Billy lashes out at Pop Idol's Cowell

Billy Connolly has lashed out at the state of TV - reserving particular venom for Pop Idol judge Simon Cowell.

He said: "I think he's repulsive. I want to just slap him. I'd love to give him a big bitch-slap.

"He's so typical of the slime that's in control of rock 'n' roll. I think the people on the programme are complete shits.''

Connolly - a former chart-topper - thinks the show is another symptom of falling standards in TV.

He told Scotland's Daily Record that the industry "seems to be staffed with idiots.

"They steal somebody else's ideas. Once someone gets an idea there's a million identical programmes. The accountants seem to have done it.

"If you look at the history of television you find programmes like Cheers which was in the doldrums for a long, long time but people believed in it and stuck by it and it became the biggest programme around the world.

"And then you weigh it against today when they threaten to take stuff off atthe first commercial break. They panic, 'It's not working. It's not working'. What?"

The interview in full

Published: 11 Nov 2003