From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

To the Classical Brit awards last night (One will go pretty well anywhere if free tickets are provided) to watch a collection of bizarrely-dressed musical types lovingly lap at one another's fundaments. The event is televised and the Springheel Party had a mediocre view of the stage but an excellent view of the autocue (which was huge).

I always find myself slightly shocked to realise TV presenters really are reading everything, including their "witticisms", off an auto cue. I suppose I should be surprised that they can read at all, given that the younger ones are little better than urchins lured from the sink estates of Blighty by the promise of easy money.

The actOR Brian Blessed made one presentation which was, of course, deafening, but at least amusing, and I was delighted to note he had deliberately strayed far from his cue lines. But I must make a special mention here of Simon Bates, the former Radio One chap, who appeared on stage as the auto cue rolled on to say "Simon Bates AD LIB". Which he did. It wasn't anything special but it was 50 times better than the garbage most of the presenters had spouted. And he did it all on his own. So there you are. Such a pro, darling, such a pro...

I suppose the music was acceptable. The London Chamber Orchestra were splendid. there was some fine fiddle playing on stage. But much of the singing was...well, a bit grim really. I never could reconcile myself to the mawkish sentimentality of songs like "Smile". The least attractive side of Chaplin's nature... But Anna Netrebko was really rather fabulous.

The Albert Hall remains impossibly hot and stuffy and we were forced to fortify ourselves with a couple of stiff gins at the interval. The low point of the evening was turning round at the end of proceedings to pick up my jacket - and inadvertantly experiencing an explicit and panoramic view of the gusset of a bare-legged and micro-skirted Brit School student two rows above me, who was bending over to pick up her bag. For a moment the room span as I battled vertigo. A female companion caught the final milliseconds of the vista and uttered a shocked oath.

No force on earth could compel me to face again that nameless horror: My life flashed before my eyes, a black giddiness overtook me, and I was saved from tumbling into the auditorium only by my co-witness, who seized my arm in an iron grip. She remarked that I looked profoundly shaken by the entire experience - yet I noticed the tremor that afflicted her hand and her hollow-eyed "thousand yard stare". No sane mind can witness what we did and survive unaffected.

It was a chastened group who fled the Albert Hall. We repaired to a pub on Thurloe Street for further gin to calm our jangled nerves. I believe it was at that point that my co-witness told me that her senior female colleagues (who travel often to a provincial town in America called "Los Angeles") have adopted the Yankee fad of having their anuses bleached. Yes. They have them bleached, which apparently makes them an attractive shade of pink.

This shows a laudable devotion to the cult of beauty. But I cannot help but feel there is something strangely sordid about the whole (No pun intended) business.