Hi. My name’s Ian and I’m an American Idol addict.

Yes, I’m afraid to say that even on this side of the pond, there are people addicted to American Idol. Who can blames us though, as Ryan Seacrest points out every week “Idol is watch by 100 Gazillion people World wide.”. And I’m one of them. Want to know another one? Mrs C. We love it.

We have our own version in the UK, The X-Factor (which Simon obviously isn’t allow mention so he uses the phrase “The Wow Factor” quite a lot instead) but it’s just not as good (I mean Ray Quinn got to the final ffs!). The Americans have a deeper pool of talent and the contestants in the final are nearly always brilliant. Having said that, the group of boys this year is very weak. The only entertaining one is Blake and even he can’t sing too well.

While I’m talking about this years bunch, I’m amazed by how shocking the American public’s found Antonella Barba’s photo session in the fountain. Now, being a Brit I probably have the same level of understanding of just how important that fountain is to American as say the average Mall Rat so maybe I shouldn’t be too quick to judge. Jesus though, I thought we were an uptight bunch over here but our Puritanical values are nothing compared to yours. God forbid a woman should behave in a sexual manner, she should be cooking and cleaning and waiting at home for her man to knock her up. That’s what I say.

Anyway, last year had 4 or 5 amazing singers but no-one shone like Taylor Hicks. He’s got it all: a great voice, a good personality and great dance moves. Well maybe he doesn’t quite have it all… But Mrs C and I were pretty chuffed when Taylor won the final. Not least because we couldn’t stand Katherine McPhee. She had the emotion depth of lobotomised Barbie doll and smiled her way through every song that her amazingly good voice sang.

Well, it was Mrs C’s birthday the other week and I thought it might be nice to get her a copy of Taylor’s album. It finally arrived from the States the other day. I was full of excitement waiting to see Mrs C reaction as she opened it (result: very pleased. Phew) but a few tracks in on the first play she broke in to floods of tears.

“What’s wrong? It’s not the greatest cover of “Wherever I Lay My Hat” but it’s not that bad…”

“Hormones.” was all Mrs C could manage through the tears.