Create Your Own Americal Idol : How To Manipulate The Public For Fame And Riches

After several years of watching Pop Idol (as it’s known over here in the UK) and it’s American equivalent, I am now ready to present my guide to creating your own guaranteed ratings winner, super successful talent show that is a sure fire way to make you a millionaire several times over.

1: People Like To Watch People Being Humiliated

Never, never underestimate the essential cruelty of your audience. If they don’t get to see mentally unstable people attempting to sing or some hopeless case being savaged by the judging panel, then they are going to change the channel.

Luckily, you can avoid this fate by recording absolutely everything from every audition for your show. That way you can focus on the untalented, the mad and the truly disturbed as much as you like.

2: Bring Me The Homeless Orphan With The Lisp

Right from the start, you need a human interest story to keep the attention of your audience from week to week.

Actually, you will need 4 or 5 of these during the show’s run, but before the finals, you only need one really good one to hold the interest.

As this is early in the show, your first story has a sad ending. Yes, despite overcoming being homeless, parentless and having a lisp, the cute female orphan who walked 17 miles barefoot to the audition unfortunately doesn’t make it to the final 12.

She is, of course, rejected at the final hurdle with the words “it was a tough, tough decision…but with your drive, I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you in the future”.

By that point, your homeless orphan has served her purpose and the fact that she sang flat is no longer a problem.

However, the controversy caused by this will generate lots of press interest, headlines and water cooler comment, thereby increasing your audience share still further.

3: You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About

The golden rule is ‘keep people watching’. The more people who watch, the higher the networks charge for advertising and the more money you will make for your show.

Let’s face it, on it’s own, a bunch of amateurs singing bad Karaoke is not enough to keep people tuned in.

That’s why you need to be very careful when choosing your judges.

You need at least one really self-obsessed, opinionated egomanic (other than you) otherwise you won’t be able to convincingly fake an ongoing hate-hate relationship. This will inevitably lead to an onscreen confrontation that results in at least one judge ‘quitting’ the show.

This, again, creates more press, more interest and higher ratings. Obviously, your co-judge returns 2 weeks later, again boosting the ratings of your show.

4) I Am The Spawn Of Satan…And You Are My Puppets

As the creator, main judge, promoter, executive producer, record label owner and all round Svengali of your show, you don’t want to come across as arrogant and dictatorial. Heaven forbid!

That’s why you need to hire a judge who is essentially a decent human being who tends to see the positive in things.

A former, but not major, pop star is ideal for this.

This person’s role is to be unremittingly positive about performances, regardless of quality. That will allow you to bully them to the point of tears. Thereby creating more press, more controversy and higher ratings for your show.

There is, of course, always the possibility that this judge will genuinely want to quit. At that point, you’ll need to remind them that their entire career rests on your good graces.

5) The Public Decide…What You Say They’ll Decide

Unfortunately, in order to create a truly successful talent show, you will actually need some genuine talent. You do want your viewing public to care about who wins. But what you don’t want is that the public choose a winner you don’t want to win.

That would be catastrophic. After all, you are a highly paid music exec and they are just the public. Their job is to buy whatever you put in front of them. That’s it.

That’s why you don’t allow public voting until the final, even though the money you would make from the phone calls would add an extra million or two to your bank balance.

Luckily, because the other judges are, in effect, paid employees, you can always ensure that the final two are, at the very least, the two contestants you would like to win.

6) Milk It ‘Till It Hurts

Don’t forget that every contestant is your property - you’ve signed them all to short term deals, so force them all out on tour together, and collect another $1million.

Combine this with DVD sales, download, album and merchandising sales for the winner (and runner up, most likely) which are going to be huge as your music buying public has both watched them on TV for months and voted for them to win.

You can see that the path to riches is yours. All you need is a bunch of crazies, one semi-talented, fame hungry youth and a talent show. Go to it !

You Named Me What?

In the Sixties, inspired no doubt by industrial strength LSD, otherwise normal people started naming their children ridiculous things like ‘Sunbeam’ and ‘Starshine’.

Thankfully, time has moved on. Now, it seems, it’s only the most self-obsessed celebrities that give their offspring names you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. And here are 10 of the very worst.

10: Apple and Moses

Tiresome, self-satisfied musician Chris Thingy and tiresome, self-satisfied actress Gwyneth Paltrow clearly thought that Apple was an appropriate name of a girl.

They then went one worse by calling their second child after the father of the Israeli nation, Moses. What were they thinking?

9: Moon Unit

Frank Zappa’s eldest daughter was lumbered with the name Moon Unit. Of course, she followed in family tradition by calling her own daughter Mathilda Plum.

