I really can't get my head round all this bitching and sour grapes. Of course judges are going to vote for people they like – duhhhhh, it's a no-brainer. But if there are 180 or so judges, it seems that there'll be a fairly representative consensus.

Looking at it another way: is there anyone on the list who doesn't deserve to be there? Well, not in my opinion – I may not like the music of some but they all deserve their place. Are there people who aren't on the list who deserve to be? Of course, loads, but that's the nature of awards – not everyone can be a winner and there's always next year. Awards are not a democracy – they're the subjective opinion of a group of people and the bigger the group, the more representative the choice, but there is a limit to how many people can be asked. Fine – disagree with the whole concept of awards (yes, inevitably they represent the commercial aspect of folk more than the grass-roots aspect) but I doubt if there's a totally fair way of selecting the winners at an acceptable cost. Strangely, you never hear the winners complaining about the selection process.