MORE BRITS: Simon Tyers, who we shall forever call the No Rock Spy, has turned up with more Brits-related observations:
I'll just have to bullet point these instead of uncomfortably welding together these disprite strands:

* Something Always Happening At The Brits was a curious angle for ITV to take in its advertising anyway, partly because the TV trailers were making out it was all about the music, but mostly because their line went "remember John Prescott getting soaked by Chumbawamba, or Jarvis Cocker onstage with Michael Jackson, or Bryan from Westlife challenging So Solid Crew last year?" Well, not really, as one happened before the show, one at the after-show, and the other was completely missed by most of the audience, the TV crew, radio, journalists and essentially pretty much everyone except a bloke from L!ve TV with a camcorder. And no-one mentions Brandon 'The Salon' Block at all, so the one moment they have got they can't find a reason for using.

* The worst thing about the set-up was that, unlike, well, every other proper industry awards ceremony, Davina was told to wander around the audience and make off-hand comments to people, getting hard glares for her troubles, which made it look like she was trying too hard. They perhaps meant it as "look at all the stars here!", but it doesn't give the impression of her as bringing calm to the event.

* And the award presenters! Vernon Kay you could just about get away with, if not the pre-nominees banter (Vernon, in an attempt to gee up the audience: "Garlic bread?" Davina : "Peter Kay!" Vernon : "No, I'm not Peter Kay." Audience : "....") Next award - Tess Daly! I know she's in the ITV idents, but that doesn't mean Robbie Earle got an invite.

* Why did they change the name of Best Newcomer? If Will and Norah had won that it would have been better understood than a thin veneer of 'breaking through with their great original sound'.

* Did you hear any of the Radio 1 coverage? Since Collins and Maconie buggered off it's been Scott Mills and Nemone locked in a Portakabin very much not having the time of their lives, and ruining the claims of being first to the breaking ceremony news anyway by commenting on performances, dresses etc. well before they're supposed to - the OB unit producer can't even get his head around the concept of as-it-happens reportage. This time the gimmick was they had 'spies' - they never established what this meant - in the artist area texting back, because that's what young people do, on gossip of the quality of "Gwyneth's here", "the Sugababes aren't in their seats" (Nemone : "actually, aren't they about to perform?") and "Avril Lavigne looks bored", all treated with the level of studied cynicism that that woman who does the entertainment news on Jo Whiley's show does because that's what Heat do, isn't it?

* Interesting to see that, scrabbling around for a story, any story, after Kylie's been disposed of they've alighted on Chris Martin's 'anti-war' speech, as if a) being anti-war is the very limits of left-wing politics and b) he'd launched into a five-minute discourse on UN culpability and the oil issues, as opposed to an offhand comment that would have passed without notice if Frank Skinner had said it on that night's Unplanned. Still, at least he didn't have his bloody Make Trade Fair T-shirt on.

Something always happens at the Brits

Maybe we could have ITV for false advertising. Although, to be fair, the duffest Brit Awards so far wasn't their fault, more down to pisspoor planning, but we should have known the confidence with which they were allowing them to be broadcast on merely a two hour delay (enough for them to have cut out the Prescott drenching; not enough to have made anything approaching a silk purse out of Sam and Mick) was a signal they knew it would be dull.

Partly because they were held in a theatre. This is so wrong - with the audience all seated in ranks, coupled with the lack of refreshments, you don't get the sense that this is a music industry awards ceremony; it feels more like The Smash Hits Awards, only with all the energy sucked out the room. No wonder they resorted to playing taped applause all evening. Of course, with the quality of awards winners on offer, you can see why they were keen to rig the show to minimise hecklers - "It's good" said one of Blue "people are showing us respect the way we show the rest of industry respect." But you have to show respect, you bus-wheel; singer in a boy band is a few slots below the guy who unjams the photocopier in the EMI heirarchy; whereas the thought of anyone with any sense sitting seeing you pick up a prize - a prize - for your "work" and not shouting "Bumcrack" at the top of their lung power is frustrating.

The second big problem was the timing. Ironically, holding the awards a full twenty four hours before broadcast not only means they didn't have that late-afternoon rehearsal feel to them (Pink struggling to sing 'get the party started' while rush-hour hadn't yet got underway would have been wrong even if the sound hadn't have been so shite as to suggest that Edge Lane University had sent its sound engineering trainees to oversee the event, having first stuck sharp pencils through their eardrums), but also the excitement and tension of who was going to win what was sucked away by other shows.

