I fully agree with Don. I was disgusted by the grudgingly-qualified praise, as though he can see things more deeply than everybody else. "Very good, if not quite excellent"?? Hamburger but not steak?????????   

If he had been watching some pretty young dolly bird playing Fantine in a professional production of Les Miz who could sing half as well as that, I don't think such damning with faint praise would even occur to him. The fact that the context was an amateur talent contest has obviously coloured his judgment. You HAVE to find fault. It goes with the territory. Look how much money Simon Cowell has made just for dissing people. Everybody on the internet is shouting Hooray For Susan? Well, cut her down to size. Show them all what a perceptive critic you are.

What he is, is a twerp. Those comments are more about Mark BlanketWet than about Susan Boyle. And they reveal more than he counted on too. It's not that no one can dare criticise her. But those remarks are unconstructive and dishonestly self-serving, using Susan to show us all what a clever clogs he is for seeing what we've obviously all missed. In his dreams.