Ok, guilty pleasures confession: my husband and I watch American Idol.  Having a baby means you've got to find your fun when and where you can, and curling up together with a glass of wine and a bar of chocolate with enjoyable rubbish on the TV doesn't harm anyone. Even sadder when you are in the UK and can only complain about rather than influence the vote.
Each week we find ourselves pretty close to what Simon Cowell then says about the contestants - seems much fairer on this show than on the X-factor as no vested interest in one particular category of participant. 
But I just don't get Paula Abdul at all. 
She is a talented coreographer.  She's a talent contest judge and she had a burning desire to say something positive about every contestant, fair enough.  I'd be deeply afraid if I was on the show and she said "you look beautiful" - it's a clear sign that there was little else praiseworthy about the performance.  She rambles a bit, but that's getting better- may be someone had a word.  But she seems to try to find merit in a performance when the kindest thing to do would to be to say, no, this time you got it wrong.  She's keen on performers being themselves, even if that's clearly not going to be in any way commercially viable (something you could never say about Simon Cowell).
But one question: what is it with the "nitch" thing?  The word is "niche", pronounced "neesh".
I try not to say jalapeno in public as I have a problem saying the gutteral "Hal" without feeling self-conscious but I'm too proud a linguist to say it as it's written... I'm never sure how foreign to make the pronounciation of loan words...
I've kind of come to the conclusion that if you can't say it, don't say it. And if you don't need to say it, don't say it. I guess that's where Paula and I differ... 

PS David Cook or Michael Johns to win...