Susan Boyle

I've been completely astonished by the way the media have handled Susan Boyle. The Boy Wonder and I saw her original audition on X Factor, and at the time we wondered why everyone assumed that because she wasn't physically attractive she would also be unable to sing. Despite the success of thousands of plain, odd-looking and downright unattractive people in all areas of expertise, it seems that there is now an assumption that we are all complicit in a mind-set that cannot contemplate the idea of someone who doesn't conform to the media's narrow idea of 'beauty' as being anything other than worthless, talentless and worth only pity, scorn and derision. I particularly don't like the way everyone who mentions her in the media includes the rest of us in their prejudice, acting as though a person who didn't assume the woman couldn't sing couldn't exist, and anyone who said they didn't is obviously lying. I resent being lumped in with a bunch of witless idiots who have apparently never realised that the correlation between physical attractiveness and talent has been entirely fabricated by Hollywood and advertising executives.