X-ploitation?

A grand entrance... the X Factor judges

It's the hottest show of the moment. Nearly a third of the British population tune in every weekend to watch it. Everyone's talking about it, with the nation poring over every single detail from Dannii's wrinkle-free forehead to Simon's waistband and Louis' (fast) receding hairline.

It can only be the X Factor. After hitting screens in 2004, Simon Cowell's brainchild has fast become a TV favourite, regularly raking in the kind of viewing figures not seen since Eastenders' Den divorced Angie in the late 80s. In a digital generation where we are inundated by choice and variety of media channels that is no mean feat.

Each weekend, viewers are treated to a drama-fuelled double dose of the X Factor spectacle; complete with feuding finalists, warring judges, catty comments and the kind of bitching that makes the dorm of an all-girls boarding school look tame. Throw in a few sob stories, a lot of crocodile tears and a weekly fash-off between the female judges and it's a clear recipe for success.

And it's not all over after the final credits. Before the last wannabe has even finished their performance bloggers in their thousands have already begun typing frantically about Cheryl's latest outfit. Twitter goes crazy with X Factor hash-tagging and the show dominates tabloid headlines all week long.

Come monday, offices nationwide are buzzing with news from the previous evening's episode - with the men getting equally as carried away - and as bitchy - as the women. And bookies' cash registers are constantly ringing with fans placing bets on who will win the contest.

The X Factor brand is just one big PR machine, with stories churning out of the contestants' shared house at an alarming rate. We've heard it all; finalists found in bed together, arrests for drug offences, arguments over who gets the best song choice - the list is endless.

Catapulted from being nobodies to the most famous people in Britain overnight, the wannabes are subjected to a media circus; with some forced to deal with lynch mobs of press and paparazzi hell bent on their downfall. Readers are told that a 'source close to the show' has leaked some juicy gossip... but it's more than likely the 'source' also doubles up as the show's publicist.

But what is it about this simple concept that has a nation hooked? It is, undoubtedly, the drama. There's nothing Brits love more. The show would be nothing without it; and contestants who attract the least controversial column inches are quickly booted out.

Let's put things into perspective; as entertaining as the show is, there's something slightly unsavoury about the audience being given a chance to play God. We all forget, whilst caught up in the drama, that this is people's lives we're dealing with.

Each week, hearts are broken and dreams shattered as another finalist faces the axe. Their 15 minutes of fame over, they are forced to go back to the lives they led before... never forgetting how they once came within an inch of fame and fortune.

In the meantime, Simon Cowell and ITV are laughing all the way to the bank, making millions off the back of the finalists, who are reportedly paid peanuts to appear in the show. Something seems morally amiss here. These fat cats don't care about the individuals - they only care about how much publicity they generate and, ultimately, how much cash they can make out of them. With contestants such as this year's villains Katie and Wagner kept in purely for entertainment value, it feels more like a circus than a serious talent show.

The whole thing reeks of exploitation. The problem is, the show's bosses are perfectly aware most people would chuck their grandmother under a bus to get into the final 12... meaning they can get away with whatever they want and the whole sordid affair continues year upon year.

So, the show will go on. And we'll all just carry on watching it.

The overactive imagination

Ever since I can remember I’ve been terrified of the dark. But as the years go by, this fear seems to have developed into the world's most overactive imagination.

The moment the sun goes down it leaps into overdrive, often fuelled, I'm certain, by eating cheese for dinner. My flat, which, during the daylight hours, is a safe and cosy haven, quickly transforms into an eerie, shadow-filled hiding place for ghosts, ghouls and murdering maniacs as soon as night draws in.

It seems physically impossible for me to watch a horror film without enduring weeks of sleepless nights afterwards. For a fortnight after Silence of the Lambs, I slept with the light on, maintaining the logic that doing so would fend off any crazed local transvestites who got their kicks from spying on me through night vision goggles.

Psycho was probably a film that had the most influence on my daily routine. Try as I might to buy a clear shower curtain, they don't seem to be in vogue at John Lewis. So I generally speed through my shower, positive the curtain will be whipped back any moment by an assailant ready to subject me to a frenzied attack.

Although my imagination is one of my best features, I wish it wouldn't automatically assume a hooded maniac brandishing a kitchen knife is hiding in my wardrobe every time I'm home alone. Call it barmy, but I've even adopted a routine of checking inside the cupboards and behind each door whenever I come into the house. Never mind that the burglar alarm was on and there's no sign of a break-in. An ordinary person might call me neurotic.

I'm not quite sure what to do to banish my irrational fears. I’ve tried facing them - forcing myself to watch horror films in a dimly lit room whilst alone in the house. That, unsurprisingly, did nothing but freak me out even further. And my attempts to give up cheese failed miserably after I got halloumi withdrawal symptoms one day in.

