The X Factor

I leave London today just as I am getting to know it again through the local media. It takes about a week to get the hang of what each politically-oriented newspaper is trying to say. The bottom line appears to be that the UK is falling apart. Confidence in the government is very low. Binge drinking and the 'dumbing down' of young Britons remain on the rise. The Daily Mail's Quentin Lett is blaming feminist Germaine Greer for today's lager-swilling, sexually active females (never mind that the UK's drinking culture has been ingrained since before Ms. Greer left Cambridge). Some people on TV this morning blame Simon Cowell  for bringing down the tone of British entertainment and sounding the death knell for television everywhere. He voted to let the public decide on who would win the X Factor, another Pop Idol/Britain's Got Talent clone. The public decided that a pair of moronic, spiky-haired twins from Ireland would win. I guess the government has taken as much blame as is possible for the mess the country is in so Simon Cowell is the next best person on the list. One wonders about the quality of education these days when the quiz on GMTV is Q) What do you pour ontop of Christmas pudding? Possible answers: Tea, brandy or milk. The prize is 25,000 pounds. And I may only be a token Brit but everyone knows you don't pour tea or milk on top of Christmas pudding. Perhaps the quiz is meant for 3 year olds so that their parents can afford to send them to university. Then they can learn to spell better than Gordon Brown, who is under fire for getting a few words spelt wrong in a letter of condolence to a fallen soldier's parents.