Simon at the Britain's Got Talent launch. Photo: Getty Images
Hey have you read the news lately? You'll have done bloody well if you have. In fact, given all the reams of paper plastered with Simon Cowell's face you must have waded through to get at anything worth reading, I applaud your tenacity.
Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but come on! The launch of Tom Bower's 'explosive' book, Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell has been prominent in, if not dominating, newspaper headlines for more than a week now. A WEEK!
I guess Simon Cowell is an intriguing-ish character (or at least he was when his private life was private) but I'm pretty flabbergasted at the ridiculous amount of attention all these 'revelations' have received. Not just in the celeb magazines and the red tops either, but across the board. The latest big 'news' is that biographer Bower has suggested he has enough material to write a sequel.
Whoopi-doo. Bower's going to end up as rich as King Cowell himself at this rate: he's really hit the jackpot, tapping in on the UK media's tendency to treat the private lives of individuals as 'news' – to the point where people actually believe it to be so.
Other than the actual launch of the book, which could be considered newsworthy (I suppose, on page 5 or something), I fail to see the point of so many of the stories.
Let's have a little sum up, shall we?:
Simon Cowell has 'bonked' loads of women.Ooh, really?! A single man has spent years having sex with lots of single women? How fascinating. Not.
Simon Cowell fancies Cheryl Cole but had never 'bonked' her.Much like the rest of the world's heterosexual male population then.
Simon Cowell is not gay.Haven't we just covered that with the whole bonking lots of women thing? Couldn't care less.
Simon Cowell spends a lot of money on himself.Wowsers! A man worth £200m buys himself cars and boats does he? Yawn.
Simon Cowell takes vitamin injections and has botox.Stop the press! A guy who is instrumental
in perpetuating the culture of celebrity is as vain as, well, the next celebrity. Shocking.
Simon Cowell hasn't shaved for a few days. He's probably been too busy reading all the stupid headlines about himself.
Simon Cowell uses black bog roll. Oh for heaven's sake. Now we are making headlines about what the man wipes his ar*e with?
Isn't it crazy? And it's going on and on.
I'm not commenting here either way on what sort of man Simon Cowell is. He's been on our screens for years and you probably already know your own mind as to whether he's a womaniser, an eccentric, a megalomaniac or a complete bore; you might well have an opinion about whether his TV shows give working class kids a chance to make it big, or whether he is homogenising pop music and bringing the art to its knees (so it can kiss his feet).
What I'm asking is, if the contents of a book detailing the minutiae of Simon Cowell's life can make the papers every day for a week, can the term 'news' actually get any looser?!