X Factor winner Joe to return home to meet fans
Hundreds of fans will meet X Factor winner Joe McElderry in his home town. The singer will celebrate the release of his debut single The Climb with a signing session at the HMV store on King Street in South Shields, south Tyneside. CDs of the single, which has been available to download since Monday, are on sale from today. The CD will also feature two bonus tracks, Somebody To Love and Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me. X Factor winners are usually certain to get the Christmas No 1 single, but Joe faces competition after a campaign to halt the talent show's chart domination urged supporters to buy Rage Against The Machine's 1992 track Killing In The Name instead. Five-hundred free wristbands will be handed out at the South Shields store from 8am onwards. The 18-year-old will meet fans and sign copies of his single. Joe took this year's X Factor title after winning almost two thirds of the 10 million votes cast. More than 19 million people watched him beat rival Olly Murs in the final on Sunday night.
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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.