Simon Cowell has had lots to thank the Queen and his old Conservative party muckers for this week.
Without Her Majesty’s four-day national jubilee party and Boris Johnson’s confidence vote, there may have been more focus on the humdrum finale to this year’s mediocre Britain’s Got Talent.
There may even have been more made of the amazing letting the cat out of the bag act performed by Cowell.
I refer to our old friend Loren Allred – the “unknown singer” with the platinum disc in her back catalogue and the array of music bigwigs in her contacts book.
It was all going well, as Cowell once more trotted out his “no one knew who she was” line.
But then, as he praised her for bravely singing her “new”, self-penned song in the final, the puss was suddenly set free.
“Obviously you sang Never Enough at your audition, cos we wanted that,” he said, referring to her famous song on The Greatest Showman soundtrack.
At which point my needle jumped, my record scratched, and I found myself yelling, “Eh? If none of you knew who she was, how were you in a position to want Never Enough?”
Obviously, it could have all been a massive coincidence. However, we’ve been down this road far too many times.
Cowell even claimed to have “discovered a star” in eventual winner Axel Blake, despite Amazon Prime having discovered Axel’s comedy special 12 months ago. You might not mind Cowell’s jiggery pokery, but what about those whose hopes suffer thanks to it?
On the night, ventriloquist Jamie Leahey and comedian Eva Abley were just as funny as Axel. You’re telling me that runner-up Jamie couldn’t have made up the 5% gap in the voting had he been on at the end of the show, like Axel (left with Cowell) , rather than opening it?
I’m wasting my words here, of course. The same stuff will happen next year, and each subsequent year until BGT finally succumbs to the viewer apathy and antipathy that did for The X Factor.
Make no mistake, based on recent form BGT is heading for exactly the same fate as the poor old passenger pigeon in eco warrior Aneeshwar’s poem.
