The Cold Curse of Simon Cowell

Simon Cowell

With The Look

Recently, and for the first time in my life, I watched Britain’s Got Talent (the inlaws were up- that’s my excuse). It was chilling. Watching it was like having a cheese grater rubbed fiercely up and down my eyeballs and then having rough hot builders' sand thrown into the sockets. The programme encapsulates everything that has gone weird, and nasty, about popular culture. It also has three titans of hideousness in evidence; Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan. I’ve looked up the Geneva Convention and there’s nothing in it we can use to get this to the European Court of Human Rights, so don’t even try.

Bushy 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.

Cowell didn’t quite have that look when Susan Boyle took to the stage yet he very much did when the young lad, Shaheen Jafargholi, let rip. For those who didn’t see it I’m not going to provide the Youtube link, you can do that yourself, but the whole thing was rigged. Cowell had clearly been told earlier by his minions that the boy was a cash cow. The boy comes on and sings a soundalike Amy Winehouse cover of The Zutons' Valerie . Simon pretends he is unimpressed but he already has his “tell” in evidence right across his greedy mug. Luring the boy into insecurity and doubt, he criticises him but suggests he try another song, something he never does, thus intensifying the boy’s desperation, gratitude to Cowell and effectively his willingness to snap at anything the midget millionaire will offer him after the cameras have been packed up. Even though that offer might be a big bag of shiny nothing.

Shaheen Jafargholi

Say no to the bad man, little boy

"What else have you got?" says Cowell. It just so happens that the boy has a second song, it just so happens that the show’s producers have it cued up, it just so happened that Cowell knows that this is the case. The boy takes the roof off with a Michael Jackson number. Michael Jackson, who, it just so happens, is one of Simon Cowell's new clients....

Oh and did I mention that there’s no real prize for the winner of Britain’s Got Talent except appearing at the dusty old Royal Variety Performance, for which I imagine they don't get paid for? In fact, I suspect the winner might even have to pay their own bus fare to get to the Albert Hall. I mean, who even watches the Royal Variety Performance these days? Even the Queen rolls her eyes when she’s reminded she’s got to get out of her housecoat and get dolled up to attend it. I bet she even Sky-plusses what's on BBC at the same time the Variety Performance is on the other side. Apparently her and Charlie play Rock Paper Scissors to decide which one of them has to attend.

Susan Boyle

Is it just me or does she remind you of Gordon Brown too?

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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