Pictures of Lily (A Nation's Shame)

Well, it’s not nearly as bad as their having re-elected Bushandcheney in 2004, but I’m still beside myself. The people have just voted the sublime Lily Scott off American Idol. In the UK, which has always had infinitely better taste in pop music, she’d have made the Final Two. In the UK, they'd be carrying her around on their shoulders. A nation’s shame!

There wasn’t anything about Lily I didn’t love. I loved her weird, distinctive singing, and her musicality. I loved her ash-blonde hair, cut so as to evoke Jane Fonda’s in Klute. I loved that she looks like Claire, and I love her immoderate eye makeup; pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful!

She could have been the new Cyndi Lauper, that invigorating, that delightful. Instead, we've got Siobhan Magnus, who's occasionally wonderful, but nowhere near as original; the competent, implacably dour Bowersox (lips that touch the repertoire of Tracy Chapman shall never touch mine); and the firm of Wacky Hairstyle, Tearful, Boringly Precocious, and Just Plain Boring, But of Color.

I'd love to stay and keep chatting, but I have to send letters to all of Idol's sponsors advising that I will never buy their products again. I'd sooner starve, or take the bus.