rarely seen at that time. In 1994, he split from VCA over creative differences with his film Dog Walker - the company would not allow a gunshot scene that he considered pivotal - and he set up his own company within the umbrella of John Stagliano's Evil Angel.

ironically, shortly after this, he moved away from narrative films and began to shoot Gonzo titles - his series Fresh Meat and The Voyeur having a gloss that was rare in the genre.

Outside his work in the adult industry, Leslie was an accomplished jazz musician, having performed professionally in the early 1970s and still playing for fun throughout the rest of his career.

Leslie died December 6th, apparently of a heart attack.

Film-maker, artist, photographer... now David Lynch can add 'pop star' to his resumé.

Lynch has just released a single - Good Day Today - on the Sunday Best label. It's a pleasant slice of electronica with a less impressive B-side (I Know) and you can buy it on iTunes now, or wait for the expensive double vinyl / CD release in January. The latter sounds the best option if you have the money to burn.

Lynch is no stranger to music of course, having co-written (with Angelo Badalamenti) Julee Cruise's remarkable albums back in the early 1990s, and if you like those, you may like like this. You can find out for yourself by visiting www.gooddaytoday.info and checking out the samples.