ANYONE would think Britain’s Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle had two heads, the way she been treated.

When she shuffled on to the stage in her badly-fitting dress, all wiry hair and eyebrows, judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan didn’t attempt to hide their disdain.

They barely even looked at her, too busy exchanging “who's this weirdo?” glances.

But when she opened her mouth Susan Boyle floored them all.

You could practically see the pound signs “ker-ching” in Simon’s eyes as her beautiful voice filled the arena.

Slimeball Piers later admitted: “When you stood there and said you want to be like Elaine Paige, everyone was laughing at you.”

“Everybody was against you,” chipped in frozen-face Holden.

Simon's reaction, puzzlingly, was: “Susan, you are a little tiger aren't you? You are.”

Er, whatever Simon.

Anyway, the aftermath was equally over-the-top. Her audition was five times as popular on YouTube as President Obama's inauguration ceremony and she was promptly hawked all over the chat shows like a modern-day bearded lady. Is Susan Boyle bothered, I wonder, that she's become a global sensation because she's ugly?

If she’d have been beautiful I very much doubt there would this sort of attention on her right now. She probably wouldn't even have got through the audition process, because although her voice is wonderful, let's face it, so are many people’s.

What's special about Susan Boyle is that her beautiful voice is at odds with her not-so-beautiful face.

But why do we equate beauty with talent? It wasn't just the judges who reacted with surprise. The collective gasp of the audience that greeted Susan Boyle when she opened her mouth suggests as a society we believe talent cannot exist without good looks.

This is nothing new, it turns out.

For years studies have consistently shown that good looking people generally do better in life.

Oscar Wilde knew what he was talking about when he said: “It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.”

I suppose it works both ways though.

I have to admit that I'm instantly suspicious of exceptionally good looking people, assuming they'll be vacuous and dull as they won’t have had to develop a personality.

I hope the media spotlight doesn't change Susan Boyle. I hope she's not another example of a person placed on a pedestal for their five minutes of fame, then chewed up and spat out when the next big thing comes along.

One thing she has got going for her is that she's real, which is a lot more than can be said for Cowell, Holden and Morgan, who between them are more false than a prosthetics convention.

I hope she wins the £100,000 prize and settles back into her life safe in the knowledge that she taught us all a lesson.