A few days ago I asked, in all innocence, if there was anywhere we could read the BBC explanation of how the awards actually worked. Judging by Folkiedave's post of 19 Feb 09 - 04:12 PM, this was a naive hope. However, the third message on this thread on the BBC message board claims to give the game away. It's been there since November so the Beeb can't mind.

It makes interesting reading. Although some of the awards ask for "best", more common are "most impact" and "significant". This helps make sense of Folkiedave's rather surreal "Take a look at Lau's gig list here compared to the Claques gig list here and ask yourself who is most likely to win an award - assuming you had never heard of either of them.". It doesn't seem to be a question of whether Lau were "better" than The Claque or, for that matter, Bellowhead, Faustus or Mawkin:Causley. That's not what they were being given the award for.