Jedward Genius

A few days old now but worth putting up due to some of our lovely forum types getting a mention!

You may have thought, hoped even, that you had seen the last of Jedward when The X Factor finished last year. But the Jedward huggernaut is rolling on. Readily discernible largely to the under-21s, a subterranean female fanquake is powering the twins onward.

Jedwardnow have 40,000 followers on Twitter (@Planetjedward); they have sold out every gig on this month's X Factor tour of 50 cities. Thanks to a Twitter campaign, their first single, Under Pressure, released last week, quickly made it No 2 in the download charts. At a signing in Dublin the weekend before, 4,000 fans queued overnight in sub-zero temperatures.

John and Edward Grimes are tweeting their lives moment by moment, from what they had for breakfast (Cocopops with water) to which pet they would like ("a kangaroo, because they look like they have so much fun"). Why? "We're keeping it global," John says. As Nora Miller, 16, waiting to see them in Birmingham, says, "It's like having a best friend who talks to you all through the day."

It is not only teen girls who have been drawn in. Other fans include Wayne Rooney's cousin, who has changed his name by deedpoll to Stephen Jedward Rooney, and former Big Brother housemate Bex, who has had Jedward tattooed on her buttocks. One American fan spent $2,000 flying in from California to a ­Jedward gig in Southend.

Perhaps even more impressive is Dusty Milo, a 49-year-old NHS worker who has converted a van so that she and 10 other "Jedi" can follow the twins around Ireland on tour. Along the side of the Jedward-mobile is the slogan, "We love all fruits except oranges with peeps." This immortal line is from one of Jedward's tweets, famous for their baffling typos. We may wonder what the world is coming to. But, remember, Paul McCartney asked for their autographs.