I’ve had a good chuckle at the coverage of Britney Spears’s wonderful whirlwind visit to London. Particularly cacklesome is the reported disappointment that she ‘only performed for four minutes’ on the X Factor. Come off it, guest artists only ever perform one song on the X Factor, and how many pop songs are longer than four minutes?

Funnier still is the supposed shock that Britney didn’t specifically mention any X Factor contestants during her brief post-song chat with Dermot. Apparently an X Factor insider told The Sun: ‘Everyone was stunned that she hadn’t watched the show. There’s a TV in her dressing room.’

Oh I bet they were STUNNED! I bet they expected her to have spent the last three weeks getting tapes of the show flown to the US so she could swot up on the merits of Diana v Alexandra!

I watch the show every week, and I’ve got less and less to say about this year’s less than inspiring crop. But I do think that some of the online abuse that Eoghan Quigg is receiving is getting out of hand. True, if he wants fame he’s going to have to deal with unpleasant moments, but when its people hiding behind the anonymity of the web to hurl abuse at him, that gets horribly close to bullying.

He’s not my cup of tea either but come on, he hasn’t killed anyone.