The X Factor doesn't impress Sting

To save you time: In short, they've never done a Police Week.

Sting doesn't like The X Factor. In fact, it makes his blood boil, possibly even to the point where he'd start smashing up his tiny medieval guitars. This almost makes the X Factor worth it.

Fume Sting, fume:

"They [The contestants] are either Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston or Boyzone and are not encouraged to create any real unique signature or fingerprint."

He has a point. But it's a bit like complaining that John Culshaw doesn't do impressions of the Robert Zoellick or Hakainde Hichilema - it's not really what the audience is looking for, is it?

He also attacked the show's judges - Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, Louis Walsh and Dannii Minogue - claiming they had "no recognisable talent apart from self-promotion".

He knows for a fact that Dannii Minogue has never written an opera in latin to be played entirely on balalaikas, for a start.

Sting also doesn't like the way losers are cast aside without a second thought

"How appalling for a young person to feel that rejection," he told the London Evening Standard.

Yes, thrown out with no compensation like they're a pregnant chef or something.

"It is a soap opera which has nothing to do with music. In fact, it has put music back decades."

Not really, Sting: it might have put the charts back decades, but music? That's still pretty robust. If you expect to find interesting stuff on ITV on Saturday teatime, the problem is with your expectations, not music.

Besides, you'd have thought Sting wouldn't mind music going back a few decades. If the journey backwards was long enough, it might turn up at a time when people took Sting's opinions seriously.