Hey hop pickers!

Just back from the BBC Radio2 Folk Awards at 'The Brewery' in East London (well, near the Barbican). Quite drunk. No-one can pretend that high-profile awards like the Brits don't encourage debauchery, and yet the Folk Awards are always a more welcoming, convivial occasion, and I for one haven't left feeling sullied by the experience! For one thing, this year at least, the occasion wasn't filmed for TV, so there weren't constant interrruptions. More importantly, members of the fourth estate (er... such as yours truly) aren't kept at arms length from the 'talent' at the Folkies. And actually, it's only at, say, the Brits, that you would put that word in inverted commas; tonight, there was little doubt that all the winners were richly deserving, masters of what might be thought of as their craft. However: among the people I talked to, there was furious debate about what consitutues 'folk' these days. Given this weekend's 'Folk Brittania' gigs at the Barbican, and an upsurge in interest in artists as varied as King Creosote and Seth Lakeman, you might have thought that this year's Folk Awards would have seen a move towards embracing younger acts who don't necessarily know every Fairport Convention album backwards. Not so. It's not snide or petty to quibble with the gong that, yes, Fairport won tonight; but it would be good for acts not regarded as 'the usual suspects' to feature more prominently. 'They blew it!' was the verdict of one prominent critic. But here's the most unlikely of confessions: the best speech all night came from... Frank Skinner. Hats off -- he was funny. And if the Folk Awards get Frank and the Brits do get Paris Hilton... Well, fair play Radio 2.