X Factor winner Joe predicts this year's finalists

The X Factor champion Joe McElderry believes Matt Cardle and Rebecca Ferguson are this year's frontrunners in the ITV1 reality show. He tells TV Times magazine: "My money's on Matt and Rebecca this year - I want them to be in the final." Joe also reveals how his life has changed since winning The X Factor. After beating Olly Murs to be crowned The X Factor 2009 winner, with almost two thirds of the 10 million votes cast in the final, Joe's had a whirlwind journey that shows no sign of slowing down. "It's very surreal, but I'm having the time of my life," he tells TV Times. "I've got a swanky little flat in London now! Cheryl Cole said it takes a long time to get used to it, but I'm finding my feet. "I've got a good knack of going incognito. I can throw a hat on and a pair of glasses and nobody notices me. I don't have a fake moustache or anything, though." To read the full interview and find out which judge Joe says is the most competitive, as well as what he really thinks of Simon Cowell, buy TV Times on Tuesday, October 19.

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.