Absolutely amazed at the Pop Idol result. From the performances, the clear winner was Gareth. The vote disagreed.

I spent all night trying to vote and could not get through - lines busy, line engaged, service not available, dead line... even the dial tone. Hell, I wore out my redial button. For what? For an 8.7Million vote poll to miss me out.

One wonders about whether Pop Idol is fixed. Theoretically, with 28,000 lines open for 2 hours, you should be able to receive 30Million votes. Ok, so the reality will be different, but I should have been able to vote at some point... surely? Perhaps it's not a fix - perhaps the problem is with the voting mechanism - have BT screwed up?

We'll never know.

To some extent, I'm with Darius' opinion on Pop Idol; it's a poisoned chalice - the winner will be branded as that TV show's winner. Maybe those runners up who get record deals (and I expect Darius, Gareth, Zeo and Aaron to be among them) will have better careers without the label of "ITV's Pop Idol" thrust upon them...

Time will tell.