[Kaz]

Snippet from today's Sun Online:

MICHELLE McMANUS is storming to No1 — but she shouldn’t feel too comfortable. The Glaswegian winner of Pop Idol is forecast to have sold around 100,000 copies of her first single All This Time by the end of the week.

But WILL YOUNG - who won the first series in 2001 - sold a staggering 1.1million copies of his debut Evergreen by the end of his first seven days.

And one third of Michelle’s sales are set to come from her native central Scotland.

The gap shows the difference in popularity between the first and second series of Pop Idol.

They're basing Michelle's total week figure on the Tuesday midweek sales, which were just 30,000. This is then multiplied by approx. 3 to get a projected weekly total.

Contrast this with Evergreen, which sold 385,000 copies on its first day, with a first week total of 1,108,659!

Around 4.7 million voted for Will in Pop Idol, meaning around 1 in 4 of them then bought his debut single.

Michelle supposedly received over 5 million votes to win Pop Idol 2 . . . . . . . so where are they all now that her single's been released? It just goes to prove that winning alone is no guarantee to a successful career! It's a shame for Michelle, but I'm not surprised.

Oh, and Steve . . . . . . . . .