Nihal mishears, panics

There was Nihal, doing a gentle interview on Radio One, when his guest suddenly dropped the d bomb. Yeah, she called herself a digger. Unfortunately, that wasn't what Nihal heard.

Asian Music Awards 2010: Bat For Lashes wins at last

Bat For Lashes might have missed out on the Brits, but Natasha has picked up a prize at the UK Asian Music Awards.

Which took place on Friday. First with the news as ever.

Still, with the Asian Network doing so much great work for the Anglo Asian music scene, these awards are timely, giving a chance for the tireless team in Birmingham to be given a pat on the back; a chance to demonstrate some love for the AN.

So who from the slate of Asian Network presenters won the best radio show category?

Nihal - Radio 1

Oh.

The winners in full:

Best Album
Jay Sean - All Or Nothing

Best Female Act
Amar

Best Male Act
Jay Sean

Best Alternative Act
Natasha Khan (Bat For Lashes)

Best Club DJ
DJ H

Best Newcomer
JK

Best Producer
Sukshinder Shinda

Best International Act
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan

Best Desi Act
Imran Khan

Best Urban Act
Jay Sean

Best Radio Show
Nihal - Radio 1

Best Video
Jay Sean - Down

Best International Album
Miss Pooja - Romantic Jatt

Outstanding Achievement
Biddu

Commitment to Scene
Talvin Singh

Mercury Music Prize: Liveblog

Lauren Laverne, eh? God, how quickly did Jo Whiley fall from favour?

Rather than detain us with large chunks of music, we're whistling through small chunks of the nominated bands. Miranda Sawyer and Nihal are offering opinions - Nihal suggesting that Speech is a Mercury judge's idea of a hip-hop album. Which is a fair point.

The EPG is calling the programme "packed", which with the need to have some runners-and-riders, a form discussion and the actual announcement is a bit of an understatement.

Blimey - Elly Jackson seems to have had whatever the quiff equivalent of a hair extension is to celebrate the evening.

Nihal has dismissed The Horrors, which seems a bit rich considering he was suggesting that it was a bit rocksnob to have a pop at Kasabian.

Miranda Sawyer is suggesting Bat For Lashes should go a bit bonkers. "It's a beautiful album, but... beautiful mixed with something. But to win the Mercury Music Prize, is it enough?" ponders Nihal.

Time for the announcement, then: Jools Holland, naturally, is the MC. Everyone gets a little ripple of applause because we're all winners, right?

"Let's remind ourselves what those twelve people albums are" mumbles Jools, like a man who is doing his best to try and make Fearne Cotton feel better.

"Moment of truth... fever pitch... esteemed judges" - a quick tour of Holland cliches - "only one can win." No, really?

Although his "we don't applaud money, we applaud talent" is a good joke, a bit undermined in an event which is sponsored by a bank and makes a lot of its twenty grand prize.

The result is "a surprise", drags out Jools: The winner is Speech.

Speech Debelle. I don't think anyone saw that coming (I typed just as Aaron S tweeted that.)

So, who knew that this was a year for the judges to pretend that it's not really just a rock prize? Clearly not Speech, who - ironically - had come without a speech prepared.

As one, the world looks up and says "anything that wasn't Kasabian can't be wrong, can it?"

In her winner's interview, Speech has just mentioned that Ms Dynamite winning the Mercury was an "inspiration" - although since that was a gate swinging to open a not-entirely glittering career, that seems a bit ominous. Still, at least she didn't say it was Roni Size who shaped her dreams.

Here comes Newsnight, then.

Dick and gone

That difficult jump to not-kids-TV anymore is still proving difficult for Dick And Dom, who are even as we speak tidying things up at their Radio One desks. They've been axed in the latest round of weekend changes, which sees Nick Grimshaw being promoted to take over breakfasts and Nihal moves to weekend afternoons.

While we're on this: what's with the drip, drip of the new schedule over a series of weeks? Couldn't they have just decided everything in advance and then announced it in one big burst? It's not like there's so much going on the media would have been uncertain how to proceed ("should we lead on Nick Grimshaw's new show, or is Dave Pearce heading off to new pastures the key element?") Are we to expect a new weekday schedule to slowly reveal itself over the next two months?

Noteworthy: while in the last schedule change, the Radio One departees offered positive-sounding quotes to the BBC Press Office, neither Dick nor Dom seemed to be available for comment.

One gets shaken

Radio One is about to embark on a fairly large schedule shake-up, most notable for granting Chris Moyles an extra two and a half hours a week - or, in other words, time enough for him to play two extra records. They're now starting the show at 6.30 in the morning, and while we'd have imagined three hours of Moyles a day was enough for any man, the audience seems to eat it up, so this is presumably a ratings-driven initiative.

The extra half-hour for Moyles is being shaved off the 'early breakfast' show - although now that programme finishes so far before a winter's dawn, it's presumably going to have to change its name. This reduced fiefdom has been granted to Greg James, who's been doing little bits and pieces around the station for a while now. He has, you'll note, perhaps the most local-radio-dj name to have graced Radio One since Mark Page.

That strange arrangement where Zane Lowe's show is opted out of on a Thursday evening in the other nations is ending - now, all of England will be shouted at between session tracks from Albert Hammond Junior four nights a week; the national regions opt-out fandango gets shunted to midnights on Wednesday from where, we imagine, it will quietly disappear sometime after Christmas.

The In New Music We Trust strand is still there, unfortunately. But not part of the brave new world is JK and Joel, whose unloved double-actery is banished not just from early breakfast, but also from the Chart Show.

Before you get too thrilled by the idea of the Top 40 returning to a safe pair of hands, though - or two safe pairs of hands - it's now going to be presented by Fearne and Reggie. We're not sure when Cotton and Yates actually became a double act, but it seems to be fixed now. We're at a lost to the logic of giving the Top 40 slot to a pair who were part of the destruction of Top Of The Pops, mind.

The gap in weekend breakfasts opened by this promotion (they're also going to do a 'requests' show on Saturday afternoons - charts and requests; it's like someone doesn't trust them to pick their own records, isn't it?) is filled by Nihal, which is probably the only good idea in the whole spreadsheet.

Also getting demoted is Vernon Kaye - or, perhaps, "having his Radio One workload reduced in order to free up more time to remake Bullseye". His Sunday morning slot is now going to be taken over by... well, it says Dick and Dom here, but surely that can't be right, can it? Maybe three years ago... but in 2007?

The most horrific detail, though, is left for Sunday nights. Sunday Surgery - the long-running 'don't get the clap, and don't pickle your kidneys' slot is now going to be presented by Kelly Osbourne.

How did that happen? Did Radio One see her pisspoor performance on Project Catwalk and think "we should see if she's as bad presenting live radio as she is at recorded television, where - presumably - they must have reshot some of the pieces, surely?" and then looked around for something she could do? Or did they have a shortlist of likely presenters for the programme, and - after they'd all said 'no' - were reduced to thumbing through the phone directory?

Kelly Osbourne.

[Thanks to James P for the tip]