Tiny temper tantrums

Sat down to watch a bit of men behaving badly at The Brits last night and it turns out I should have watched the football instead. Gone are the days of overpaid, self indulgent and immature young people making fools of themselves in public. No swearing, leering and sneering, buckets of water tipped over a deputy prime minister’s head and general drunkenness and revelry. Instead we were treated to a corporate bash with winners in suits and evening gowns thanking their accountants and multi-national backers for making it all possible. No more ‘sticking it to the man’, the man was everywhere.

The whole event was epitomised by one of the winners, a very pleasant young man called Patrick Okogwu aka Tinie Tempah who received his accolades with good grace and thanked everyone from God to his broker for standing by him through the hard times.

Some things could be relied on. Rihanna was up to her usual tricks as my young son rather wearily observed ‘Daddy, she’s stripping off again’ while she reprised her X-factor appearance. It was left to Mumford & Sons and Arcade Fire to add a musical touch of class and wardrobe eccentricity; 1st prize to Winston, Mumford’s banjo player, for the yellow baseball cap and 2nd to Arcade Fire’s Win Butler for sporting half a hair cut. Everything ran to time, James Corden, presenting the evening, thought he was Ricky Gervais but was more like Kenneth Williams and all were out of the O2 Arena and tucked up in bed before the Newsnight paper round up. Roger Daltrey sought to instil a bit of rock n roll spirit by commenting ‘It's good to see the British music industry still has enough money for a good booze-up’ but his heart wasn’t really in it.

Meanwhile, Spurs had gone to the San Siro stadium in Italy and given a classic European football away fixture performance against A C Milan. So riled were the home side that they resorted to trying to cripple the opposition and how Flamini avoided a red card is, as Toyah Wilcox would say, a mystery. Milan’s captain Gattuso attempted to strangle Spurs’ coach Joe Jordan and then after the match gave Jordan a head-butt for good measure. Now that’s more like it; overpaid, self indulgent and immature young men making fools of themselves in public.

Here's Mumford & Sons' performance from The Brits last night with no miming, half-naked dancers or fake attitude.