The Morning after the Night Before

So, how do we all think that young Joe McElderry is feeling this morning having won Britain's biggest talent contest? Pretty good, I’d wager. Shocked? Certainly. Terrified of what’s to come? Probably. But pretty good nonetheless.

The real winner last night though was, of course, Simon Cowell. Ten million phone votes at 35p a call? That’s… a lot. £3.5million. For those of you on the other side of the pond that’s somewhere between $5.5million and $6million depending on current exchange rates. Then there’s all the sales from Joe’s single which will inevitably be Christmas number one and probably the ‘fastest selling single of all time” or some shit like that – it usually is.

I did find it amusing that Simon kept saying “this is the closest contest I think we’ve ever had” when in actuality anyone with two ears who wasn’t tone deaf knew Joe was going to win from about week three.

But I do wonder how long he’ll last. We shall see.

I thought that the best performance of last night was Alex Burke & JLS doing their mini-meadely. That was really good. And then Simon pulls Paul McCartney out of the bag as the last big surprise act. How’s he going to top that next year? Dig up John Lennon or Elvis and reanimate them for the evening?

I tell you what though, I wonder if, ten years ago (give or take) when Simon Cowell agreed to be the forth (and least well known) judge on some little show call Pop Idol, he knew it would turn him into a global superstar. Pop Idol was, of course, massive and the Simon was the star of the show with his frank (and sometimes hurtful) comments. Naturally, when the Yanks decided to pick up the show as American Idol they recognised Cowell as the star and signed him up. The rest, as they say, is history.

For me, there were two moments that stood out in that first series of Pop Idol. Gareth Gates’ first audition, with that 30 seconds or so of silence when he struggled to say his name than sang so well afterwards, and, the moment that made Cowell and Will Young for me, when Cowell called Young’s top 50 performance ‘ordinary’ and Young answered him back. Classic TV. I’d give you a You Tube link but for the life of me I can’t find the clip anywhere.