The BBC folk awards and a freedom of information request

The story so far...

After the announcement of the nominees for next year's folk awards, I was wondering why the identities of the judges are not publicly known and wrote a blog post about it.

I thought there might be some interest in this - everyone loves a mystery - but wasn't really prepared for how much.

The level of curiosity from folkies was especially thought-provoking because everyone involved in running the awards said that the names of the judges are not in any way intended to be a secret.

So I asked for a list.

In particular I asked for a list from John Leonard at Smooth Operations and from Fergus Dudley at the BBC, whose job it is to oversee the contracted-in services of Smooth Operations, which is part of UBC Media. And I was surprised at how complicated the request appeared to be to those most directly concerned. The implication was that instead of shining a light on the awards it would open a can of worms.

Interesting, eh?

So I wrote something else, inviting folkies - or anyone really - to make a practical contribution to the inquiry if they wanted to, reasoning that it would be useful to demonstrate to the BBC and Smooth Operations that I wasn't some lone online lunatic hell-bent on, you know, finding stuff out. Thanks to everyone who bothered to email Fergus Dudley, among others, to let him know you were watching and interested. He's at fergus.dudley@bbc.co.uk if you'd still like to get in touch.

So far I haven't managed to find the whole list of names, although there's been a steady trickle of people ringing and emailing to say that they're judges, wondering whether I'd like to talk to them about it and being encouraging.

In fact, it's been a brilliant week from that point of view. The 15-20 people who got in touch directly all suggested that there were a great many more who'd be interested in the outcome. Phil Widdows over at Folkcast wrote a great open email on the subject to Mike Harding, who presents Smooth Operations' folk show, which I urge you to read. And in response Harding started his own blog, which can only be a good thing.

So, what to do next?

I know, I know... If only there were some way of getting hold of information that everyone says is intended to be in the public domain but isn't. Some mechanism intended to hold institutions paid for by public money to account.

Oh.

Fortunately, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 exists exactly for situations like this. So this morning I asked the Freedom of Information department at the BBC whether it would be able to tell me who the judges of the BBC Radio Two Folk Awards are by supplying a list.

While I was writing this post about it I received a formulaic reply from the BBC

So there you go. With any luck there'll be an answer within 20 working days, which is four weeks. It's no big deal, the world will not end: the BBC actually has a department for this.

So I ask Fergus Dudley, John Leonard and everyone else who's been weirdly fearful about what happens next: what's the big deal?

This is how it's supposed to work.

* Next post about the folk awards

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Hello Rodney Branigan, guitar geek

Just a short one. I went to the BBC Club on Tuesday to watch a showcase by Manilla PR and was lucky enough to catch Circus Envy doing their thing.

Before their second set of three songs, Mick (playing - and sitting on - the box) thanked the PR company insincerely for putting Circus Envy on after Rodney Branigan, a young American now living in south London, who had made us all blink by starting his set with a number that involved playing two guitars simultaneously.

As the afternoon progressed it became clear that although the two guitars thing is impressive in a man-with-two-heads kind of a way, Branigan would be a bit of a star even without the geekery.

He's undeniably very talented - doing the best version of Come Together I've ever heard, including by The Beatles - but it was his humour I especially liked. And the fact that he, um, has no trouble clenching a guitar firmly between his knees for many minutes at a time (see slightly underexposed picture below). He mentioned at one point that he'd been in prison in Mexico and then, when there was a bit of tooth-sucking and muttering about how you shouldn't say that from the front row, he introduced his next song as being about spanking children.

Since it was a tune - albeit one played by using the guitar as a percussion instrument as much as a guitar -  the chances of it originally having been about any such thing were pretty remote.

It turned out that the spell in prison was for alleged drug smuggling, but since it was only for three days he clearly wasn't guilty. I hope I haven't buggered up his immigration status by mentioning this as it would be great to see him play a whole set.

I see Show of Hands feels the same way.

Also check out the tunes on this website, including The Plagiarism Song, for which it helps if you have a passing familiarity with American children's entertainment.

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