Paper Monitor
10:43 UK time, Friday, 27 May 2011
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
A new fad has reached Fleet Street: Geordie accents.
The papers are full of the story that Tyneside's own Cheryl Cole has reportedly been ditched as a judge by the US version of the show, apparently on account of her north-eastern England vowels.
And what better way to demonstrate that accent's many qualities than by transcribing it phonetically?
The leader of that paper of record, the Times, is written as though by Ms Cole:
They sez they couldn't understand what Ah wez saying. Darlings, Ah can hardly understand what I'm saying mesel horf the time. It wez tha an the git big hair. Ah thowt I'd get advice frem another TV star, so Ah asked Donald Trump te gissies the nyame of his hairdresser. Ah blame him, but he says the hair wasn't the problem, it's the fact tha Ah wasn't born in America. He sez maybe if I'd shown viewers me burth certificate.
A more authentic rendition comes in the Daily Mirror from South Shields-born Kevin Maguire, the paper's associate editor, who argues that it is not only the Americans who fail to appreciate the subtleties of Ms Cole's manner of speech.
Ah bet when sheh gans into Greggs doon sooth an asks for a stottie wi pease pudding they haven't got a clue. They hev dinner when it's dark instead of at dinner time. An if a bloke holds open a door, hor chap will kick 'is teeth in for trying te pinch his lass.
Not all commentators feel the need to adopt a Geordie idiom when discussing the story, however.
The Guardian's Marina Hyde manages to gaze wearily upon the sorry tale without resorting to any references to the Bigg Market.
What interests her is the sheer mammoth hubris of the X Factor and its antecedents.
"Back in 2007, American Idol was estimated to be worth $2.5bn (£1.78bn) to Fox," she observes.
"Adjusted for inflation - and the continued slide of western civilisation into late-capitalist dementia - the US X Factor will ideally be worth more than Obama's entire economic plan to incentivise democratic change in the Arab world. It will certainly be 20 times more important."
The 
