h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Does anyone accept the Editors' T-shirt Challenge to write an Entry on Amy Winehouse?

A singing phenomena of the early 2000's.

She could be called a quintessential London icon, as fifty years ago, in a London set fifty years before then, there was a play about Professor Henry Higgins seeking to refine the voice and manners of a young woman from London's lower quarters.


As she stands, Amy Winehouse as a story is pure Pygmalion.


Even after drastic weight loss and ugly obtrusive tattoo work, she still has the body of an angel. Voluptuous before her weight loss, she remains, in an over-thin "gamin" way, gorgeous after it.


Yet the spoken voice that emanates from this creature of pure beauty, this sultry Galatea with the piled Mediterranean hair?

This is where we wince.At the risk of being punched ,or being on the receiving end of a flying Winehouse drink, her spoken voice is an unedifying cockney-Jewish squawk (in itself, a sociolinguistic rarity, now most British Jews have moved up to at least middle-class status?) that demands the attention of a Henry Higgins!

Jazz singers tend to have a long shelf life - look at Cleo Laine, still going strong in her seventies. Is Amy W, on the evidence of two LP's, the heir apparent to Cleo, as Britain's prima donna torch singer and jazz vocalist? One would like to think so, and the hope is fervently expressed that any little difficulties concerning alcohol and other mood-altering substances can be sorted out now, at the start of what promises to be a long - and eventful - career.

Dusty Springfield, Petula Clarke, Cleo Laine, Shirley Bassey - there is every hope that Amy Winehouse will join the list of great British singers who can claim up to seven decades in the business. Clarke was eight when she started out as a professional singer; she is now over seventy. Amy Winehouse is yet to turn twenty. There is still the pleasure to come of her fully mature singing voice, which promises to be something spectacular!

Amy - this jury gives you a nine and adores you. Sing for ever.

Attempted as A20252189 and based on the undeniable fact I personally find her irresistibly attractive. Quiite like her songs as well!