American audiences must already be bored by all the British award acceptance speeches

Be warned award ceremony audiences - us Brits are masters of the "humblebrag" and awards season provides ample opportunity for us to shine

Singer Adele poses in the press room with her best original song in a motion picture award for 'Skyfall' at the Golden Globes awards ceremony in Beverly Hills on January 13, 2013. (Getty Images)

With five shrieked iterations of “Oh my God” from Adele, and a speech from Jodie Foster so layered with meaning, and so open to interpretation, that it might one day be studied at A-level, the awards season that climaxes with the Oscars is under way.

The Golden Globes is the equivalent of football’s Capital One Cup – it’s a trophy, all right, but it’s not the big one that everyone remembers.

Nevertheless, it does give some indication of who will be doing a lap of honour come the end of the season. This being the case, it may be a difficult time for Americans. They have already had to withstand a Brit telling them what to do with their gun laws, and now, they may have to sit there in their tuxedos, smile indulgently – those whose features still move, that is – and listen to a succession of acceptance speeches delivered in British accents.

On Sunday night, there were leading-actor awards for the Lewis twins – Damian and Daniel Day- – plus a gong for Dame Maggie Smith, three prizes for the British-made Les Misérables, a best-song award for Adele, and even a characteristically on-the-edge cameo by Sacha Baron Cohen, who, just to make the point, presented an award in an over-the-top upper-class British accent.

What an audience of Hollywood’s finest made of Adele is anyone’s guess. On one level, her authentic, girl-of-the-people persona, and her speech full of glottal stops and unaffected observation – “I’ve literally just come for a night out with my friend Ida… we’re new mums…we’ve been p***ing ourselves laughing all night” – is a charming antidote to Hollywood artifice. On the other hand, it may have been a classic example of “humblebragging”, my favourite term of the moment, and defined as “subtly letting others know how fantastic your life is, while undercutting it with some self-effacing humour”.

It is a common phenomenon on Twitter – arch exponents are Stephen Fry and Alan Davies – and, with her speech, Adele may well have boarded that same train. Or maybe I’m just being mean. Either way, she was easier to listen to – and understand – than Jodie Foster, who, in receiving a lifetime-achievement award, chose the moment to give her equivalent of a State of the Union address.

I couldn’t make head or tail of it. Was she coming out publicly as a lesbian? Was she retiring as a lesbian? Was she quitting movies? Had she had a sherbet or two? She made a serious point about how the modern world disrespects privacy – “people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was” – but, in the world beyond, her words may have had a hollow ring. Of course, privacy is a basic human right, and human rights are indivisible, equally applicable to movie stars and road sweepers, but it was difficult to embrace the idea that we should feel sorry for a room full of gorgeous multimillionaires who had just spent all evening congratulating themselves. Next up, the Baftas. Can’t wait…