The 'Ump: The Brit Awards 2007

Before we begin, note how we've chosen to cover the Brits via The 'Ump rather than a Honking Box column - a testament to the perenial pissing-off these supposedly hallowed awards invoke. Bearing in mind we're writing the main body of this article on Wednesday morning, is that being realistic or excessively negative?

Let's face it, we were never going to have massively high expectations for the show, bearing in mind the nominations themselves threw up no surprises. Kissing up to 'cool' industry darlings such as Lily Allen and the Arctic Wankeys has become the key element of the Brit Awards, supposedly in some vain attempt to appear trendy. Maybe demonstrating the presence of a brain between their collective ears would be slightly more effective? Meanwhile, banishing the genre categories altogether was an utterly stupid idea, although given that they never quite seemed to grasp the point of Best Pop, maybe it's not such a bad thing. James frickin' Blunt, indeed.

And yet, pairing down the awards to be more concise and inclusive, they STILL fail to get it right. Seriously, Justin Timberlake for Best International Male? Are we forgetting that the only reason anyone even knows his name is because he stuck it in Britney Spears!?

Even more sickeningly, TWO awards to the Overrated Apes, who couldn't be there on account of being SO FUCKING COOL, kids. Perhaps their puppetmasters have banned them from such events, in case the charisma deficiency that swamps their music spills over into their regular talking voices. Oh look! A VT where they're in costume as Wizard of Oz characters! Aren't they ironic? Well, actually, no. We've just read Wicked, and it would turn out these particular characters are actually all a bit shit. Apt, then.

Of course, a live event celebrating a year's worth of the cream of British music is hardly the perfect opportunity for us to hear another selection from Russell Brand's endless supply of scrotal tales, but in actual fact, he held it together rather well. But every ying has its yang, or in this case, has its beak-nosed cocksucking goblin bitch. While Brand's quick wit and Dickensian yarns entertained and amused, backstage lurked Fearne Cotton, which not only negated the good work being done out front, but appeared to be an entirely pointless exercise. You could just picture a team of sweaty AFMs frantically rounding up Orson, The Fratellis and James Morrison (that's a grand total of nine drunk men) and desperately attempting to retain them in the backstage pen long enough for them to be able to hear a sycophantic troll in leopard print read out some phone numbers.

Other 'highlights' included a maroon-crested Joss Stone, who strutted around the podium pleading us to send our love to Robbie Williams, seemingly in the style of 3 Non Blondes' Marcia Brown. And while it was nice to see Take That completely show up their former bandmate, they were also responsible for the most unremarkable performance in Brits history.

So, all in all, a decent enough show, generously peppered with some fucking horrendous decisions. In fairness, we'd probably only be truly happy with the Brit Awards were we the sole decider of each winner, but even then, you can't please everybody (Lord knows a few people might not be too chuffed with Melanie C collecting eight or nine gongs). Still, you wouldn't expect a bit of originality and diversity to be so unfathomable, would you? What's that? You would? On account of the Brit Awards being a farcical display of in-shagging amongst a barrage of drunken, blinkered fat cats? Hey, you said it, not us...