For my weekly writing spot on this site, see the One-Minute Mystic, with a new meditation posted every Monday. Also see The Village, the story of Misty Longings, England's most beautiful village, posted episode by episode earlier this year.       There are some things you instinctively know. Bovril or marmite? Robinson or Akinola? Strictly or X? Saturday night is light entertainment – and entertainment doesn't come much lighter than Strictly Come Dancing on BBC One and The X Factor on ITV. One is all-dancing, one is all-singing, and both are all-absorbing for the contestants. "It's taken over my life!" they tend to say, whether 16 year-old schoolboys or ex-international rugby players. Like many of us when suddenly caught up in a small and intoxicating bubble of experience, it all feels desperately exciting. But when does light entertainment turn dark? The format for both shows is the same: four judges, desperate contestants and a host to mediate between the two – whilst reminding everyone of the life and death nature of this event. "If you want to keep poor Sally in the competition – Sally who lost her mum when she was five – then you really need to vote!" Strictly is looked after by an ageing, fumbling but warm Bruce Forsyth, while a young Dermot O'Leary does the honours for X. Formerly one of the more wry TV presenters, he is now paid for tub-thumping emotionalism. "What a night! WHAT. A. NIGHT!" If you say so, Dermot. Strictly is smuttier than X. With two famously gay men on the panel, and a swooning pantomime dame, there's no end to innuendo and euphemism, in the great tradition of the dirty seaside post card. "I watched your performance with mounting excitement!" Ooh, er, matron! X is bitchier, however, because none of the judges like each other. In the media, their shared vitriol gets more coverage than the singers, who are chosen mainly for their tragic – invented or otherwise – past. After the glut of MCWWTY ("My childhood was worse than yours") paperbacks, please give a very warm hand to a generation of MCWWTY performers!' Strictly has recently had to cope with accusations that its Middle-England voters are racist. One week, the only two black dancers in the competition were ranked in the middle by the judges – but put at the bottom by the public. Embarrassing. While X must be reckoned more exploitative. Contestants on Strictly have all achieved something in life. If they fail, they have jobs and agents to return to. X contestants, however, are younger and cryingly desperate. Pumped up with impossible expectation, they have nothing to fall back on. "My entire life is over if I go out tonight," emotes a 17 year old. Strictly is for the ladies, of course. As one told me: "There isn't a woman watching who doesn't imagine herself in those costumes." While X is more street, edgy and raw. But like Roman light entertainment in the coliseum, both shows are for those who like heroes and villains. Contestants grow to be hated or loved for no very obvious reasons. Kill, kill, kill! This weekend, someone must go out. Like executions in former times, the axe must fall. And the thing is, for the moment at least – the neck won't be mine! Phew! It's slight entertainment. More writings © Simon Parke