Chig's 'as I'm watching it on the telly' report:

"25 years ago, when this all began," says Chris Evans in the intro. So it began in 1980, did it Chris? No, it didn’t. It started in 1977 as a one-off Queen’s Silver Jubilee event, but then they didn’t think of doing it again until 1982, missing four years. That’s why we’re only now having the 25th Brits, but that’s just what it is – the 25th Brit awards ceremony (including those formerly called the British Rock & Pop Awards). It’s not the 25th anniversary or 25th birthday, or 25 years since it started. It's the 25th event. Got that? Good. Let's get started.

TV moments of 2005: Robbie’s face when Chris Evans introduced ‘Gary Barlow and Howard Donald’. A right picture. Nice to see the Robster with all his hair shaved off again. Phwoar!

“I’d like to thank my boyfriend, Jake, from the Scissor Sisters.” Very funny, Robbie. We saw Jake’s interview too, but it would have been nice if you had taken a moment to thank Guy Chambers for writing Angels with you, as you pick up the award for writing the song. You selfish git. Try being gracious instead of petty. You can go off people, you know.

[Two minutes later] Oh, he did thank Guy Chambers, as a backstage afterthought. Better than nothing, I suppose.

Daniel & Natasha’s version of ‘Ain’t Nobody’ sounds good. Nice brass. That’s ‘brass’, not ‘bras’.

Simon Pegg looks like a cat. “The winner is ‘Scissor Sisters’!” He’s a fan – he wasn’t tempted to say ‘The Scissor Sisters’! My sister texts me immediately: Jesus christ! Simon pegg has really made it now! Presenting an award at the brits! Wow!!
Explanation: Chigsister was a friend of Simon Pegg’s when they were both 18 and in the same year at college in Stratford-upon-Avon, doing drama. I had the pleasure of seeing Simon’s already brilliant comic abilities way back then, in a college show, when he helped recreate Monty Python’s cheese shop sketch. He told my sister at the time that he was jealous of me because I was at uni being chair of the Drama Soc and directing a play. Oh my, how the tables have turned! Still, it’s nice to know I was his inspiration. Cough, splutter.

I thought Mike Skinner didn’t do awards ceremonies? How did he get persuaded to perform? More than a grand, or does he come for free? That was a bloody brilliant performance though.

Ad break now. Oh yes, an advert for ‘The Best of The Boomtown Rats’, which annoyed me when I saw it in Asda today. Why? Because they’ve allowed some illiterate graphic designer to do the sleeve and then – unbelievably – no one from the record company has bothered to read it. So their best-known track is listed as ‘I Don’t Like Monday’s’. Monday’s what? Strewth. Sack these illiterates now!

Green Day sound great – a really full sound.

Will Young looks as astonished as I was to hear that he’s won Best Single for ‘Your Game’. How in God’s name did he manage that? It’s a good single, from a good album, with a really good video, but single of the year? Against those other nine contenders? Bewildering.

The Best Pop Award was less of a surprise, although if there’d been two, The Aloud should have had one too. Perhaps they should have Best Girlypop and Best Boysypop awards? Oh dear, Tom (or whichever one he is) McFly forgot to thank ALL the sponsors of the Best Pop award. Dock his pay! Take the award back!

Joss Stone performing next, and at this point people are thinking, nice, she’s good, but what’s she doing in the Best Urban category when she’s just a young white girl from the not-so-mean streets of Devon? Poor thing, it’s all a bit embarrassing for her, innit? Because of course Jamelia or Lemar are going to win that category, aren’t they? AREN’T THEY?!?!

As Chris Evans is performing to camera, various Scissor Sisters are completely ignoring him, even though though he’s standing next to their table and talking on the telly. How rude.

Oh Robbie, you do look sexy with that hair shaved off again and a retro, black, shiny racing jacket. Superb version of ‘Angels’ with Urban Joss. Good to hear the song done differently for a change.

