Age: As a band, three years old.
Appearance: Waistcoats with guitars. (The guitars are also wearing waistcoats.)
Family of greengrocers? Folk band. Made up of common, folksy folk, who went to common, folksy top public schools. Not, of course, that there's anything inherently wrong with musicians being privately educated. It's just a bit grating when one of them insists on going by the name "Country" Winston Marshall, and describes their song Timshel as "very influenced by Steinbeck's East of Eden, which I haven't read".
Is that one Mumford? No, Mumford goes by the name Marcus Mumford, and has actually read East of Eden. Winston Marshall is one of his sons, alongside Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane.
And they're his actual – They're not his actual sons, no. Mumford gets to play Dad because he's the one who reads books. He's also the lead singer and songwriter.
Was it his idea to dress the guitars in waistcoats? No, that was a joke.
So why are they in the news? Because they've angered prolific post-punk grump Mark E Smith. The Fall frontman mistook the band for "a load of retarded Irish folk singers" at a warmup for the Electric Picnic at Stradbally, Co Laoise in Ireland last month, and promptly lobbed a bottle at them to get them to shut up.
And that's enough to merit a natter from us, is it? Not on its own, but earlier this month David Cameron named their debut album Sigh No More as the last record he'd bought.
So, in a couple of weeks, they've earned the ire of one of rock's elder statesmen and the endorsement of the prime minister? Indeed. It's too early to say which will be the most damaging, of course, but it's fair to say they're well on their way to being the next Coldplay.
A hugely successful band that it's deeply embarrassing to like? Exactly.
I like Coldplay. I rest my case.
Do say: "They're a band for our times . . ."
Don't say: ". . .which I haven't listened to."
• This article was amended on 27 October 2010. The original referred to the Electric Proms in Dublin. This has been corrected.
