Looking around for something to write about, a few entertainment scribes have decided it's time for the obligatory Is Simon in Trouble stories. We've had lots of stories about his golden touch, how he can do no wrong, how he coasts through life without friction, happily subsisting on a diet of sarcasm and cigarettes. Boring! Now it's time for the stories about how he might be starting to lose it. That's the arc of these things. If the writers are in luck, he'll hit the skids completely, because that means everyone can anticipate the Scrappy Comeback portion of the narrative. (After that there's either "Troubled star," if you have the money to drink or do drugs, or "Elder Statesman" role, where you show up at charities and wave and occasionally make the news for being a father at age 67.)

Perhaps everyone is just anxious to get on to the next part of the story. In any case, Reuters is worried about Simon Cowell.

Yes, six series about people singing. Buried somewhere in the next TV series is an idea few will notice, but eventually it'll become a hit, and then someone will copy it, and there will be half a dozen versions of the idea in five years, and everyone will get sick of it, too. Perhaps Simon is already working on "America Resents the Hell out of Talent," where people with fame and money are systematically reduced to obscurity and pauperism through a sequence of avoidable mistakes, and the audience judges them on their poor choices, like financial mismanagement, or recreational drug consumption. The one who wins, and falls the most, is given a second chance at fame. Everyone loves a scrappy comeback story! Unless it's about, you know, Charles Manson or someone like that.

PS: a message for Cheryl Cole: you need to update your website.

PPS: try to use the phrase "prickly British music Svengal" in your conversation today. People will be impressed.