Ah yes, that’s more like it. Very rock and roll. Mike Skinner wins an award but has been in the bog ‘a long time’ according to his mate, and doesn’t go on stage to collect it. Gone to look for the Goffey shelf, I imagine.

Jamelia and Lemar doing ‘Addicted To Love’ now. It’s always interesting when you hear a cover and you hear words you never noticed before. Jamelia’s clear enunciation has just uncovered two lines of that song that I’ve never heard properly before. Well done girl!

Good to see Jazzy B back in public, awarding the Best Urban award. Ugh! Dizzee Rascal! Thank God it was only ten seconds. Jazzy announces it’s Joss Stone. ‘Oh fuck off, no’ says Joss at her table. (I can lip-read, me.) That’s not very ladylike, is it? But it is very ‘urban’. Probably. Maybe that’s why she won.

New Order are there, already knowing they haven’t picked up the ‘Best Song of a Completely Arbitrary Time Period’ award for their former incarnation’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. Thank goodness they have something else to do, like present the award for Best International Group. “Who’d have thought that the Scissor Sisters would beat U2 in this category?”, asks voiceover woman (who I presume is Lauren Laverne with a cold). [Later note: it is.] Quite a few of us, thank you very much. I never thought for one moment that U2 would win this one. Even Bono would have given this to Scissor Sisters.

A great visual show from Gwen Stefani next. Nice shrooms. I’ve still not quite forgiven Ms Stefani for all the times I’ve found myself singing, ‘Take a chance, you stupid ho’, against my better judgement. Out loud. In the office.

The shy and retiring Osbourne females now, presenting Best British Group. Keane try to look pleased as Franz Ferdinand are announced as winners. There’s a shot of some tarty, drunk bird in the audience, mouthing off at the camera. Oh, it’s Amy Winehouse.

Fuck me! Siouxsie Sioux! Respect to the Brits organisers! When does she get her lifetime achievement award? Hmm, strangely expressionless face… (Trivia fact: Googling for ‘expressionless face celebrity’ brings up Jackie Stallone as the first result.)

Scissor Sisters win again and Ana surprises me by saying, of Siouxsie, “If she weren’t in existence, I wouldn’t be standing here today!” So, Ana is Siouxsie’s daughter? Who knew?

Snoop and Pharrell now. Wonder if they’ve noticed yet that all the winners so far have been Caucasian?

Chris Evans really is a natural at this lark, isn’t he? Oh, be still my beating heart – it’s Clive Owen! Album of the year is…Keane. ‘Oh fuck!’ says Tom. He must have been hanging out with Joss Stone.

Chris Evans, Jools Holland and Sir Bob Gandalf himself - that is his name, isn’t it Joss? Fuck yes! - all manage the extraordinary feat of not saying the words ‘Band Aid’ while giving young Robert his Lifetime Achievement Award. “Mine’s gold”, he boasts. You rat! He does ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ and ‘Rat Trap’, but sadly not ‘The Great Song Of Indifference’. A real shame, because I would have liked to see the faces on all the Band Aid 20 participants there when he sang the line, “I don’t care if the Third World fries.” Let’s see if they get irony.

As it often is with the Brits, it’s a great, rousing way to end the show. I’m sure Bob could have done more than two songs.

The end.

Except it’s not. Scissor Sisters chat to Colin Murray and Lauren Laverne on ITV2 afterwards, surrounded by the Muppet melons. It’s all so surreal that Colin runs off, screaming, “Okay, I took acid!” (Colin Murray doesn’t get Scissor Sisters, as you will know if you listen to him on the wireless.) Jake Shears says Kiki and Herb changed his life.

Robbie’s short hair has exposed how grey he’s going at the sides. Hurrah! Welcome to the club. Not that he was dyeing it black before, of course. No way. “I’m not gay, like the papers said yesterday, ” pleads the Robster. Good job Jake has disappeared.

Alex Kapranos looks like Nicky Campbell when he was younger.

The end. Really.
· link