TODAY we applaud Pope Benedict XVI on his first foreign trip and on his quiet yet confident style in getting his message of peace across to a million youngsters.

We saw that when he arrived in Cologne he showed that he was his own man by avoiding such exuberant habits as kissing the ground.

And he read his speeches in a soft voice that was sometimes inaudible in the crowd, smiling shyly, as if in amazement at all the attention.

With a million youngsters hanging on to every word, one would have thought that the Pope would have raised the issue of contraception. But he did not.

In fact, he made no mention of the Church's teaching against premarital sex and condom use, two themes frequently mentioned by John Paul.

And we think this laid-back style did the trick. The young seem to love him all the more for his reticent ways.

We believe that Benedict will prove to be the Pope of young people and will definitely have youth on his side.

SO the Saturday night talent show, The X-Factor, has returned to the nation's TV screens - pulling in more than six million viewers.

Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh once again sat in judgement of the musical hopefuls who, over the next 20 weeks, will battle it out for the top prize of a recording contract.

Some of the contestants were, well, embarrassing - but so were the judges.

At one stage during the auditions Cowell stormed off the set like a spoilt brat after he didn't get his own way. Not very professional Simon.

And annoyingly, Osbourne and Walsh look all set to do exactly what they did in the last series - ganging up on Cowell to give him a hard time.

It's about time these judges got their act together and put a stop to their petty sniping and concentrate on why they are actually sitting on the panel.