Originally written January 23, 2005.

Simon Cowell recently excused all those who were caught miming in 2004. "If it sounds better with the vocal you recorded", he said, "why shouldn't people listen to that?"

It's a pity he wasn't around to excuse Britney Spears when she began the European leg of her Onyx Hotel tour at Wembley in April 2004. The UK tabloids were new to the concept of lip-synching, and were incandescent with outrage. The Daily Star's Joe Mott called for the public to boo her off the stage, or - preferably - boycott the rest of the tour.

Originally written April 28, 2006.

Having a tour around some Britney forums today, I found that the mood is generally somewhat downbeat right now. The news of Britney's second pregnancy in two years hasn't been especially well-received. Although plenty of people are happy for her because she's happy there's also a lot of disappointment that there may not be any new material from her for a while and some are even saying "She had a chance to redeem herself and get it all back but she blew it".

Originally written December 28, 2004.

When Madonna appeared on Channel 4’s “Richard and Judy” show on November 22nd 2004, she admitted that she had only recently discovered what was really important in life. But now she understood the values of family, morality, honesty, faithfulness, truth and openness.

Originally written April 10, 2005.

They call Britney Spears a star, but she's more like the moon, mysterious, erotic, luminous, a symbol of love, and, as Shakespeare said, inconstant. Waxing and waning, continually becoming the old and then the new, sometimes barely visible, at other times a huge, unavoidable presence. And maybe also with a dark side.