Simon Cowell doesn't like music

The headline, we realise, is a little redundant - anyone who loved music wouldn't inflict the pain onto it in the way Cowell does - but in an interview with US magazine he's more or less admitted he sees it as a commodity rather than an art form:

he revealed he can “go weeks and weeks without listening to music for pleasure”.

Cowell, 47 — whose artists have sold 25million albums and 17 number 1 singles — added: “If you work at a fish and chip shop, it’s unlikely you’re going to eat fish and chips at night.

“The idea of sitting in an audition room for 14 hours then putting on my iPod — it’s like, ‘No! I can’t do it!’

Presumably, if you thought you were going to be battered by the sort of "music" that Cowell pushes - which is less fish and chips, more the sort of kebab sold from a rusty van parked in the street - you wouldn't want to go near an iPod at all.