It has just been awards ceremony after awards ceremony of late, you grumble. "The entire season has been something of a frantic egg-and-spoon race," you complain, parroting James Christopher in the Times. "Frankly, I can't wait till it's over."

A bore, then, but your friends surely want to hear all about it, and you are charitable enough to pretend you were at the Baftas on Sunday night. No film swept the board, you say, but The Return of the King fared best, taking five awards. "Blighty bling for King," you say, was the headline in Daily Variety. The third part of The Lord of the Rings trilogy "which has taken £250m at the box office, is buoyed up for the Oscars in a fortnight", you point out (Daily Telegraph).

The Baftas have changed since they were slotted in ahead of the US bash, you add. "The prestige has increased significantly" (Independent). But as your audience nod their heads enthusiastically, you adopt a pained expression and shake yours. "By assuming this position in the crowded awards calendar, and copying the details of the Oscar ceremony," you say, stuffing Stan Hey's Independent commentary into your tuxedo, "the Bafta awards risk being seen as a colony of the Oscars."

You enjoin your friends to observe the paucity of British nominees. "It may be an accurate reflection of how our film industry has been increas ingly cannibalised by the Americans in a quest to please their markets and their film financiers," you lament, stealing further from Hey. And the clincher: "The first 'a' in Bafta seems to represent America rather than Academy."

Fearing that such intellectual rumination might go over some heads, you segue to frocks, and set about passing off others' verdicts on the red-carpet couture as your own. Emma Thompson effected "diva dressing at its best" and "looked a million dollars" (Independent) in a gown by Maria Grachvogel, "whose creations have transformed the actress from dowdy school-marm to glamorous goddess in recent weeks" (Daily Mail).

But shining even brighter was Scarlett Johansson. She was named best actress for her performance in Lost in Translation, but "had already proved a winner when she arrived in a stunning backless dress" (Daily Mirror). She was "the hit of the night" (Sun), "stunning in Prada dress and Steinmetz diamonds" (Daily Mail).

The 19-year-old's award, meanwhile, was "a poke in the eye of the American Academy, who astonishingly failed to nominate her at all," you say, without crediting the Times's Christopher. But the Oscars, you yawn, is the last thing you want to think about. "One could be forgiven," you sigh, echoing Susannah Frankel in the Independent, "for thinking that life was just one long red carpet."