Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Mel

www.paulcoia.com


I had a dream last night about Mel Gibson.

Now this wouldn’t normally be noteworthy as we would be just racing round the streets with our feet up on the Chevvy dashboard, sorting out the baddies and admiring each other’s haircuts. As heroes we would tend not to notice the impossibility of the car accelerating round corners while both of us had our feet up on the front window.

I’ve met Gibson before and he seems a good bloke in a not very tall guy kind of way, but in my dream he was standing on stage in a tuxedo and towering over me. He was announcing on TV “And the Award for the best Award awarded at an Awards show goes to………..”.

I woke up in a sweat, relieved to find, firstly that I hadn’t shrunk, and secondly that the awards season seems to be over for another year. With the Empire Film Awards last week following the Oscars, The Grammys, Baftas ,The Brits, Golden Globes, Emmys and all the others, the beginning of the year seems like one prize giving day after another. I’m the only person I know who hasn’t won anything, although I still have hopes for the Scots Italian Paul of the Year Awards.

I thought The Brits were the most entertaining of the ceremonies, hosted by Sharon and her litter of Osbornes in such a hopeless, bad audition, style way that it was addictive. Ozzie, who is the Prince of Darkness and the King of Confusion, was given just six words to say all night - “Ladies and Gentlemen, Sir Paul McCartney” – and he even got that wrong, saying them at the wrong moment and getting stopped half way through. Now that takes some doing.

But at least the speeches didn’t go on too long. Gwyneth Paltrow started it at the Oscars a few years ago by thanking everyone in the Chinese Yellow Pages – or are they known as White Pages over there? – and then bursting in to tears. Now, to quote the spam emails I get, length wins every time. Last month, when I hosted a ceremony for those working behind the scenes in cinema, one acceptance speech went on so long I thought I would miss the plane – for my summer holidays next August.

Awards ceremonies, of course, should recognise achievement, but looking at the Royal Television Society Awards and The Radio Industry Awards of this week I noticed newscasters John Suchet and Fiona Bruce receiving trophies for reading the news on TV. Now I’m sure they’re both top people who buy The Big Issue, chant for peace and spend weekends giving swimming lessons to endangered polar bears, but come on! An award for reading out loud? My ten year old daughter just gets a gold star.

I think my favourite award ceremony of the past few weeks has to be the Photo Marketing Association of America who held their function in Florida to celebrate all that’s good about American photography and, after careful consideration, gave one of their top prizes to a Photo Kiosk!!! Yep, the winner was an inanimate booth made of steel and plywood that sits in a shopping mall. As I wasn’t invited along I don’t know if the booth got up on stage and thanked the carpenter who made her what she is today, but I hope she found space to complain about the number of people who have entered her over the past twelve months.

I must here admit to my shame that I’ve compered my fair share of these awards ceremonies, some good, some laughable, and I think the silliest award ceremony I’ve ever hosted was for The Most Comfortable Shoes of the Year, sponsored I seem to remember by Odour Eaters. To watch winner after winner thank buckle makers, machinists and shoelace manufacturers was sole (cheap gag) destroying.

Later, at the charity auction, I tried to raise money with a pair of boots worn by England’s centre forward who had played badly in that week’s international soccer game. I opened with “as worn by Gary Lineker, so almost unused.” It was met with stony silence.

And that’s the problem at these ceremonies as humour tends to be in short supply, especially after a few drinks. Those who win get drunk and those who are unsuccessful fix a grin, seethe underneath and then go home and stick photos of the winners on their kids’ dolls and push pins in.

But who needs a trophy anyway? When you’ve been given your award there’s always the problem of what to do with it. If you modestly put it in your toilet out of the way, visitors think you’re deliberately playing it down in a show off way. And if you put it away in a drawer then what’s the point of having it?

So, when I get awards, I proudly show them off in my display cabinet at home for all to see. If you want to come round to look at my First Communion medal, my Scouts Skills badge or my Highly Recommended pennant from the Glasgow Under Tens Elocution Festival, you are more than welcome.

Just don’t tell Mel about the Scouts badge. Heroes don’t do cookery.