Silver At The Sony Awards
We who work in the radio business often feel like the Cinderella service compared to the attention that's lavished on television. But not last night at the Sony Awards. It's the one night in the year when we all put on our glad rags and head to the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. It's a bit like the Oscars only without the big orchestra and, well, all the film stars. Although Dame Edna Everage put in an appearance to hand over a special award to Terry Wogan. To hoots of laughter she told the audience that, because it was a radio event, she'd put on one of her older dresses and that she could see that many of the ladies in the room had also been raiding Oxfam for their own attire.
We picked up a Silver award in the Sports Programme category and there was a heart-stopping moment when I thought I had won the award. It was John Bradford, supremo of the Radio Academy, who came on stage to make the presentation.
"I was warned that the pronunciation of this name might be almost impossible, " he said, "the winner is....Richard Park!"
Well, I spent the next hour listening to people - many of them complete strangers - telling me what a cruel and cheap joke that was and, as the drink began to flow, someone suggested we get some baseball bats and ambush Bradford when he went to the loo. Thankfully we didn't do that.
At least, I don't think we did.
But it's funny how people think it's acceptable to poke fun at Polish names in a way they would never do with Asian names.
Anyway we danced the night away and went back to our hotel and made friends with some lovely people from Real Radio. They had come away from the awards ceremony empty-handed and, in fact, Radio Clyde was the only other Scottish station to win anything.
Does it matter? Not really.
At least we all got to go to the ball.
