Conundrum de la Cowell

So the world is about to spin another day on its axis and Simon Cowell decides to drop a TV related bombshell, that, besides not literally having the force to stop the world turning, is pretty huge. He's ditching Simon Fuller's cash cow - American Idol - for his own, a star spangled X Factor. No surprises there, the big question is, who does he dress up and drag across the shiny set with him?

The X Factor began in the UK in September 2004 with Simon Cowell (off being god's gift to A&R'ing), Louis Walsh (off being Irish) and Sharon Osborne (off The Osbournes Board Game) as judges. Then in brief, Cowell added Dannii - put the needle on it - Minogue to bolster the 'judging' effort; Osbourne couldn't get a surgery that would make her look like a 35 year old sporting loads of botox so she stormed off, Tweedy, by this point Cole, minus wedding ring, is allegedly cheated on my footballer husband and is hoisted onto the pedestal of 'National Treasure' in mass sympathy led by the same tabloids that alleged her hubby had been sick down the side of a hairdresser's bed… So where does this leave us? The US judging panel needs an out of touch older gay man with a kitsch accent and out of time head bopping; an overseas pretty lady come child star in her home country’s most famous 80s TV show; and a national treasure.

Cowell has his work cut out.

Let's start with the simple. Old, gay, kitsch. Ok, so this is America. Two of the above leaves us with Clive Davis - the man who made Houston (out of play safe pottery clay) and now represents Lewis and appeared on this year's X Factor and both nodded AND clapped out of time. I don't know if he's kitsch?
Next up, an overseas pretty (botox’d to the max), childhood star with a more famous sibling. One woman, and one woman only can do this job, and she's totally toyed with the idea of a music career, Lindsay Dee Lohan. Now she may be from the US but she's definitely living on another planet. AND she has a sister who's going to embark on a career in show business in 2010. Loves it. It's like the Minogues but in the 00s, kind of. Her acts would be falling down the Sunset Strip with rats living in their hair within a week.
Finally – National Treasure. If I can take the liberty of trading in 'overseas' the job has to go to Columbia's national treasure. Not only has she set up twenty schools with her Pies Descalzos Foundation educating underprivileged children in Columbia, her accent is not nearly as hard to follow as Britain's National Treasure's can be and you wouldn't catch Antonio De La Rúa being sick down the side of a hairdresser's bed. Fingers crossed Shakira Shakira would get her acts to do trumpet impressions in the instrumentals of their performances.