"Real talent means writing and singing your own songs. . . ."

Got to quibble a bit with that. There are many songwriters, from well-known to obscure, who can't sing for sour owl jowls—but can write some very good songs. And the flip-side: good singers who try their hands at songwriting and turn out pure drivel.

Don't know for sure, but I've hear that Mozart had a singularly unmusical voice.

I generally tend to agree with what you've said, Indrani. When watching those clips of Paul Potts and Susan Boyle (on YouTube here in the U. S., since I can't actually see the show) and I see two not particularly glamorous people come out and express perfectly worthwhile ambitions (Potts saying he wants to sing opera and Ms. Boyle's expressing a wish to be a well-known singer like Elaine Paige), and then seeing the three judges sneer and roll their eyes, makes me want to smack the three of them in their smug faces. One wonders it they would act like that if Paul Potts was a tall, muscular hunk and Susan Boyle was a slinky, anorexic blonde. The satisfaction comes when Potts and Boyle actually deliver, and the judges have to back off and munch a quantity of crow.

But there is even more satisfaction in hearing two hitherto obscure people displaying a prodigious talent and being given at least a moment of recognition for it. If there is a justification for this kind of television show, it is in the opportunity it affords to showcase people like Susan Boyle and Paul Potts. And hope that they can slip the bonds of the hyenas and buzzards and have a real opportunity to develop as artists.

Don Firth