So I've decided to cut the scary movies out of my life altogether. Friends who invite me to watch SAW in 3D are immediately turned down. My small collection of horror DVDs have been carted off to the charity shop. I even spent a fortune buying an array of lighthearted films and rom coms.

 Now I'm not sure what I'm most terrified of - grisly films or the fact I now have the same DVD collection as my mother. But I'm certainly sleeping a little better at night.

Keeping it real

Just popping to the shops...

Whilst ambling idly along the streets of Covent Garden at a recent lunchtime, I came face to face with a rather shocking sight. It was well over six foot, skinny as a rake...and wearing a skin-tight leopard print leotard with towering ten inch platforms. And nothing else.

A model. The only humans other than Karl Lagerfield able to go out in broad daylight wearing a fancy dress costume without running the risk of being bundled into a van and carted off to the local loony bin.

The woman before me looked like another species. She was stunningly beautiful. There wasn't an ounce of fat on her. And she certainly hadn't inherited the childbearing hips and cellulite most females are dogged by.

I wouldn't have minded had I not just that moment wolfed down a huge burrito with extra cheese. My general feeling of inadequacy wasn't helped by the fact I was donning my frumpiest (yet comfiest) Primark cardie and a pair of flats - only heightening my insignificance in comparison to the raven-haired supermodel towering over me in her giant heels.

It got worse when she sat down and whipped out her lunch - which consisted of a sole celery stick, a few carrot batons and a miniscule piece of sushi. Not a single carbohydrate to be seen. I could almost feel the fat from my burrito oozing from every one of my pores.

Just as I was ready to take a nosedive from Waterloo bridge, yet another of these creatures came tottering towards me. Equally sky-high platforms. Equally skimpy outfit. Equal stunning beauty and effortless grace. In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, I felt like a cheap perfume in a room filled with Chanel.

I wanted to look away but I couldn't. I was transfixed by them, much the same way as I am when I witness something horrific or completely disgusting. I began to wish I'd just choked on that damn burrito.

The penny finally dropped when swarms of similarly easy-on-the-eye and fabulously dressed human twiglets suddenly descended upon Covent Garden. Pulling up in chauffeur driven, blacked-out Mercedes people carriers, they all headed in the same direction: to Somerset House.

London Fashion Week. The biggest event of the year on the capital's fashion calendar. Where the fashpack rub shoulders with the glitterati on the front row, watching endless amounts of beautiful, yet completely unrealistic women strutting along the runway with beautiful, yet completely unaffordable clothes draped over their slinky shoulders. 

All followed by glitzy invitation-only afterparties, where underdressed riff raff are turned away at the door and fashionistas sip champagne, chomp on canapés and network with the a-listers of the fashion world. 

Whilst there’s nothing I love more than keeping up with the latest trends and having the odd rummage through charity shop bargain baskets for a ‘vintage gem’, I have issues with the fashion world being so inaccessible. After all, not only would each catwalk piece set an average lady back the best part of a month’s salary, but the designs are clearly only made for those blessed with a body like a bamboo stick.

Whilst paving the way for next season's trends, the glitz, glamour and wealth associated with events such as LFW is so far removed from the real world it would intimidate the hell out of the vast majority of us. After all, proximity to that level of beauty and style can do no good to a woman's self esteem. And despite relentless campaigning to remove 'size zero' models from the catwalk, the world of the runway is still no place for the curvier lady - with most labels still only catering for size 12 and under.

The entire ideology behind LFW is aspiration. The problem is, no matter how ambitious we are, 99% of women will never be the editor of Vogue, look like Kate Moss, or earn a million a year.

This year, LFW began to recognise that cutting edge fashion doesn't have to break the bank, by hosting high street shows from Topshop and Look Magazine. And, shock horror, one designer even used a size 14 model to showcase his designs.

Here's hoping they continue to push these boundaries next year - after all, breaking a few of the fashion rules really wouldn't hurt.

Once a cheater, always a cheater?

Happier times ... is it all over for Wayne and Coleen?

Celebrity love rats sem to have become all the more common in recent years. These butter-wouldn't -melt stars used to be able to preserve their squeaky clean images relatively easily with the help of a good publicist, but these days even Max Clifford would struggle to keep their bad behaviour under wraps. Ever since exposés and zoom lenses became tabloid favourites, it was only a matter of time before cheating celebs were exposed to the world.

Catching a philandering husband red-handed has to be every woman's worst nightmare. Finding out about his antics from the front page of the News of the World is something else entirely.

Whilst 99% of betrayed wives are able to come to terms with their marriage breakdown in private, the other 1% have no choice but to suffer in the public eye, under the watchful gaze of the papparazzi camping outside their multi-million pound mansions.

