La musique pop britannique est morte!!

This sounds so much deeper and more dramatic in French … I usually return home to the U.K. just in time for the finale of X-Factor, and this year was no exception. X-Factor is a Simon Cowell sponsored television lunacy which my entire family has become addicted to. Cowell has already been castigated by the few remaining smart journalists writing on arts and entertainment ("heartless, thoughtless and superficial – the flotsam and jetsam of the polluted seas of celebrity that is likely to sink without trace into toxic foam” writes Minette Marrin in The Times), and so I will save my scorn and wrath instead for Paul McCartney. McCartney was clearly having the time of his life as he skipped through “Drive my Car” and “Live and Let Die.” Oddly, no mention was made of his comments last year when he reportedly likened the show to a “traffic accident,” a waste-of-space forum which does not encourage creativity, which itself has to be considered as a total understatement. There was something pathetic about this great pop legend dancing like a cheese monkey, an invisible sign around his neck saying “PLEASE STILL LOVE ME!”, and on his back, “I’M COOLER THAN YOUR GRANDAD!” John Lennon, we miss you so ...