LIFE WITHOUT POP IDOL

We approached our first Saturday night without Pop Idol with some trepidation. The children and I have huddled by the fire in front of the telly for all the winter months, or so it seems. We have cheered our favourites, discussed each contestant in detail and booed the judges together. United in our interest, we have made it part of our Saturday evening routine. Imagine our joy when we discovered, as they were whittled down to the last ten, that the one Max and I liked best was a local boy. His family home not even as far as ten miles from ours.

On the day of the final there was a Pop-Idol-is-coming-home feel in the community. Posters in shop windows and cars urged us to ‘Vote Will’ and there was a buzz of expectation. I discussed the brilliance of Will’s voice with total strangers, most of them women who were old enough to know better, like myself. Nevertheless It was a local event of epic importance and so deeply exciting when Will won.

Bobby was outraged by the result: he’s been a faithful fan of Gareth’s throughout, adamant in his choice. Firstly, he told us, because he has ‘nice, spiky black hair’, and secondly because ‘he can’t talk, but he can sing’. Fair enough, we all agree with Bobby, that is pretty amazing. Max is a Will fan with his mum (good boy). Will had Max’s vote because he didn’t wear ‘a stupid white suit, and he’s quite cool’. Flo wanted a girl to win, and demanded to know why I didn’t want a girl too. Not wanting to go into the mysteries of sex appeal with my seven year-old daughter, I responded with a more general chat about musical talent.

The Father of the Children thinks I’ve gone soft in the head, incredulous that I have been sucked into the hype of something which to him is so blatantly fake. When I read bits about our local hero from the paper out loud to the children, he looks at me as if I’m force-feeding them arsenic. They’re as gripped as me though, the fact that this famous person on the telly went to school down the road, and worked in a nearby restaurant in his holidays is beyond thrilling.

I’ve contemplated making a pilgrimage to the pub which is reported to be Will’s local, to wallow a little longer in the victory. However, even I know this smacks of weird, stalker-like behaviour which is a little spooky coming from a woman in her fortieth year about a boy who is twenty-three. Also, I think if the Father of the Children got wind of it he might refer me to some kind of professional for treatment.

Yesterday, driving along in the car, we heard Will Young’s new single on the radio.

‘Oh Mum, you know we’re glad Will won’, said Max.

‘Oh yes!’ I reply.

‘Promise you won’t buy the CD, it’s really bad.’

‘I thought you said Will was cool?’

‘Yeah, he’s cooler than Gareth, but he’s not cool cool.’

I realise with some dismay that I have lost my only ally. Max has gone over to the other side. I’m obviously going to have to put this whole sad obsession behind me and come back into the real world. Content myself with ‘Stars in Their Eyes ‘ which after all was the family favourite before Pop Idol. Strangely enough the Father of the Children quite enjoys ‘Stars in Their Eyes’; I’ll have to ask him why, and how he thinks it differs from Pop Idol. Although it’s probably best to leave it for a bit - if he hears me asking any more in-depth questions to the children or to him about TV singing contests, he’ll definitely call the men in white coats.

‘Life in the Slow Lane’ is written by Clare Kent. She has three children - Max is nearly eleven, Flo is nearly eight and Bobby is six and a half - and lives in Wiltshire.

Read Claire's previous diary