First it happened to Posh. Then Sienna. Closely followed by Cheryl Cole, Elin Nordegren, Toni Terry and Abbey Clancy. Now Coleen Rooney is the latest wife at the centre of a media frenzy surrounding her marriage...and her husband Wayne's roving eye.

From an outsider's perspective, these women are invincible. It seems they have it all - bikini bodies to die for, millions in the bank, perfect relationships, a jetset lifestyle and all the Mulberrys money can buy.

But despite their beauty and wealth, they are just like the rest of us. Their men cheat. And these blokes aren't just average Joes, but superstars with everything to lose. It's a sad state of affairs when, even at the risk of losing their families, their lucrative sponsorship deals and their carefully crafted public image, men will always put their penis first.

There's nothing us Brits love more than a very public celebrity downfall. We, of course, help to raise their profiles in the first place by forking out for glossy magazines with exclusive wedding pictures and buying the latest z-list eau-de-toilettes. Yet when it comes to the extra-marital affairs, we all relish in the drama whilst retaining zero sympathy.

With the exception of Posh and Cheryl who made their cash long before they met their hubbies, the rest of the wives are seen as gold-digging wags who simply use their husbands as a golden ticket to a life of luxury. After all, aren't the women who go on the hunt to bag themselves a rich sportsman as bad as the men who cheat on them?

But whatever happened to love? In our money-obsessed, consumer-driven, publicity-hungry world, it's hard to believe that a couple might just be together because they love one another. Which is the case, I believe, for Wayne and Coleen. The evident problem is that Wayne can't keep it in his pants for longer than five minutes.

So will Coleen do an Abbey and stay, or a Cheryl and run for the hills? There's only so much humiliation a self-respecting woman can take, and Coleen has had her fair share with Wayne. After all, who can forget the tabloid headlines when he was caught in the act with a grandmother nicknamed 'the auld slapper'?

The pressure any woman faces to leave when their man does the dirty is immense, but for celebs this pressure is even greater. Life under the media microscope is tough and they are damned if they do and equally damned if they don't.

But the question is, can a leopard ever change his spots?

Forget the marriage, it's all about the wedding

Bet theirs didn't cost 25 grand...

Marriage. A beautiful union of two people joined together for a lifetime. For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and...forget that, isn't the gown a Vera Wang?

The flashy wedding is so vogue right now. And there's no wonder why. It's virtually impossible to browse a magazine newstand nowadays without being faced with a wall of tangerine-skinned 'celebrities' celebrating their big day.

With the average event costing more than most earn in a year, everyone from vintage car owners to cupcake bakers are laughing all the way to the bank. Everyone, that is, apart from the happy couple and their long-suffering family and friends.

Overindulgent weddings became all the rage in the late nineties - around the same time a post ceremony knees-up at the local village hall stopped being the classy option. Registry offices have been ditched in favour of posher venues and organists have found themselves booted out of churches to make room for the 80-piece orchestra. It's a fact: society loves keeping up with the Joneses and if that means inevitable bankruptcy then so be it.

After their special day, not only will the newlyweds have a piece of paper certifying their marriage, they will, no doubt, also be the proud owners of at least five maxed-out credit cards. With a luxurious honeymoon on some far-flung isle to look forward to, they can relax and try to push thoughts of those hefty bills on the doormat to the back of their minds.

But it's not just the bride and groom whose bank balances are drained during the wedding season.  Friends and family practically have to take out a second mortgage to pay for lavish stag and hen dos in exotic locations. Not to mention travel expenses to the wedding itself, hotel rooms, suits, frocks, hats, childcare, department store gift lists...it could go on forever.

And that's after putting up with months of the kind of behaviour you'd usually only ever come across on Jeremy Kyle - family feuds, pissed off partners, warring friendship groups and bridezillas more terrifying than the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

So where does it all end? Surely these insanely pricey weddings are beginning to overshadow the real cause for celebration: the marriage itself. On the most romantic day of their lives, numerous couples spend the entire wedding at loggerheads because the flowers are slightly droopy or the chair covers are the wrong shade of lilac.

And guests are so busy quietly comparing the food and table decorations to the last wedding they attended they forget they should be supporting two friends as they begin their lives together.

I once heard a saying that the more expensive the wedding, the shorter the marriage. After all, no matter how much you flash the cash, money can't buy love.

Glamping it up

British summertime ... the ultimate camper's dream

Camping at Glastonbury Festival a few weeks ago gave me a whole new taste for the great outdoors. Having not so much as unzipped a tent since Eurocamping with my parents in France aged 10, it was practically a brand new adventure for me.

