The Brits

I tried to watch The Brits last night. I really did try. Honestly.
But men of a certain age probably shouldn't even attempt to do so because you find that you're turning into your father.

Some of the music is pleasant enough if you hear it on the radio. But to watch these people perform produces a degree of irritation that is unendurable. Both Bono and Chris Martin lunged around the stage in the most bizarre bodily contortions as though they had cerebral palsy. Why, for God's sake?
The other night, an excellent documentary on the great Tony Bennett showed him standing completely still in his renditions, apart from a few hand movements. Yet his interpretation of the lyrics was mind-blowing and on one occasion moved me to tears.
Of course, with most pop music the lyrics are such incomprehensible or meaningless shite that there's nothing to interpret anyway, even assuming that the singer's diction is good enough to decipher the lyrics, which it seldom is.

The Red Carpet ritual for The Brits had one of the most unappealing backdrops imaginable: the urban wasteland of part of Earl's Court.
The interviews consisted almost entirely of the female interviewer and stars saying to each other "Oh my God! You look gorgeous!" Plus those strange contemporary constructions like "I'm loving the shoes!" (instead of "I love your shoes").
Do they really mean these fulsome compliments? (A rare correct use of 'fulsome'). Or are they thinking "Fuck me, who let the dogs out?"

Watching just the first twenty minutes meant that I saw that strange opening set with Mathew Horne and James Corden looking like two ladyboys who had been blindfolded and told to get dressed from a fetishist's wardrobe.
By this morning I'd just about got the image out of my head and then the Guardian go and put a photo of them on page 3.
According to the Guardian they're doing "the hand jive." I must take the word of the teenagers who write for the Guardian on that one. But if you'd asked me, I'd have betted that a 'hand jive' was a euphemism for something you wouldn't do on ITV at 8 o'clock in the evening. Well, a toss-up between that and something that Sharon the physio gets the geriatrics to do in the day room of the nursing home.
"Time for your hand jive, Mr Lupin."
"Ooh, Matron......"