The great — and difficult — thing about being a judge on the Mercury Prize is that nothing is decided in advance. It really does go right down to the wire.
While the 12 nominees are performing songs from their potentially winning albums live on television, we’re in a room upstairs, arguing over the relative merits of wildly different pieces of music. After all, the only criteria for nomination is to have released an album.
And this year, after long arguments over digestive biscuits and Pret a Manger sandwiches, everyone agreed that This Could Be Texas by English Teacher was the right winner.
Notwithstanding a band called English Teacher winning in the week all the kids went back to school, there was something about the