Obviously, festivals are far from a perfect camping experience. Picking your way through haphazardly arranged tents in the sober light of day is no easy task, but drunk in the dark it is nigh-on impossible. Of course, it didn't take me long to have an unfortunate encounter with a stray guy rope whilst stumbling back one night - virtually pulling a toe out of its socket in the process and ending up with a wide array of cuts and bruises.

Being a lady who enjoys her home comforts, it only occured to me upon arrival that I'd have no access to electricity in a tent in the back of beyond. It wasn't until I'd bounded into the campsite with a smorgasbord of goodies wrapped up inside my brand new wicker hamper that I realised I was lacking an essential item: a fridge.

I found myself caught in a quandary: it was at least 100 degrees in my tent and, unfortunately, the majority of my food would only survive below zero. After much consideration, I had no option but to hold an emergency midnight feast on the first night to save my banquet from going to waste. So much for my healthy eating plans...it was a diet of pure fast food and carbonated drinks from then on.

The guy ropes and greasy food I could deal with. The toilets I could not. Pongy enough to have me retching from 50 yards away, the smell inside each cubicle was comparable only to the loos in the most downmarket Thai backpackers. With no showers to be seen, those who entered without a supply of toilet roll regretted it for the remainder of their stay. Those who had the stupidity to look down into the cesspit were probably put off food for life.

Needless to say, I ensured I was pretty sparing with the fluids to prevent making too many visits to the hateful portaloos.

Negative as the experience sounded, I packed away my tent feeling rather uplifted. I'd made it. I'd survived with just a sheet of canvas protecting me from the elements. I'd even managed to sleep using a grubby towel as a pillow. And it was a lovely feeling to peacefully drop off without the sound of sirens and the number 37 bus filling my ears.

Slumming it may not be my bag, but something was certainly drawing me to the idea of an English camping holiday instead of my usual stint on the coast of Spain. But of course I'd need running water. And a fridge. And maybe even a microwave...

Researching 'posh camping' on the internet, I realised there were plenty of options to match my crazy criteria. Yurts in Devon, 'ecopods' in Cornwall, safari tents in Scotland, teepees in Sussex and (my favourite of the lot!) revamped traditional gypsy caravans in East Lothian.

However, despite the plethora of posh camping venues, every single yurt and gypsy caravan I desperately wanted seemed to be fully booked. Glamping, it seems, is more popular than Saint Tropez.

Since the recession hit it's become all the rage with trendies across the nation. They're all doing it and, unlike a traditional camping trip, they aren't doing it on the cheap. These may be glorified tents but they certainly come at a  price - the cost of being at one with nature starts at 50 quid a night.

Looks like I might be booking that cheap last-minute deal to Spain after all...

The art of the resignation

Does icing it on a cake make it any easier?

Just over 5 weeks ago I commuted to work feeling like a nervous wreck. I began my journey with sweaty palms which gradually worsened as I neared my destination...to the point where I nearly lost grip of the handrail and sprawled to the floor of the tube carriage.

Having spent the entire duration of my commute psyching myself up, I arrived at the office shaking like a leaf. In fact, I could easily have been mistaken for a Parkinson's sufferer as I tried to get my key into the lock. As if this wasn't bad enough, I had that horrendous dull ache in my stomach which only ever seems to rear its ugly head when I'm a bag of nerves.

The reason for my panic? The freshly-printed letter sitting guiltily in my handbag. I'd finally decided to quit my job and concentrate all my efforts on my quest for journalistic fame. All I needed to do was leap over that final dreaded obstacle: the small matter of my resignation. 

Being a person who avoids confrontation like the plague, handing in my notice is my idea of a nightmare. Even after the deed has been done it's impossible to relax for the remainder of the notice period. What if the boss didn't take it well? What if my colleagues treat me differently? What, (and this was my worst fear) if I'm relegated to office skivvy? It's a total minefield. 

No matter how many times I planned the scenario in my head, I realised there is just no good way to tell your boss you no longer want to work for their company. Whatever the reason, it's out in the open that you've been secretly planning to leave for God knows how long and they're not going to be best pleased.

Suddenly my panicky haze cleared and I remembered the best lesson I've ever learned in life. Never burn your bridges. That is the true art of the resignation. Flattery is still the best way to an egotistical man's heart, so of course I used it in abundance. And any grievances I felt towards my company went unmentioned as, rather terrifyingly, I'll never know if I'll ever encounter that boss again.

Thankfully, it all went quite well. He seemed relieved (and, I noticed, ever-so-slightly smug) that I hadn't been poached by a hateful competitor. In fact, the company's only concern about my departure seemed to be the placement I'd landed at The Sun newspaper. Naturally they worried they'd be seeing a little too much of me on page three.

Ah well, I guess now is the time to start building up my spray tan and booking my boob job. I'll always need a backup plan if the journalism doesn't work out to plan...