Slipperduke
The Camden Cad
There are a million and one reasons to dislike Cheryl Cole. There’s her colour, for starters, a curious orangey glow that smacks of either too much Sunny Delight or too many quid-a-minute South Shields tanning salons. There’s her husband, the odious little skraeling who earns more money in the time it takes him to pass water than you will in your entire life, and he knows it, and he’s laughing at you. There’s her music, a soulless mishmash of assembly line R’n’B with weak vocals phoned in on a wet Wednesday morning and layered over the beats like dandruff on the shoulders of an estate agent. And then there’s that time she was convicted of assault after battering a toilet attendant in what the judge referred to as, “an unpleasant piece of drunken violence.”
But let’s leave all that alone and get to the main bone of contention. Cole is a judge on a game-show called ‘The X-Factor’ where the young and the feckless are invited to sing live on stage in front of a horde of jeering know-nothings scooped up from the nearest bus-shelter. Her role, as well sorting the future stars of Butlins from the collection of mentally subnormal mouth-breathers that the show happily exploits in the early stages, is to mentor. She’s there to guide these young starlets, blowing torrents of smoke up their bottoms until they begin to believe that this pimped-up version of ‘Bob Monkhouse’s Opportunity Knocks’ is their passport to lasting fame and fortune and not just the chance to be the answer to a quiz question in some dumbed-down future version of Trivial Pursuit.
All of which was perfectly fine until the day she decided to launch a solo career with an X-Factor performance of her own. ‘Dreadfully sorry,’ she may as well have announced to whichever generic, shiny-faced munchkin she was mentoring that week, ‘but you’re yesterday’s news and it‘s my turn to be in the spotlight.’ Now, Cheryl should have been brilliant live because she actually won her place in Britain’s mosrt recent incarnation of Bananarama by appearing in a very similar game-show. She’s a champion.
But despite her weeks of advice to the youngsters who had to overcome their nerves to croon live in front of an audience of millions, Cheryl wasn’t interested in actually doing any singing herself. No, no, no, no. That’s what non-famous people do. Instead, she mimed her way through her desperately bland effort with nothing more note-worthy than an ill-fitting pair of strides. Then, as the cassette clicked to a halt backstage and, without even a trace of shame, she stood there beaming as her fellow judges gave her the kind of praise usually reserved for Nelson Mandela. Half an hour later, she was back giving advice on how to sing live in front of loads and loads of people.
If it wasn’t for the fact that she’s lauded by the public like Diana - Version 2.0, it probably wouldn’t upset me that much, but this incessant delusion that she’s ‘our Cheryl’, a working girl made good, is enough to make me gouge my own eyeballs out with smashed light bulbs just to give me something to take my mind off it. She’s a fraud. She’s a cheat. She’s not Madonna. She’s not Britney Spears. Christ on a biscuit, she’s not even Tiffany. Or Debbie Gibson. She’s rubbish.
That said, she is pretty fit.
But let’s leave all that alone and get to the main bone of contention. Cole is a judge on a game-show called ‘The X-Factor’ where the young and the feckless are invited to sing live on stage in front of a horde of jeering know-nothings scooped up from the nearest bus-shelter. Her role, as well sorting the future stars of Butlins from the collection of mentally subnormal mouth-breathers that the show happily exploits in the early stages, is to mentor. She’s there to guide these young starlets, blowing torrents of smoke up their bottoms until they begin to believe that this pimped-up version of ‘Bob Monkhouse’s Opportunity Knocks’ is their passport to lasting fame and fortune and not just the chance to be the answer to a quiz question in some dumbed-down future version of Trivial Pursuit.
All of which was perfectly fine until the day she decided to launch a solo career with an X-Factor performance of her own. ‘Dreadfully sorry,’ she may as well have announced to whichever generic, shiny-faced munchkin she was mentoring that week, ‘but you’re yesterday’s news and it‘s my turn to be in the spotlight.’ Now, Cheryl should have been brilliant live because she actually won her place in Britain’s mosrt recent incarnation of Bananarama by appearing in a very similar game-show. She’s a champion.
But despite her weeks of advice to the youngsters who had to overcome their nerves to croon live in front of an audience of millions, Cheryl wasn’t interested in actually doing any singing herself. No, no, no, no. That’s what non-famous people do. Instead, she mimed her way through her desperately bland effort with nothing more note-worthy than an ill-fitting pair of strides. Then, as the cassette clicked to a halt backstage and, without even a trace of shame, she stood there beaming as her fellow judges gave her the kind of praise usually reserved for Nelson Mandela. Half an hour later, she was back giving advice on how to sing live in front of loads and loads of people.
If it wasn’t for the fact that she’s lauded by the public like Diana - Version 2.0, it probably wouldn’t upset me that much, but this incessant delusion that she’s ‘our Cheryl’, a working girl made good, is enough to make me gouge my own eyeballs out with smashed light bulbs just to give me something to take my mind off it. She’s a fraud. She’s a cheat. She’s not Madonna. She’s not Britney Spears. Christ on a biscuit, she’s not even Tiffany. Or Debbie Gibson. She’s rubbish.
That said, she is pretty fit.