Monday, June 18, 2007

Irresistible Tenordom

This is rather cheering. A portly chap called Paul Potts, endowed with absolutely none of the requisites of stardom, but, like Leonard Cohen, 'born with the gift of a golden voice', wins Britain's Got Talent (a TV contest modelled on America's Got Talent). His voice (unlike old Len's) is a powerful tenor, and all he had to do was belt out Nessun Dorma. The biggest, boldest, most potent expression of irresistible tenordom - it never fails. There was nothing else he could have done that would have won him the contest. And now this touching latest on Paul Potts. I hope he enjoys his moment, maybe even makes a career - he seems a nice man, ravaged with self-doubt and beset by misfortune. No doubt the reptiles of showbiz and the gutter press are all over him like a rash. Let's hope he survives, strengthened in every way - and with better teeth.

8 comments:

  1. Is that not the show that features that amiable lad about town Piers Morgan? I like to keep up.

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  2. thank christ that's over! best news I've heard today! pol pot, you say?

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  3. He's fronting the Queen! that's why he needs his teeth fixed, of course, insufficient overbite. dedication to detail, nice.

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  4. I dunno - such cynicism - you try to spread a little good cheer...

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  5. that is rather pleasing. His tale of woe & debt is strangely familiar.

    After so many years doing shit jobs, he should be sufficiently grounded in the banal to resist the heady temptations of bullshit fame. Nothing like stacking shelves and having bad teeth to give you perspective. That Hilton woman could do with some of that, isn't it time celebrities had to stack shelves & have half their teeth knocked out to make them less loathsome? i think there's a tv show in that somewhere...vote to see which celebrity gets to spend the next ten years working in Tesco's, oh, and have half their teeth kicked out by a pack of Geordies.

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  6. I always thought Cohen meant that line ironically. That's why he laughs. It's also why he'd never win one of these shows. Simply too much charisma.

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  7. There's a danger, Nige, of you're becoming typecast as the birdman, and your attempts to branch out into other directions and spread some good cheer not being taken with the seriousness they deserve.

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  8. You're right there, AndrewK - the W.H.Hudson to Bryan's Ford Madox Ford...

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