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It wasn't just the fact he attacked the show generally, it was the specific criticism levelled at the whole set-up which drove into my soul like hot nails.

You see, the chief gripe of Sting was that somehow the contestants are merely presenting parodies of how singers should be, a kind of karaoke pastiche of every performer that's ever gone.

To quote him exactly, he said contestants were: "basically aping pre-existing stereotypes of what singers should do." And, reluctantly, I have to admit he has a bit of a point, but only a bit.

Because when it comes to imitation I hardly think Sting has a leg to stand on. Could someone explain to me why someone from Newcastle-upon-Tyne sings with a Jamaican accent, eh? Perhaps he'd like to explain why this has happened – a long trip to the Caribbean in his youth perhaps?

Or, perhaps, a conscious attempt to imitate a cooler sound, much cooler than the Geordie accent he had when he embarked on his singing career. So don't talk to us about aping, Sting, you are the greatest of apes.

And it's the undertone of his attack that really irks me. He has always liked to present himself as some kind of anti-commercial, tantric-sex-loving, organic, soul-searching missionary – a stark contrast, obviously, to the populist, cheesy, shallow artifice of The X Factor.

Tosh

This is sanctimonious tosh.

Sting is just as much a part of the whole record industry money-making machine as anyone else. Isn't it funny how multi-millionaire stars suddenly start pontificating from a moral dais when their bank balance stretches into eight or nine figures?

Recently he's grown a beard and has converted to the virtues of folk music but at one time or another he's been just as much a part of the soft-rock karaoke pastiche that raked in the wonga.

He'd love us to recall his songwriting prowess as the man behind tracks like Fields of Gold or Englishman in New York, but many of us still recall him teaming up with Brian Adams and Rod Stewart on All for Love, the anthem from the original motion picture soundtrack for Walt Disney movie, The Three Musketeers.

Nothing commercial there then, eh Sting?

And don't talk to me about The Police, The Police split up 26 years ago and nothing Sting has done since qualifies him to talk from the Olympian heights where he clearly thinks he belongs. He doesn't.

He isn't up there with his one-word contemporaries – Bono, Madonna, Elton – he is, was, and always will be Gordon Sumner.

In contrast The X Factor is what it is. It is light entertainment that thinks it's a bit of a talent show. Plain and simple. It isn't really pretending to be anything else.

In fact we should revel in the unashamed brazenness personified in the glitter-rolled idiots that are John and Edward because, unlike Sting, they don't come on stage deluding themselves they're icons. Jedward know they're essentially Bacofoil Bros, not the Righteous Brothers.

I do have a problem with aspects of Cowell's shows but I don't want to hear someone as supercilious as Sting tell me about it. I'd rather he just disappear, like his career.


Closing the Works just won't work

TOP marks to the police for closing down Victoria Works, one of the biggest and best clubs in Leeds. The people who used to take drugs and commit acts of violence in there will either stay at home now or realise the errors of their ways.

There is a narrow risk, of course, that they'll just go to another dance music-based venue which will necessitate the authorities closing down that nightspot too, and when this vital section of our economy is utterly decimated we can all sleep safely in our beds at night.

Maybe then we can move on to the more towny bars and clubs in Leeds where thousands of people regularly get drunk and then stagger through the city in a disinhibited, paralytic stupor.

This might be a good idea because, since the police have closed down Victoria Works, Puro and tried to shut Mission, it seems only fair that they turn their attentions elsewhere.

Because if they really care about public safety they might want to consider why, at 2am of a weekend, the junction of Woodhouse Lane and Boar Lane often resembles the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan.

Ask someone who works in an accident and emergency unit in Leeds which vice – drugs or booze – results in someone being hospitalised and they'll confirm it's the latter that brings most into casualty.

With that in mind, when was the last time one of the alcohol-focussed bars or clubs was shut down? I appreciate drugs are illegal but so too is being drunk and disorderly, ABH, GBH, sexual offences and criminal damage.

The real answer to the undeniable problems is to adopt a more even-handed approach and work with the people who run the venues, rather than closing down some and apparently turning a blind eye to others.