This is not an important story but it does exemplify the total disregard for the truth with which our bestselling and grubbiest Sunday paper operates. Yesterday’s News of the World front-page splash was, as it so commonly is, very sparing with the truth, not to say utter bollocks. The story was about Susan Boyle, whom they described as a shy, virgin spinster, dowdy and hairy. It’s odd they know how to spell “virgin”; this is probably the first time they’ve used the word in the history of the paper. Only because she doesn’t possess the corporeal talents of the well-plucked young women that fill their pages and those of their grubby sister, the Sun, they can’t write about her without sneering. And now, of course, they’re putting up derogatory headlines about her that are complete misrepresentations.

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The difference between the popular press and the thinking-person’s press could not have been demonstrated more clearly than it was last Tuesday in evidence given to the House of Commons Culture Media Sport Committee in the Inquiry into Press Standards.

The Tabloids, Red Tops and Shag Rags were represented by little Colin Myler, Scouser and former editor of the Liverpool Catholic Pictorial (I mention this only to demonstrate how far the man’s standards have fallen) who is now editor of the News of the Screws, the nadir of British journalism. At his side was the legal artful dodger, Tom Crone who as the paper’s busy in-house lawyer for a quarter of a century has been ducking writs issued by members of the public whose lives it has set out to destroy. Myler thinks that the public has no fundamental right to privacy. The News of the World had a string of successful actions brought against it last year for invasion of privacy – and not a word of remorse did Myler express for the damage they caused the victims.

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I’m sure I’ve mentioned on this blog my commitment to the pursuit of truth – fleeting and everlasting – through personal engagement. You won’t read here any commentaries delivered from the comfort and safety of my own armchair, like those of other observers who are content to sit and grumble about the horror and degradation of reality TV shows without ever experiencing them at first hand. Now that these seem to occupy half the schedules on most channels, and with all the fuss about Susan Boyle, I thought I should, on behalf of those who follow this blog, and to satisfy my own indestructible curiosity, expose myself to the potential humiliation of an audition for one of these shows. And so, being the possessor of what has kindly been described as a pleasing baritone voice, last Saturday I took myself off to auditions for the X-Factor at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

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