Listen up, Broken Britain's Troubled Youth! Simon Cowell, of all people, has found you a new role model. Step forward Faryl Smith, a 13-year-old girl from Kettering with a gloriously diva-like name, who this week signed a £2.3m contract with Universal. Blessed with angelic looks and an operatic voice that took her to the final of last year's Britain's Got Talent, she is the latest bright new hope for the lucrative classical crossover market: yes, she is the new Charlotte Church.
Remove those images of a drunken Welsh woman prising her kebab out of the gutter for a moment. Instead, remember the young Church. A golden-voiced teenage soprano from Splott, Cardiff, she melted old ladies' hearts with her Ave Marias. And then, she lost her innocence in spectacular fashion: slagging off pop stars, doing rubbish chatshows, and getting drunk on Babychams with bozo boyfriends. Today, she's pursuing other projects - and motherhood - but her career can still teach Smith some valuable lessons.
1. Don't get your mum to manage you - ever. Church did, only to sack her in 2002, presumably shortly after shouting at her for hiding her Superkings. When you're that age, of course, your mum doesn't understand you - she's too busy monitoring your text messages and hiding the vodka.
2. If a "part-time DJ" wants to be your boyfriend, tell him exactly where he can stick his stylus. If you date, he will only tell the papers, or write a mucky book (although you can rest easy in the knowledge that the unsold copies will be underlay for a motorway within six months).
3. Don't be frightened of funny-haired rugby players who shave their legs. Yes, they may impregnate you, look odd, and have the mental capacity of a Haribo sweetie, but they will stick with you, and make you strangely happy.
4. Only ever do a musical chatshow if you can sing a duet with someone as drunk as Amy Winehouse. Next to Winehouse's brandy-addled Dot Cotton in 2006, Church looked poised and professional, and rendered memories of seeing her covered in gin-stains redundant.
5. Never shut your mouth. For even when grim celebrity magazines say grimmer things about you, your honesty and personality will make you rise above everyone. And in that way, dear Faryl, you might just survive being an innocent pawn in the game of music industry chess.