Last year, kicking off after eight meant the News Shows Interested In That Sort of Thing had all gone home to bed, and by the time the awards made it to TV the 'who had won what' details were fuzzy enough to make it almost as if you didn't know. This time, the early kick-off meant that even John Craven's fucking Newsround was carrying results of the winners just moments before ITV1's expensive show started. So we knew who'd won what, heard the best bits of the speeches and knew that nothing unexpected was going to happen. Never did Buffy and Angel seem more appealing.

As for the awards themselves, it's starting to become increasingly obvious that although her heart is firmly fixed in the right place, Ms Dynamite doesn't quite have the quick wit needed for a spokesperson for the youth of today. Saturday's gaffe - instructing the largest peace demo in British history to "keep fighting" and then trying to salvage the moment by adding "...um, peacefully" - had been largely ignored. But now we have to file it next to her descrpition of that very shite reworking of Faith (Pre-publicity had promised a duet with George Michael; instead we got a glorified video karaoke moment) as "it is an anti-war song, but not in a negative way." Right. Under these circumstances, it's clear why Her People were busily hassling the backstage media troops, as reported on Liquid News - most notably insisting that Ms Dynamite wouldn't take any questions about why she'd thanked "her husband" on stage. Which is a pity, as without allowing a swift clearing-up of that one, they'll allow the feeling to grow that maybe she's been forced to pretend she's a single sassy gal about town when really she's happily and cosily married in a bid to make her image a bit more street. Which we're sure isn't the case at all, is it?

BBC Breakfast's report suggested that the evening had been all about "urban" - "even Kylie" they suggested. Now, obviously this was just an excuse to get her arse on the screen - and anything that forces Natasha Kaplinsky's strange origami head off the air is to be welcomed - but The Fantastically White Kylie and the Fantastically White Justin doing a even more de-sassed cover of Rapture (a fine song, but the first visible attempt of White America to draw the teeth of rap by giving it a friendly face)? It was about as 'urban' as an outward bound course run by the Wurzels.

Interestingly, ITV.com/brits is still plugging the event as happening sometime in the future, which shows just how on the ball the coverage is; again, scooped by Newsround.

So, who did we have?

British male solo artist: Robbie Williams
British female solo artist: Ms Dynamite
British album: Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head
British group: Coldplay
British single: Liberty X, Just A Little
British urban act: Ms Dynamite
British dance act: Sugababes
British breakthrough artist: Will Young
Pop act: Blue
International male solo artist: Eminem
International female solo artist: Pink
International album: Eminem, The Eminem Show
International group: Red Hot Chili Peppers
International breakthrough artist: Norah Jones
Outstanding contribution to music: Tom Jones

It's hard to know what the most dispiriting award is here - I'd guess Sugababes being treated as if they were a proper dance act, but Robbie Williams' award once again shows how unchallenging the British Music Industry has become. Ironically, considering two of its rivals were merely (very weak) cover versions, probably the best of a bad bunch award was for Liberty X's single. Okay, it wasn't by a country mile the best thing released last year, but the success of Liberty X and absence of Girls Aloud and Hear'say does show that the judges of Popstars - a cross section, don't forget, of music biz types - really don't know how to spot a winner in a locked room.

ALMOST AS TOSSY AS THE AWARDS THEMSELVES: There's a dismal piece on the new look BBC News Online about the Brit Awards. For a kick off, it worries that the awards have to be carefully arranged to ensure it doesn't lose credibility in the eyes of 'serious' music fans - which is a bit like suggesting Bush spends time trying to sell his policies to peace-lovers.

What is interesting though is that the slippery question of 'what the fuck is urban?' was judged by Wilber Wilberforce, head of 1Xtra, because the Brits judges didn't have an answer of their own. Genres are pretty slippery things, admittedly, but if nobody really knows what fits under a heading, then how can the heading stand? At least the Brits should have the balls to call the award what it is "The Token Black Person's Award"; better yet, they could open up their voting processes to ensure that all British talent, regardless of race or backing from ITV, stand an equal chance of winning the main awards.

Meanwhile, if Private Eye were pissed off by the hijacking of News At Ten to promote the jacko doco, we'd imagine the next issue will be crackling with rage that last night's edition - already pushed back by the demands of Football and Footballer's Wives, the show that nobody actually watches because they can catch up on the 'shocks' in Heat anyway - was largely given over to puffing The Brits.