And that’s all from the Brits.

If you’re after specifics I would say it was a 15% improvement on last year. But my goodness we have a long way still to go.

I suppose all that’s left for me to do is write some kind of neat retort, some sort of rhyme based polemic which neatly summarises the evening’s events?

Little Mix, a bag of tricks! It started really well

Dermot and Emma were not bad but “off-ish” - sort of like a bad smell?

Rag’n’Bone man succeeded, a man of few words he is

If only there were more mavericks like Skepta in this business we call showbiz?

Chris Martin was there, a very enthusiastic fella

Jamie Vardy hands Leicester Champions League lifeline against Sevilla

Now I am tired and actually quite worried this whole poetry thing was twee and crap

All that’s left for me to say is, that’s a rap!

Robbie didn’t deserve a mention.

Goodnight everyone. See you next year.

Across the periodic table from the inert gases that most British male singers are formed from (eg James Bay, Ben Howard, even Rag’n’Bone Man), Robbie Williams is made from a violently unstable element, his charisma doing tequila shots with his ego and id until they come up with genius or Rudebox. This performance can draw from 20 years of solo material – and a host of Take That hits perhaps. Much of it is guff, of course, so does he control his volatility and pick out the pearls? Quite emphatically not. Underwear models parade past him to the strains of Welcome to the Heavy Entertainment Show as if TFI Friday never happened. He promises us that we can go home soon, but not before submitting us to songs that only the most craven performer would include in a lifetime achievement segment. He segues into I Love My Life, a 12-step affirmation bolted onto a Coldplay B-side; like Jeff Goldblum in Annie Hall, his is a mantra that is instantly forgettable. He then channels Jon Bon Jovi’s nasal wondering for Mixed Signals, a guitar anthem so anti-anthemic it’s evaporated from my head mere seconds after hearing it. In the crowd, five people point fingers to the sky while the rest stand stock still like characters contemplating their imminent death in a Roland Emmerich movie. It ends. Angels, She’s the One, Let Me Entertain You … all remain ignored by a performer who, for better but more often for worse, is at least convinced of his own unwavering brilliance.

So that’s it? Skepta and Little Mix won in terms of performances, but for not a single grime artist to win a prize seems massively out of touch. A monotonous list of winners.

Robbie’s now on stage singing about how he loves his life and is free and whatever. If all these scantily clad women dancing around him don’t prove we’ve made progress then I don’t know what will!

(A friend just texted me that observation but it’s that stage of the night where I’ll honestly accept anything.)

Organisers of awards shows must love Ed Sheeran, as he can blow (well, mouth-breathe) everyone away with an acoustic guitar and a mic while they get on with erecting a candy-floss zebra for Katy Perry to flirt with. But here he’s got a full band, covering the Mumford and Sons classic Castle on the Hill. Then it’s a much more robust Shape of You than the Grammys – it’s good to see him connecting with the song’s full dancehall wine, rather than craning his neck downwards to check if his vocals are looped properly. Screams abound for Stormzy, coming out for a brand new guest verse and instantly obviating the unofficial remixes from Yung Bxne et al – studio version please! This is far from the clunky Rihanna-Klaxons Brits juxtapositions of old – lest we forget, Sheeran has an improbably robust grime pedigree via his early mixtapes. The Brits, pleasantly diverting as it often is, rarely nails the best of British – but this performance is the beating heart of the nation’s homegrown pop.

Duncan Jones is here to collect his award. He gave a short and sweet speech about his father, talking of how his dad always supported people who thought they were a bit weird or different: “This award is for the kooks and the people who make the kooks.”

Michael Hann’s verdict:

“Bowie never won a best album award at the Brits while he was alive, which surely proves he never made a good album until now, because the Brits voters would never fail to reward the best music, would they? But now, at last, posthumously, he has reached the crowning glory of his career. To paraphrase an old Robbie Williams gag, he’s looking down on the Brits tonight – not because he’s dead, he’s just really condescending.

The real winner tonight was Jamie Vardy’s away goal that has kept Leicester City’s Champions League dreams alive!

Nice work, football!

... sorry best video. Voted by fans. Turns out One Direction are big online?

Just Liam is here to pick up the prize. Doesn’t mean the band are going to split though. Still best mates. Everything’s fine. One Direction for life!

Chris Martin’s back! Following A Sky Full of Stars with Avicii, Martin’s “collaborations with EDM bros who’ll take me to bars and get me waved with 22-year-old sportswear models” phase continues. It’s what George Michael would have wanted. In a synergistic marketing push that must have involved a lot of passive-aggressive emails between Warners, Sony and Spotify, Coldplay’s collaboration with the Chainsmokers, Something Just Like This, dropped just before the Brits ceremony. It makes a lot of sense – the two groups share earnestly uplifting, entirely generic neon-hued feels – and I would happily bound around to it on my fifth mixed-berries Kopparberg at Wireless this summer. Martin stage dives into the crowd, who follow the presumably stern talking-to they had before the performance, and keep their hands where we can see them; the guitar soloing lifts the final minute just as it did the 1975. It could be a Closer-sized hit, but whether the Chainsmokers can sustain their single songwriting style – tongue-lolling, molly-friendly buildup crashing into three-note instrumental chorus – beyond one spring break cycle is very much up for debate.

Kanye brought on every grime MC in a 10-mile radius for his performance in 2015, and the Brits managed to ignore absolutely all of them the following year, resulting in much well-deserved #BritsSoWhite hashtaggery. But better late than never, as Skepta delivers Shutdown here in a pulled-up hoodie. As he lifts his fists aloft to the racist comments bandied about that very Kanye performance played over the PA, it’s a big symbolic win for grime by the mainstream – but he should still be able to deliver “wha gwan sexy” at the climax of the final verse. “Ring, ring pussy” doesn’t get past the ITV censors, so congrats to them. A shame perhaps that there was no cameo from fellow grime nominee Kano, who has come out at Skepta’s recent live shows, and indeed recent London tourist and collaborator Drake – but at least we didn’t have to listen to the latter’s chat about “on road” and “ends” and “pengest munch” in a bid to win some UK cred.

Given he was No 1 for pretty much all of 2016, this one doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The amazing thing is that so few people can remember the song that was No 1 for most of 2016. Or even name it. (We can. One Dance. Not telling you if we had to Google it.) These are the rewards of going Full Mope. Presumably, he’ll be spending tonight at some party, off his nut on drugs, getting propositioned by serial supermodels and then complaining about it. Mate, if it’s that bad, go home and watch repeats of Breaking Bad.