Champignon Pavarotti

I saw the most bizarre/touching/astonishing/inspiring thing on a talent show this afternoon. You have to try to entertain an audience for 3 minutes. If more than 50% of the audience vote that you're crap before 3 minutes then you're out. 2 minutes and you get £200, 3 minutes and you get £1000.

So they have 13-year-old Mikey come out. He's fat, with spiky hair, pimples, big baby face and wearing a black suit. He can't answer any questions, just shuffles around embarrassed. Then they send him out to sing.

And suddenly he turns into a full-grown fully masculine Italian opera singer. Except he still looks like a pimply little doughball. And yet, he's got this incredibly deep powerful voice. It was bizarre. I nearly cried. I kept expecting it to be a big joke and he was only lip-synching. Then there'd be a pause in the singing and he'd turn back into this little grinning idiot waving at Grandma.

I'm shocked. Shocked and inspired.