OH well, that's torn it. Someone at Britain's Got Talent forgot to explain the rules to West Lothian songstress Susan Boyle.
They can't blame Susan. Like any 48-year-old woman who suddenly finds herself the centre of attention, she wants to look her best.
With more online hits than Obama, Hollywood's elite praising her, a spot on Oprah rumoured and a reference in South
Park, "centre of attention" seems a gross understatement.
So, she toddled off to the local hairdressing salon in Whitburn and got herself a £35 brown dye and style, having first spent a fiver on an eyebrow tidy-up.
Was it all her own doing? Did she take advice from a well-meaning friend or family member? Did she naively believe that her instant, worldwide fame had everything to do with her voice and nothing to do with her trademark frumpery?
In any event, it's hardly surprising the show's producers are said to be "furious". In the Svengali world of artiste management, timing is everything, control is absolute.
There's no doubt Susan was destined for a makeover, and a rather more dramatic transformation than £40 at the local crimper. The contrast between her Plain Jane exterior and talented vocals had many more publicity miles to go.
When interest ran out, it would be fired up again by a dramatic before and after, a multi-thousand pound project no doubt involving months of exercise and toning at an exclusive spa, American-style teeth, possibly a bit of liposuction and lifting, and the best hair and make-up job in the world, and we were all so looking forward to it.
I'm sure Susan's hairdresser is a consummate professional but perhaps not who Simon Cowell would have chosen. A bit-by-bit, gradual improvement is fine for the real world but in showbiz, it's the big reveal, or nothing.
Susan is not ugly. She is a pretty woman with great cheekbones, albeit a woman who clearly hasn't spent much time in Jenners' cosmetics hall. If anyone is going to be in charge of the butterfly that emerges from her homely cocoon, it will be Mr Cowell, not Susan.
If she stops now, things may still go according to plan.
We may well ponder on the shallowness of a world where looks are so important and in which even Susan, bless her, felt compelled to lose the grey and the Denis Healeys.
But if she had stepped on stage looking like Katherine Jenkins she would not have achieved overnight fame and been viewed online by approximately 200 million people. Sad it may be, but that's life.
Showbiz is shallow.
Susan is a good singer, but there are better. Her unique selling points were her unconcealed ruddy cheeks and grey, bird's nest hair. She looks like one of my late aunts. She looks like everybody's aunt. And that's why she struck a blow for all of us.
I can sympathise with her and her family who must have been getting fed up with the jibes about her appearance, even her virginity, and the irritating astonishment that someone who looked like her could actually sing.
But the rewards, if she rides this out, plays her cards right and allows herself to be professionally managed, will be immense.
The show's spokesperson has said, officially, that Susan is a grown woman and is entitled to do whatever she likes with her appearance. They would say that.
Susan, if you're reading this, please don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Stop the self-improvement now.
It's not personal, it's business. The difference between being a flash-in-the-showbiz-pan and having a career can rest on image alone, whatever your talent. And no-one knows more about that than Simon Cowell.
The death of mannersI'M hopeless at remembering birthdays and anniversaries. On the other hand, while only one in three of the population has ever given up their place in a queue, I do so regularly at the supermarket if I have a full trolley and the person behind me is clutching a newspaper and a loaf of bread.
According to research by First Direct bank, manners are going out of fashion with fewer than a quarter of us setting any store by common courtesy. But what is "common" courtesy?
It used to be taken for granted that gents and young people would give up their bus seats to ladies and the elderly; that spitting in public was foul, spread disease and carried a fine; and even that there was a right and wrong way to use a knife and fork. There are no rules any more. One person's manners is another's pickiness. We offend out of ignorance, not malice.
Please may we have a manners manual for the 21st century that we can all sign up to and that can be taught in schools?
