[Omah]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/c...enetrable.html

Los Angeles has always been a tough town for those who get above themselves, as its favourite cop-philosopher once observed. “A man’s just gotta know his limitations,” growled “Dirty” Harry Callahan, wittily echoing the Delphic Oracle’s “Know thyself” before unleashing the contents of his Magnum .44 into the head of a chap who apparently did not.

The same, as seems only fair in a post-feminist age, goes for a woman. The Girls Aloud singer has tended to eschew engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan in favour of the safety of The X Factor studio. But there are other ways to serve the community. Cheryl put in 120 hours of community service, in 2003, for instigating unarmed combat above and beyond the call of duty – “actual bodily harm” as the killjoy court documents had it – with the toilet attendant of a Guildford nightclub.

The songstress has endeared herself to us, with her gift for synthesising sincere big-sisterly pride in her young X Factor charges.

In Hollywood, alas, four days into auditions for American X Factor, she was fired. The dust has yet to settle on this sensational development, but already leading historians are riven by such questions as who sacked her, and why.

The first step is to ask the obvious question. What was she thinking in trying to crack America? Of course, one understands the ambition. Any self-respecting British actor would rather be mentioned in passing as a suspected child molester by the host of the Oscars than win three dozen Baftas. No performer feels fulfilled without being recognised in the US.

Even talented British chart acts routinely fail to make it there – Oasis and Robbie Williams, who still lives in LA (bless him for holding on to the dream), barely sold a CD despite ferocious attempts – but the most useful precedent is one of Cheryl’s Saturday night telly rivals. After decades of trying to break the States, Bruce Forsyth could not sell out a telephone box. Being the self-styled “British Sammy Davis Jnr” was one thing. Being unable to sing, dance or time a joke proved another.

Finally, Brucie took the hint, settling stoically for life as a beloved institution in li’l ol’ here. Cheryl has no choice but to do the same. Having survived the conviction, malaria, and Ashley texting snaps of himself in his knickers to a lady friend while Cheryl was halfway up Kilimanjaro, an embarrassing return to our own X Factor will not break her.

For all that, the indignity will be hideous for one more accustomed to “nation’s sweetheart” than being nicknamed Chewbacca for her flirtation with big hair. Whether Magnum .44 bullets would have penetrated that much lacquer is one for a ballistics expert, but she must now suspect that there are more even painful routes to learning one’s limitations than being gunned down by a renegade LA cop.