The real thing?... Noel Gallagher receives the Brit award for outstanding contribution to music. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
I've been trying to work out at precisely which point during the Brit awards I suffered a temporary collapse of the will to live. Orson's acceptance speech? Joss Stone's curious decision to present the best British male solo artist in the style of Superfly ("big love to Robbie Williams for what he goin' through")? The ever-dispiriting appearance of Snow Patrol? Or when it became apparent that the Arctic Monkeys weren't present, and therefore wouldn't be lifting the ceremony with their trademark zany good humour, fathomless bonhomie and joie de vivre?
I have a sneaking feeling it may have happened months before the actual ceremony. In fact, it might have happened in December, when they announced that Russell Brand was going to be presenting. It behoves me to point out that I have absolutely nothing against Russell Brand - anyone who manages to convince 2,000 women to sleep with him while dressed as a member of Fields of the Nephilim is all right with me. It's just that when Russell Brand got the presenting gig he urged viewers to tune in thus: "Oasis and other rock royalty will be there with me so there will be a risk of expletives going out across the UK." Watch the Brits and you might hear someone say a swear word on the telly, that seemed to be the message. Rude words! On the telly! Any six-year-olds who heard this must have found the prospect almost impossibly irresistible.
The thing I really object to about the Brits is ITV talking them up as if they're the most shocking countercultural televisual event since the Yippies stormed the David Frost Show or Steve Jones called Bill Grundy a fucking rotter. Two years ago, ITV claimed anything could happen because Chris Evans was presenting it ("I'm a brave woman! Chris is a wonderfully dangerous choice! Anything can happen!" said ITV's Claudia Rosencrantz, as if she'd just given the job to Omar Bakri Mohammed). This year, anything could apparently have happened because Oasis were getting the outstanding contribution award. With the best will in the world, if you're relying for your spontaneity on a band that has spent the last 13 years effectively making the same record over and over again, you're stuffed.
Last night had a weird effect on me. I started to long for the old Brits, before they got their hip makeover in the early 90s (the man called in to give the Brits a hip makeover was Jonathan King: evidence, should you need it, that the past is very much a foreign country), when every year, without fail, regardless of what was happening in music, they gave every award they could to Phil Collins. At least you knew where you were with the Brits in those days.
Members of the Tory party used to turn up and hand out awards. I seem to remember that on one occasion, Margaret Thatcher sent in a video message. When they gave the outstanding contribution award to Status Quo or Cliff Richard or Freddie Mercury, they didn't feel the need to carry on as if this was an act of unbelievable sedition that might have wildly unpredictable consequences. Say what you like, but at least then, no one pretended the Brits was something it patently wasn't - or isn't.
