Britney: The troops rally

Yesterday, Ozzy Osbourne mumbled something about Britney Spears which sounded vaguely positive. Now, Rhianna has also added her support to the beleaguered pop star:

"You can't judge her performance [at the MTV Awards] without knowing what was going on with her personally.

"She had so much pressure on her for that one performance. It's not easy being on that stage. I performed for a minute and a half, and I was extremely nervous.

"To have the amount of pressure that Britney had? I don't know what I would've done. She did her best, so leave her alone."

Now, while we feel a degree of sympathy for Britney, what kind of contraflow-in-a-one-way-system logic is this?

Why should people feel obliged to take "what was going on with her personally" into judging a performance? If your plumber came in and bungled the flue on your central heating, you wouldn't still pay him because he had stuff "going on personally" and that ruined his performance. Until people start to hand back Grammys saying "I really don't deserve this, as when I made the record I was in love, well off and in perfect health so there was no struggle", I don't think we can really start to weight reviews according to the off-stage influences on the act.

Don't shoot the piano player, he's embroiled in a sub-prime credit crunch repossession.

Doesn't work, does it?