Cringe When You're Winning

Awards. I never get any. Actually, I once won Best Film at the Lymm Film Festival, beating a short film which had been made by David Yip. Now every time I see him in some marginal TV stereotype role (‘David Yip as Laundry Manager, David Yip as Takeway Manager, David Yip as Chinese Prime Minister’) I have a silent chuckle to myself.

Awards are important in life. They teach us crucial lessons about how to hate, how to seethe and how to gloat. They bring out the most disgusting of human emotions, and that is all they do. They encourage people to compare themselves to others and to spend their every waking moment imagining how a faceless panel, or in the worst cases the ‘public’ – those blithering hateful idiots, will judge the minutiae of their worth against some other hapless soul. As soon as I went to the front of the conference suite of the Park Royal in Stretton to accept my plywood and brass award from the Chairman of Lymm Film Society, I felt superior, like one of God’s own children. One of the older, nice ones too, not the snotty little git he sent down here to Earth to get tortured. During my acceptance speech I longed to say “And finally, thanks to all of the other nominees for being not quite good enough. Enjoy your lives as second best, losers!”

The Brit Awards were decried by none other than Craig David in their run up. I bet they felt like calling the whole thing off and just calling it a draw after he accused them of ‘Missing the 8 Ball’ by not nominating people like him anymore. The Brits mean as little as any other award ceremony because all they measure is ‘goodness’. Is this Mika record good, or not good? Is Kylie good? Who the goodest out of Kate Nash and KT Tunstall. Maybe if they actually gave awards for Britishness, they would become more relevant, and simultaneously give those hopeful immigrants some idea of what it is to be British, so they could stop revising by watching ‘Love Thy Neighbour’.

In terms of ‘Britishness’, the Arctic Monkeys deserve their award. Alex Turner sings like a whiny scal from Sheffield, which he is. They write songs about going to the pub and then getting in a taxi and going home. At the Brits ceremony they dressed up in tweeds and plus fours and thanked their old pals from the Brit School (where they never went). They were indulging in that old British pursuit Taking The Piss, which is a skill that non-Brits have never really honed that well. Americans get a bit obvious and aggressive when they try and Take The Piss. Ditto Australians. Watch and learn all you would be Britishers, this is how the experts do it.

Kate Nash may have gone to the Brit School but she deserved her award too. The likes of Leona Lewis are still aping Whitney and Beyonce with their ‘you may have dumped me but I’m gonna sell your bling and buy handbags’ brand of female empowerment, whereas Nash’s songs tell of her boyfriend being a bit of a knob and being too shy to flirt with someone. “I’ll leave you there til the morning and I purposely won’t turn the heating on’ is as harsh as Kate gets with her wayward men. British through and through.

Take That win on humility alone. They are the first to admit they were on the downs (not the Barlow obviously, he was rolling around in cash and pasties like a proper Cheshire millionaire) but after re-forming, storming through an acclaimed tour and selling 50 gazillion albums they should have rightly spent their time at Robbie’s house, pissing up the walls, stamping on his head and yelling ‘Who’s laughing now you fat loser?’ whilst shoving gold discs up his arse sideways. Instead they shrug and smile and say thank you, rejecting schadenfreude and only enjoying their ‘I Told You So’ moments in the privacy of their private yachts.

Conversely, Amy Winehouse should have her Brit rescinded on grounds of being an Americanised caricature of a pop soul singer with an unhealthy obsession for her ‘incarcerated’ hubbie which comes straight from the trailer parks of New Jersey. Just what is that accent she sings with? Sarf London? Don’t think so. Adele has the dodgy accent going on aswell but she reminds us all of that Great British Paradigm – the chunky barmaid with a good set of pipes. Gawd bless her! Kylie won as International Female on the ‘You Didn’t Die’ ticket and would actually be borderline British if she hadn’t shagged a Frenchman.

Until there are some real independent music awards which are voted for by people who have a clue and are definitely not the derisible ‘public’, we have to put up with the Brits. I hope to be nominated myself next year, hopefully against David Yip. Suck on that loser!