The Cold Curse of Simon Cowell
Simon CowellBushy eyebrowed middle-aged Midlothian songbirds aside, the thing that upsets me most about the show is the look that Simon Cowell gets when someone who is actually quite good gets up on stage. No, let me rephrase that, it is the look that Simon Cowell gets on his face when someone who he thinks can make him a quick ton of money gets up on stage. It is utterly terrifying.
Cowell doesn’t smile so much as put on his poker face, he may even put his pen in his mouth to try and quell any smiling signs that he recognises the lightning, money making, potential of the subject on stage. I imagine it’s the same face a ruthless antique dealer puts on when he spots an old master hanging in the living room of a penniless old lady’s house that he’s negotiating the clearance of before she makes that last flit to the old folks home. The look shows indifference on the surface masking pant wetting excitement about the scam he’s about to pull and, in Cowell’s case, it is as if he goes into some kind of mesmeric trance.
Invariably the subject will be a teenager who can be easily manipulated. The only time you will see his eyes divert to the side away from the object of his desire will be to check if any awkward details like parents are present. If the parents look gormless, which they often do, it’s all systems go. Chilling. And don’t mistake the look for the same one X-Factor’s Louis Walsh gets when a teenage boy star takes to the mic; that’s a different look, that means something else entirely. You know what I’m on about.
Shaheen Jafargholi
Susan Boyle 
So why did Cowell get that look when 12-year-old Shaheen Jafargholi came on, but not so much when international hirsute spinster superstar in the making Susan Boyle gave it her all? Simple; Susan will need a lot more handling (electrolysis bills aside).There will be no fleecing her of her talent for one hastily produced album and then casting her aside without consequences and effort. Susan looks like she can handle herself, she’s more of a Will Young than a Gareth Gates. Notice how she walked jauntily off the stage as if to go and fetch her mohair coat and get home in time to catch the Emmerdale Omnibus, even after the judges had been raving about her? Susan couldn’t give a rat’s ass either way. 
Eoghan Quigg
Half Boy half Furbee
Still Cowell’s instincts aren’t always right, though. Look what happened with that odious half puppy/half boy who looked like he’d been put together by Jim Henson, Eoghan Quigg (a popstar name if EVER I heard one). Apparently the X Factor runner up has released an album that sounds as if it has been recorded using a karaoke soundtrack. Peter Robinson in The Guardian dubbed Quigg’s album “the worst album in the history of recorded sound” and even though hundreds of thousands of “fans” phoned in to support Quigg every week on X Factor the CD has only sold about 10,000 copies, presumably most of them are in Quigg’s folks’ garage. Yet given that the CD probably only cost about £500 to record as no production values seem apparent and clearly no real money has been invested, no one, except Quigg himself, actually got hurt. Quigg is disposable and the deal hasn’t exactly panned out for Cowell, yet the man has lost nothing and barely spent anything on him, so it was worth a punt. The songs were all covers, possibly from artists already on Cowell’s books, and deals to get use of rights will have been done with minimal effort and expense. By the time the boy fills in his Asda trolley collector’s application form next month he’ll be finding it very difficult to even get his calls returned by Cowell, who’ll have made a small profit on his fleeting and now waning popularity and will now be completely washing his hands of him.
Expect the same soundtrack used on Quigg’s album to be resurrected for a second bite at the cherry with young Shaheen Jafargholi later this year.
Anyway, I won’t be watching the programme again. Especially not after that stripper stole my act.
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The Italian Job
I was going to leave you all hanging.
I’m not particularly proud of this. But, I guess you all want to know what can possibly make a love sick Italian nineteen year old Lothario voluntarily want to get on a train?
When faced with an immovable Italian force you need to get ruthless. The Allies did it with Mussolini, the Picts did it with Caesar’s Roman Army and the FBI did it with Al Capone.
I did it with Salvatore.
I enlisted help.
I thought spending the evening in the pub with another man on the Friday Sal wanted to take me out for dinner would be enough to sicken him off me for good. It wasn’t. We were two weeks in and he was showing no sign of leaving. If anything he was getting more insistent and it was too much to cope with.So, I reluctantly asked the pub-mate in question, who was really only a friend of mine, to come over and make himself at home.
“Bring your toothbrush”, I said, “This may take a couple of days”
In the event, the presence of another man pretending to be a love rival did the trick remarkably quickly. An evening spent in the company of a man who was very polite, sitting a bit too close to the object of his affection and very interested in when Sal was going home, was too much for Sal.
It wasn’t the chat that did it though, it was the beautiful acting on the part of my mate. He was very convincing. He arrived and held my face in his hands as he kissed me. He helped me with the dinner and put his arm around my waist subtly. At one point he lovingly brushed my hair away from my face as I ate my dinner. Quite brilliant. Not too full on, and enough to make the boy pack his rucksack that evening.
Twenty-four hours on and he was on the train back to London and Dover and off across the Channel. Later on, I phoned my friend.
“Thanks for that. He’s gone. I owe you one”
“Thank Christ for that,” he said, “For a horrible moment last night I thought I was going to have to shag you”.
Cheers.
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