Awards

When the email, came inviting me to the Yell Award ceremony I've got to say I was pretty shocked. The thought of being some Tom Hanks-figure, complete with awful acceptance speech and help from god, was...well, far fetched. Or "off the radar" as I said to the press people - they liked that. Of course there was always the Gwyneth Paltrow option to consider...should I look as though as though nothing so terrible had happened in the history of the world...ever.
As I arrived at Yell Central (half an hour late) women with mobile phones were going "Phil Barnett has arrived; Phil Barnett HAS arrived." It seemed I'd held up proceedings as they couldn't start without me. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise for holding up proceedings like that.
I got the award for Best Personal Site. They'd given the game away there so I'd been expecting it. So far so good. I'd got away without having to say anything.
The final award, and one which theoretically I was up for, was Site of the Year. The idea that I might get this was so ludicrous that I'd only given it a moment's thought. That single momentary thought was as follows: " I wonder if the winner of that has to say something."

I was in mid-applaud as the Site of the Year category was announced. Then I heard the words "Birds in a Cheshire Garden". My jaw dropped in the approved fashion. I stopped mid-clap in an embarrassingly mincing gesture of not-wanting-to-applaud-myself. This was captured on film and will be shown to generations of students as a textbook case.
I went on stage and said to Jonathan Ross (that's my mate Jonathan Ross by the way) that I thought someone had made a mistake. He announced to the throng, "he's just said, he thinks that someone has made a mistake." Which as you'll have noticed is proficient use of reported speech. He asked me if I wanted to say a few words to my astonishment, I said yes. The keywords were "thank you"; "stunned"; "support" and "thank you." If only I'd said "off the radar"!