The joy of being a talent judge. An unbiased one of course.

This first appeared in the Bath Chronicle on Thursday, June 9.

Talent. It's such a small word but it is one as we have seen both locally and nationally recently which is incredibly subjective.

There is no scientific method of defining if one person is more talented than another and that is why anything that constitutes a talent show brings with it potential controversy and debate aplenty. That should be all part of the fun of course - although not everyone sees it that way as I will explain .. .

I have been lucky enough to have helped judge two talent competitions in recent weeks - Komedia's Bath's Top Talent contest and last Thursday's Song For Bath finale and both interestingly were in the same week as the Britain's Got Talent finale which itself filled acres of newsprint.

What united the verdict in all three competitions is that not everyone agreed with the end result. And that is fine. How boring would it be if we had?

Take the wonderful Song For Bath contest for instance.

I was one of a panel of judges that helped select the superb winner, The Golden City by Charlie Groves. It was one of ten songs in the final, all of which I think could easily have won. But after a totally fair and independent judging process we emerged with a victor and felt confident we had hit on a real, deserving winner.

However, by Monday morning our website featured a handful of critical comments from people querying the result.

The word "fix" was used because a couple of the judges had connections with the winner. The fact that between the judging panel we probably had connections with most of the losers as well seems to have been overlooked. Someone knew someone who had won - so it must be a fix surely?

Well, no.

The winner won because he had written the best song. And as such I think it is a shame that people who didn't agree with the verdict just could not accept that not everyone can have the same opinion.

As I've mentioned before in this column, due to the nature of my job as editor I have judged many kinds of events and contests and you may be surprised at how often genuinely arrived-at decisions are later queried or moaned about .

I can fully understand the disappointment of people that don't win who think they should - our newspaper has been up for some awards we didn't win and I have probably mumbled a few criticisms myself - but I always think that if you are happy enough to accept the plaudits of victory, you should be prepared to deal with the probably more frequent examples of defeat too. It's called life.

So I want to end this on a more positive note because the two local talent competitions I've helped judged recently have both been of a fantastic standard and they have proved that yes, Bath has got talent in all shapes and sizes. I've seen choirs, jugglers, comedians, rock acts and singers of all ages and it has been enormous fun to watch.

And, having sat through several tortuous hours of the Britain's Got Talent programme last week, I think we have got more genuine talent here than virtually anywhere else.

Or, perhaps, I am just biased?

Judging talent contests and the odd buzz from being booed

At about nine o’ clock on Thursday night there is a very good chance I might be getting booed.

This is because I will, once again, be one of the three judges at the latest round of Komedia’s Bath’s Top Talent competition which may have some teeny, weeny, relation to a certain TV contest which kicked off in dramatic style on Saturday evening.

The Bath’s Top Talent event is a fun and revealing contest which showcases the wide variety of musical and non musical talent in and around the city.

Along with Chronicle reporter Felicity Crump and the editor of Venue Magazine Joe Spurgeon, I helped to judge the previous round which saw me face-to-face with two very memorable drag dancers, a Frank Sinatra sound-a-like and several other very enjoyable acts. We were not judging in the way that the X Factor/Britain’s Got Talent judges do as the vote very much belongs to the audience but we were there to make comments and it was amazing (and a little bit frightening) how attentive people were to our words of apparent wisdom.

By and large we were able to say nice things about most people and received a smattering of polite applause on occasions. However, as we all know now from so many TV competitions about singing, dancing and entertainment, it is when you make slightly critical comments that people really start to vent their opinion.

And it is especially notable that if the booze is flowing, the boos will too.

The weird thing is – and maybe this is where Simon Cowell started to make his millions – that when you do get a boo it is actually quite an interesting (and not altogether unpleasant) feeling. I felt my fellow judge Miss Crump, for example, seemed to enjoy being booed rather too much but I can see where it can get almost addictive. After all, it is often said that it is better to be booed and vilified than ignored and some talent competition judges clearly adhere to this principle.

As such, these competitions have become the new pantomimes – and the big bad wolf villains are the likes of Simon Cowell, Craig Revel Horwood and Jason Gardiner.

I can’t help feeling it is all a far cry from the first talent competition I remember watching on TV – Opportunity Knocks. Fronted by a man who, in hindsight, was more than a little bit strange (Hughie Green), this was a show that was light years away from texts and internet voting and where careers could rise or fall on how loud the audience clapped, thanks to that highly-unscientific “clapometer”.

The change started to occur when the ultra-cuddly Derek That’s My Dog Hobson (above) fronted New Faces and we had our first experience of judges saying negative things about artists. I seem to recall there was a national outcry at times about things Tony Hatch said but as we kept tuning in just to be offended the seed of a great idea was planted. X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing et al were later to watch that seed (the “controversial judges wind up audience for sport” seed), blossom into the most watched shows on TV.

So I really want to like everyone I see on Thursday night but if I don’t, please don’t boo me. Boo Fliss instead because she really likes it. Honest.