Society
Amanda Platell finds The X Factor tasteless
Published 15 November 2004
The duo from The X Factor moaned as loudly as if they'd been held at Guantanamo Bay
Just two days after three Black Watch soldiers were blown to pieces south-west of Baghdad, their unrecovered limbs kicked down the street and stamped upon by Iraqis, and on the same day as seven people were killed in a rail crash near Ufton Nervet in Berkshire, two contestants on The X Factor bemoaned their inhuman treatment on ITV's talent show. You'd think Peter Jones and his singing partner Emma Paine (otherwise known as 2 To Go) had been held at Guantanamo Bay for years instead of waiting an "agonising 40 seconds" to discover whether they would be chucked off the show. "It was really horrible," said Emma. I thought for a moment she was referring to their rendition of "I've Had the Time of My Life".
This year I have vowed not to buy a single present from any shop or catalogue that started flogging Christmas to me two months out. Last year's was one of the worst Yuletide sales on record. Why? Because greedy companies tried to convince us that Mary had a two-month labour. The sooner they start selling, the less inclined I am to buy. So my mind has turned to books. And having just received an e-mail from one of my smarter teenage friends, I have decided to give her John Humphrys's Lost for Words: the mangling and manipulating of the English language - wrapped inside a pair of Zara hipster distressed jeans, because that is how I feel after some of her e-mails: distressed.
I can accept "becoz" and "u" and "r" as kid's shorthand, but I draw the line at "bizzilion" (no, not the wax but a development of "million"), "their" instead of "they're", "romoe and julliet" and, finally, "calma", which was not the state of being more relaxed but the old Buddhist reap-what-you-sow "karma".
The mangling that I hate most occurs daily on the BBC - and practically everywhere else - with "the government today were . . ." Aaargh.
As they say, there's no fool like an old, vain, self-obsessed fool. Enter Paul McCartney and the most vapid photographic exhibition to hit our galleries for some time - "Each One Believing". As if that wasn't enough, there is a book, too, subtitled Paul McCartney on stage, off stage and backstage, which consists of a series of the most arch and posed pictures of him and his wife, Lady 'Ever Mills McCartney, that I've seen since Jordan (the reconstructed page three model) and Peter Andre (the recovering pop star) announced their engagement.
First the McCartneys appeared in Hello!, then in the Saturday Times Magazine, with the whingeing Beatle blathering on about how he can't understand why people loathe his current wife.
He says it was the same with Linda. What an insult to her life. We grew to love Linda as a strong woman, full of character, who managed to bring her kids up out of the limelight and as normally as possible; who championed causes from lentils to animal welfare - and who also, most of all, championed being a mother.
It is a sad situation that, wherever you go in the high street at the moment, there are breast cancer ribbons but hardly any poppies on sale. I greatly admire the work being done to combat breast cancer. Yet there is still a difference between a brave woman who fights for her own life and a person who gives his or hers so that the rest of us and future generations may live in peace.
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