I remember back in 2002,  sitting on the floor of my tiny flat in Notting Hill and watching Pop Stars The Rivals. Saturday night, with my best friends invited over, we would shout at the television and make clear who we thought should be put through to the next round. Not once, in all the weeks of programming did any of us think that the poorly-dressed little whipper snapper from Newcastle, Cheryl Tweedy, had a hope in hell. She couldn't sing. She could barely speak intelligible English, for goodness sake. But somehow she had charm and she made the Girls Aloud band, she married a footballer, she captured the UK's heart, she became a face of L'Oreal Paris and she has now landed up — as Cheryl Cole — with the most coveted job in American television history, a judge on X-Factor.

I still don't get it. Hopefully they will be screening X-Factor in South Africa and we can all figure out what Simon Cowell has seen in her. But for now, to me, she is still that scrappy, club-brawling WAG that I remember. Only now she has really, really big hair and wears Diane von Furstenburg trousers and an Oscar de la Renta top. Worth keeping an eye on just for that, surely?
Maybe it is her recent L'Oreal ads for mega-hold hairspray that has inspired the big hair look? What do you guys think of Cheryl Cole and would you watch American X-Factor if it is screened here?