"The jeering audience of vain young people trying to catch the camera’s eye and the preening judges of this contest are the nasty boys and girls of fairy stories who mock the poor old lady because she is not young and beautiful, only to be punished when her real self is revealed. And their punishment is to be revealed as they truly are - heartless, thoughtless and superficial - the flotsam and jetsam of the polluted seas of celebrity, likely to sink without trace into toxic foam."
-- Minette Marrin, also describing what Susan Boyle has revealed about contemporary Western culture, in The Times Online.
'I certainly hope my new job has nothing to do with my boobs. I am talented, you know. I like to think that my ability had something to do with it!'
Her indignation subsides. I ask her what she will be wearing on the programme, which starts filming this week.
'I don't know. But I am not going to be bullied. What I do know is that I shall continue to wear low-cut dresses,' she adds defiantly.
[Holly] Willoughby's career has risen in trajectory with her burgeoning curves.
Born in Brighton, she was spotted by a talent scout for the modelling agency Storm, and by 17 she was modelling bras for Pretty Polly.
She broke into TV and by 2004 she was presenting the Saturday morning children's show, Ministry Of Mayhem, on which she wore a French maid's outfit and got pelted with cream cakes.
It was during one episode that she first caused mayhem with her cleavage.
While she was dancing with Duncan Jones from Blue, one of her breasts popped out of her Lycra top. She wasn't wearing a bra.
'Oooh, that was awful,' she giggles, returning to cheery mode.
'From then on, I always wore a bra. I've got one on today,' she confides. 'It's green.'
Grateful for that detail, I ask her what she thinks of Simon Cowell, The X Factor's most terrifying judge.
'Well, I don't fancy him, but he has a weird presence. I mean you have to in order to mentor people.'
'You mean he is a sort of Svengali figure?' I inquire. 'Is he from Svengali?' she asks. 'I didn't know that. Is Svengali in Africa?'
It would be easy to mock Holly, but she insists, disarmingly, that she is 'completely ignorant', which is a refreshing change from some of her more pretentious TV colleagues.
But she is not stupid. She is currently engrossed in a thriller about Shakespeare and enjoys books on Tudor England. 'Have you thought of reading the news or presenting Newsnight, Holly?'
She smiles, showing large white molars. 'I'm not qualified. I'm pure light entertainment.'
-- Petronella Wyatt, doing an expose' on the former co-host for Britain's Dancing On Ice (and a career few men could imagine) for the Daily Mail.
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"The jeering audience of vain young people trying to catch the camera’s eye and the preening judges of this contest are the nasty boys and girls of fairy stories who mock the poor old lady because she is not young and beautiful, only to be punished when her real self is revealed. And their punishment is to be revealed as they truly are - heartless, thoughtless and superficial - the flotsam and jetsam of the polluted seas of celebrity, likely to sink without trace into toxic foam."