8: Jermajesty

Just to disprove the idea that Michael was the only ‘Wacko Jacko’ brother Jermaine called his son ‘Jermajesty’.

7: Kal-El

Elvis and Superman fanatic Nic Cage called his first born ‘Kal-El’, which apparently was Superman’s birth name. It seems Elvis Superman Presley Cage was too obvious.

6: Moxie Crimefighter

Magician Penn Jillette’s first child. This is a girl’s name, apparently.

5: Lark Song

The choice of ’60s throwbacks Mia Farrow and Andre Previn.

4: Fifi Trixibell

First of two entries for Paula Yates - Fifi is the daughter of that nice Sir Bob Geldof , who really should know better.

3: Princess Tiaamii

British glamour model Jordan and her ridiculous ex-pop star husband Peter Andre thought this was a great idea for a child’s name.

2: Sage Moonblood

Sylvester Stallone was obviously reading a lot of Conan books when he named his son this.

1: Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily

Possibly the worst children’s name in the history of mankind. Proud parents : Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence.

Strikers That Don’t Step Up To The Plate

So, a couple of English teams went out of Europe last night on penalties. No big surprises there.

But there’s one thing I hate about penalty shoot outs is who steps up to take one. All too often strikers ( you know, the people that are paid to be calm in front of goal and score) bottle it and don’t even take a penalty.

Such was the case with Everton last night. Where was Andy Johnson for Everton. Surely, he should have taken one of the first couple of penalties for the Toffees ? After all, scoring goals is what he is paid to do. Phil Jagielka (who missed one) is not.

It irkes me a great deal that managers always seem to allow the players to decide whether or not they want to take a penalty. The end result is that brave players with less skill in front of goal end up taking them while certain strikers hide away at the background.

All strikers should be made to take part in penalty shootouts. Otherwise, they’re just gutless glory seekers.

Stand up and be counted, for Christ’s sake.

Can We Just Have Books With Different Covers

I guess I read 2-3 new books in an average week. That’s 150 or so per year.

I’m not very particular about what I read and make no particular attempt to follow particular authors as there is always something interesting out there to be read.

One thing that does annoy me, however, is publishers that use the same artist over and over again for particular author’s books. Often the cover art from one book is indistinguishable from another, making it almost impossible - for me at least - to be able to tell if I’ve read a book already or not.

And, no, I can’t always remember the titles - after all, I’ve probably read 150 books since that author’s last tome was released.

Arguing…I Keep Losing The Plot.

Here’s the truth. I am good at arguing. Politics, religion, sport, music…all of that stuff. I’m not saying I’m always right, but I can put together a cogent argument. You can agree or not…but I can hold my own.

There’s one exception. Arguing with my wife. I completely lose track of what my point is, I get sidetracked, I go back on myself, I go over and over the smallest point again and again, I end up shouting when being calm would work better. Essentially, when it comes to arguing with women, I am hopeless.

I expect there is a good psychological or physiological reason for this, but I’m damned if I know what it is.

I would be fascinated to know whether there is a genuine reason why my brain starts to shut down when I’m arguing with my wife. Anyone got any ideas?

A Saturday Supplement…Oh, C’mon

I stay in London once or twice a month - usually in Bloomsbury and usually over the weekend. But this is the first time I’ve ever come across this :

Notice the ‘One Night Sat Supplement’ of £10 there ? What the hell is this charge and what is it for.

The thing about hotel prices in London and most major cities is that they are reduced over the weekend in order to attract real visitors and not just expense account businessmen.

Put simply - hotel prices on the weekend are cheaper than the weekday. So, just why the hell do SuperBreak think they can charge a ’supplement’ for staying on a weekend.

And it really is just them.

I usually book hotels through a company called DiscountCityHotels.net and they don’t gouge their customers by adding some random £10 charge for the privilege of staying on the least popular day of the week.

In fact, I’m very tired of travel and hotel sites with their disingenuous pricing and offers. SuperBreak are one of the worst for it as well. Despite the fact that London hotels charge by the room, not by the person, all the prices listed on SuperBreak are made to appear artificially low by showing a ‘per person’ price rather than the cost of the room.

And that’s without random ‘Saturday supplements’.

This is another reason why - despite the fact that their website is kinda mediocre in terms of design, Discount City Hotels are a refreshing alternative to most hotel booking sites. You see a price …that’s the actual price you will pay. Isn’t that how it is supposed to be?

Essentially, you can take your supplements and, um, shove ‘em.