Well, that was that for another year, then

2008 saw The Brits School take centre stage at the awards whose yearly corporate buffoonery helps provide it with nourishment. The organisers did their best to keep the elite academy’s existence a secret (those carefully-placed, conceited mentions and frequent shots of current students JUST HAPPENED, okay?) but in the end it shone through.

Yes, The Brits School. We thought it was a new ‘Mind Your Lanaguage’-style sitcom about a group of hilarious immigrants battling to pass the UK Citizenship Test, but apparently it is where our future musical cream is first churned.

It’s past successes? Well, Kate Nash had an album out last year (she actually did - go and check), and Jools Holland mentioned Floetry once, so that’s good. Also, Katie Melua and The Kooks both went there (we know what you’re thinking, but you can get into a lot of trouble for talking about bombs on the internet these days) as did, er, Athlete.

Wait, though, because tonight’s big news is that - fanfare please - a former pupil has won an award! That’s right, Adele, who won the newly-invented (and not just to publicise the School) Critics’ Choice award. You know her, she’s had a song out just recently, something about pavements and that. It was brilliant.

One BS alumni genuinely worthy of praise is Amy Winehouse (who, presumably, couldn’t have achieved anything with the academy’s backing). Despite trying several times to hide behind Mark Ronson and pull her own skirt off, the fragile chanteuse reminded everyone why her voice is capable of eliciting real tears from human beings with a brilliant rendition of ‘Love Is A Losing Game’.

What can be said about the rest of the event? Not a lot, as it happens. The show was at its stalest for years, with not a hint of excitement all night (when you find yourself thinking, “this could do with a bit of Joss Stone”, something has obviously gone wrong). Even potentially heart-stopping, brain-melting moments like Rihanna’s collaboration with Klaxons failed to ignite; that being a bigger missed opportunity than someone throwing something at the floor and not hitting it.

And so on to our headline act: “Mr Sir Paul McCartney”. The one living (and credible) member of the Fab Four picked up an Outstanding Contribution gong, which probably had more to do with his earlier work than, say, ‘The Frog Chorus’. He came, he saw, he may remember some of it.

Two people who will most definitely not remember any of it are Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, a dynamic presenting duo whose rehearsals had been so bad producers had to draft in - wait for it - Kelly and Jack Osbourne, to ‘rescue’ proceedings.

They were terrible, although not everyone thought so. Clemmie Moodie (just take a moment to absorb the wonder of that name) and Danielle Lawler of The Mirror wrote, “It was a blunder-free and faultless display. Helped by slick scripts and even slicker autocue, there wasn't a fluffed line in sight”. No? Presumably “PISS OFF YOU BASTARD PISSHEAD” was in the script, then.

In summary, The Brits 2008: fucking rubbish.

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