Nicci Gerrard has written a good article about Susan Boyle and our collective shame. Here's an excerpt;

When Susan Boyle first took part in Britain's Got Talent, she became an international sensation overnight. Tens of millions of people have watched her on YouTube (apparently more than watched Obama's inauguration). She has been invited on to the Larry King and the Oprah Winfrey shows. Paparazzi have camped outside her door. There are thousands of articles, tens of thousands of blogs about her. There's a Susan Boyle fan site. You can buy a Susan Boyle T-shirt.

She's now known as SuBo (every celebrity has to have a logo). She seemed a symbol of authenticity – in a world obsessed with appearance, here was a 47-year-old woman who wasn't pretty, wasn't skinny, wasn't groomed and glossed and highlighted and buffed and plucked and tweaked and manicured and waxed and styled, but who seemed ''real''. She walked out on stage, opened her mouth and – my God, how astonishing – this woman had a nice voice. The judges looked taken aback and moved, the audience became hushed.

Read the rest here.

The photo above is from the video about her makeover.