The following text is taken from a newspaper review of a biography about Simon Cowell, the creator of, and judge on, the international television programme The X Factor, a show in which contestants compete in a talent competition to become stars in the music world. Simon Cowell, I've heard it said, is so vain that if he went to a funeral he'd want to be the corpse. But the net effect of this admirably level-headed biography is that Cowell seems dead already. Suffocated by his vast wealth — sums such as $300 million, $700 million and $6 billion are bandied about – Cowell's life has become positively and transcendentally boring, drained completely of colour, bustle and humour. He spends six solid hours a day clamped to the phone, policing his vast empire, discussing sponsorship and licensing deals and calculating all the advertising revenue and royalties. He can never relax, for fear his power will ebb. The rest of his waking hours are devoted to examining DVDs of The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent, fretting about the sound-mix or the lighting. When not doing this, he is in his private jet, looking at his iPhone to scan the Google alerts of his name. Apart from five housekeepers, an estate manager, two groundsmen, a chef and a chauffeur, three personal assistants and a personal manager, Cowell mistrusts friendship or ordinary human relationships, with their obligations and unpredictability. He was always spoilt rotten. Scholastic achievements were scoffed at, and Cowell's reward for achieving two O-levels ‘at the lowest grade' was a red TR6 sports car, worth £7,000. Proud to have been ‘outspoken, obnoxious, cheeky and bored easily, Cowell's personality was in place at the age of five, though he didn't leave home until he was twenty-six. Briefly a supermarket management trainee, he then became a tea boy at a music and record company. He saw at once that the way to get ahead in the music business was to pretend to be camp, so he began 'wearing a V-neck white T-shirt exposing his hairy chest'. He pulled his trousers up to his armpits and called everybody darling. His fortune wasn't made instantly, however. Nor were his instincts spot-on. He let Kylie Minogue, fresh from Australia, sit in reception for a week, 'ignored by everyone'. He turned down Take That. 'I don't like the lead singer,' Cowell said. 'He's too fat.' Poor Gary Barlow. He told Britney Spears, 'You're mad. No one can be successful with a name like that.' He got tremendously excited by 'a fabulously sexy Brazilian girl called Karen' who was later exposed as having mimed along 'to words sung by a Spanish vocalist'. That's scoffing at scholastic achievements for you. Genuine Brazilians speak Portuguese. It was when he went before the cameras in person that Cowell really impinged on the national consciousness. I personally can't tell my X Idol from my Got Talent: Cowell's innovation, back in 2001, was to realise that though the pretence was 'we're looking for contestants with star quality whom we can turn into stars,' his programmes were in fact going to be soap operas. Viewers were to accompany the poor saps following a dream who'd be mocked and patronised by the judges. Cowell himself was instantly memorable as television's Mr Nasty, doling out the humiliation and barbed put-downs, such as ‘I'm afraid to say that really hurt my ears' or 'That used to be my favourite song. Not any more. He was equally as acerbic¹ about his fellow panellists. Though considered ‘reality' television, because it utilised real (unpaid) people rather than trained members of Equity,² Cowell's shows were as carefully edited and shaped as any film by Francis Ford Coppola. ‘I want a more ruthless feel, Cowell told his producers, 'as if someone's got to win. I want the losers to feel gutted.’ There is a strong element of exploitation here. It's not about music or dancing, what Cowell is doing, but about power. We could be in the Roman arena, with Cowell the emperor giving the thumbs up or the thumbs down. His approval or disapproval is like a matter of life or death. But not even the victors last long: the winners are in the limelight only briefly and are soon consigned to cruise ships or switching the Christmas lights on in remote provincial towns. The promised millions don't pour in, either, as all the considerable expenses are deducted from fees. Cowell, meantime, keeps tearing down and rebuilding his homes, tasteless palaces with shiny granite work surfaces and underfloor heating, suede walls and marble chairs. 'Pull it down!' he said of a new staircase. 'I want a circular one.' The immaculate lawns were similarly ripped up and the garden removed because 'I can't stand flowers.' Crystal chandeliers went on a skip. ¹ acerbic: sharp ²Equity: a trade union for actors