Robert McNeil: Voice of an angel with harled concrete wings

Published on Monday 1 June 2009 20:31

I HAVE refrained from commenting on the Susan Boyle Affair, as many other top experts have already analysed the situation, leaving little for me to say. However, I intend to say it, as it is little things that make the world go round. Consider what I have to say, therefore, a load of ball-bearings.

Firstly, let me be clear: I have never watched Britain Has Talent. Frankly, I would rather hack off my own leg with nailclippers.

The claim in the title itself seems to me questionable, for a start. Also, from what I have seen of him, I cannot abide Simon O'Cowell, and would find it difficult restricting myself to poking him in just the one eyelobe. Both would have to be poked and, depending on how much I'd had to drink (and therefore how enraged I was), I might even follow up with a tweaking of the earlobe.

Thirdly, while I have read nothing at all about Susan Boyle, apart from a couple of paragraphs for research purposes here, I have seen the photographs of her, and of other contestants. Although she is a fine figure of a woman, with an honest, sonsie face, the bulk of contestants look as if they've escaped from some secretly funded institution that utilises illegal experimentation.

In short, the whole thing is so ghastly that were it not for Bob the Builder, Richard and Julie, Oprah Winfrey's Handyman Tips, and several similar improving documentaries, I would burn my television licence in a lurid ritual involving incense and the best female dancers that money could buy in Morningside.

The fact is, the whole Susan Boyle imbroglio should have had decent Scotia cringeing. Normally, no-one cringes better than a Scotsman. For 300 years, it has lain at the heart of our soul. But, outwardly at least, the SB business has been depicted – by good, honest thick people and inverted snobs alike – as a cause of celebration.

Yet consider the impact on the world. First, the television news pictures of the awful grey-harled hooses that are such a feature of Scotland and Northern Ireland. These aesthetic atrocities are so dismal, it breaks your heart. I live in one myself. Secondly, early on in the imbroglio, I saw a widely used photograph of a local pub in the area – the badlands of West Lothian – replete with Union Flags and other symbols of horror.

Then, to cap it all, the anglophilic, Scotland-baiting Simpsons cartoon show alighted on the situation, mocking us further. Against this background, it was probably good for Susan Boyle's innocent, unassuming soul that she did not win the tournament, but came second to a hideous bunch of gyrating oafs in backward baseball caps.

While I haven't heard a note that Susan has sung, the latest intelligence suggests she sounds like an angel, albeit one with harled concrete wings. Even so, I would remind her of the unpopular adage: those who live by the warble die by the warble. It's better now that she rests and thinks no more of stardom and popularity. I've no wish to blind anyone with science, but what goes up must arguably come down, and there will be critics and troublemakers out there gunning for Mrs Boyle if she gets too large for her Wellingtons.

If she is not careful, she will end up like that Amy Winehouse, wandering about drunk in her pants.

Getting squiffy should be for adults only

THE nation's nippers are getting sozzled. Studies by proper experts say 1,600 citizens under 18 are receiving help for drink problems. Some are as young as 11. I do not hold with this sort of thing. While correctly advocating the judicious use of alcohol for mental health and to stop us all topping ourselves from a surfeit of grim reality, I stress that getting squiffy should be for adults only. There's no reason for children, living under proper conditions, to imbibe potations.

Childhood should be nothing like adulthood. It should be happy. The sexes should be segregated. Everything should be free. Under these circumstances, even an adult wouldn't need to get blotto. We would be happy just eating sweeties, like children do.

However, just as the pleasure of drink is spoiled by hangovers and addiction, so sweeties rot the teeth of all who consume them. Thus the way of the Lord. No pleasure without pain. No yin without yang. Every silver lining soon engulfed in cloud.

Yesterday, top reports complained that thousands of toddlers were having their teeth yanked oot. Are we surprised? Nope. Because what does Scotland have, readers? All together now: the worst dental record in Europe! Hooray! We've the best record for worst records. Fat, toothless, badly educated and politically comical, it's no wonder that excellent, factually based dramas, such as The Simpsons, hold us up to ridicule.

You may say: "Ach, teeth, who needs them? They only get in the way of the drink." But, although Scottish people only rarely smile (when drunk, say), if you didn't have teeth, there'd be nothing for yobs to kick in on a Friday or Saturday night.

Stop press! A few minutes ago, leading Lib Dem statesman Ross "Captain Mainwaring" Finnie, above, erupted with this bombshell statement: "The Scottish Government needs to take steps to change this."

Political correspondents – experts at finding news where there is none – read between the lines to say this meant a ban on sweeties was imminent and that somebody somewhere should resign. It's a long time since anything was banned in this country, but now is surely the time. The nation's nippers will thank us for it in future, when they are grown up, legless alas, but better that than toothless.