Mercury rising

The big news about this year's Mercury Music Prize is that the long tradition of a gentle-fluff from Jools Holland as the winner is announced has come to an end; from now on, Lauren Laverne will be at the podium trying to explain to the young winner what this "cheque" thing she's just given them is. Or maybe it'll be all modern now, and they'll contactless technology to transfer the prize money.

There's a knock-on, of course, as now Lauren is going to be trying to keep the room interested after the third bottle of wine, the BBC are going to need a new host for the TV coverage. I understand Jools Holland's become free on that night.

Anyway, there's no point in having a presenter without a competition. Here's the shortlist and odds:

Richard Hawley: 'Standing At The Sky's Edge' – 4/1
Plan B: ‘Ill Manors’ – 4/1
Alt-J (∆): 'An Awesome Wave' – Odds 5/1
Django Django: 'Django Django' – 5/1
The Maccabees: 'Given To The Wild' – 7/1
Jessie Ware: 'Devotion' – 7/1
Ben Howard – ‘Every Kingdom’ 8/1
Michael Kiwanuka: 'Home Again' – 8/1
Lianne La Havas – ‘Is Your Love Big Enough’ – 8/1
Field Music: ‘Plum’ – 10/1
Roller Trio – ‘Roller Trio’ – 10/1
Sam Lee – ‘Ground Of Its Own’ – 10/1

The odds - from William Hill - suggest that whoever did them didn't really have much of an idea what they were doing. "The jazzy one probably won't win, will it? But what if it does? I'll give that the same odds as the folky one. Shit, but what if this year is the one they give it to the token album to pretend it's not about having a token album. I know, I'll just group everything round six-ish to one and hope.