Cheryl

So I raise myself from my afternoon slumbers. I have afternoon slumbers these days. I'm not sure I like them but they happen anyway.

Something is nagging away at me about last night, because I'm embarrassed I spent the whole evening in front of XFactor and Cheryl Cole. Cheryl Cole in particular bothers me a lot, for I can't work out what she does, other than being a simpering sentimental sobbing celebrity who may represent some new and awful representation of woman kind. This girl is certainly no Joan of Arc. There is also something rather nasty about the 'born to perform' child and sobbing mother routine that accompanies the somewhat unfortunate things that have beset Cheryl recently (and of course is endemic to the formula of X Factor itself) I think it might be characterized as the fear of the real.

I mean, if you marry a footballer in a wedding dress that cost £100.000 you should know what you are in for- you shouldn't come over as duped. If you are truly beset by personal troubles, why agree to be interviewed by that infernal piece of nastiness Piers Morgan? It is possible that Cheryl Cole realizes that her party piece, her living, is breaking down for the media.

I say this as somebody who will cry at almost anything, but I wouldn't want to be doing it for a living.