What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 21 Jan 13

Welcome to another week!

Awards are and have always been our mainstay and whilst activity on the Midlands Media Awards, Fresh and another couple of exciting new programmes (which we are keeping under wraps for now) are all progressing nicely, we thought it timely to focus on some of the great opportunities for eager awards entrants in 2013!

It doesn’t seem to matter which industry you are working in these days, there is bound to be a programme that recognises and rewards your sector and it doesn’t matter if Car Parks or Catering is your thing, there will still be an awards event that is either up your street or your cup of tea……

So why should you bother?

Winning a business or industry award provides independent recognition of your expertise and success. And if promoted well, it allows you to stand out from your competitors. Reasons why organisations should enter awards include the opportunity to raise the profile of the company, demonstrate you are well-run and successful, attract media coverage, increase the company's appeal to potential investors and be seen as a good employer, which can help attract top flight staff. Winning is also a fantastic morale booster for everyone and sometimes provides a valuable prize.

It might be that the prize is simply a trophy, but what that can represent can make all the difference in attracting new business.

So, you have completed a great project, written a first class article, provided unprecedented service or designed a ground breaking logo – which is the awards programme for you?

One of the most comprehensive sources of information about awards events, which includes links, deadline and event dates is the Boost Awards site. You can search by sector, discipline and even for regional, national and international awards and by registering, you can get an alert when the deadline is looming.

Whilst we love awards (it’s our business afterall) we don’t necessarily advocate any of the following even though some of them are clearly very popular and well supported!

The Golden Collar Awards: As far as weird awards ceremonies go, it seems that every dog has their day. In the case of The Golden Collar Awards, the most prestigious pups tinsel town has to offer are celebrated in an awards ceremony with (just slightly) less tension than the Oscars. This year, Uggie, the adored (and now acclaimed!) Jack Russel terrier The Artist was named this year’s top dog.

Bad Sex in Fiction Award: Founded in 1993 by literary critic Rhonda Koenig, and the editor of Literary Review magazine, Auberon Waugh, the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award singles out an author who writes about lovemaking so awkwardly (and unconvincingly) that readers may be convinced the person on the other side of the pen has sexual experience akin to likening breasts to sand bags!  While the awards aim “to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it” some of the nominations exist in a realm far more cringe-worthy than a Judd Apatow movie. 

 Merlin Awards:  Now that we’re on the esoteric side of things, it may be a good time to give a shout out to the Merlin awards, a ceremony instituted by the International Magicians Society that is to magic what the Grammy’s are to music.
As long as you meet the reasonable criteria of talent, showmanship, originality, skills, and an ability to entertain under any conditions, then the next Merlin award winner could be you! 

The Psychic of the Year Awards: If you have been blessed with clairvoyant powers that transcend the banally bleak existences of us Muggles, you may be in the race to win a spot on the acclaimed Psychic Hall of Fame. In celebrating the 29th anniversary (there is definitely a numerological significance to that number) of the Australian Psychics Association, the country’s best psychics have been announced and awarded.
If that’s not enough to get your telepathic juices flowing, a new magazine called the 2012 Australian Psychics Directory has just been placed in news agencies around the country, where you can find a comprehensive list of reliable readers – tarot readers, that is.  

 Darwin Award:  Survival of the fittest is a wonderful thing really, particularly when it comes to the Darwin awards, a posthumous honour-giving tribute.

The ceremony “commemorates individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives... winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chances of long-term survival.”
Previous winners include a would-be robber who, when his gun failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up, peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again, only to shoot himself; a teenager who tried to muffle explosives – with his crotch; and an extremely bright individual who wanted to make fireworks display for New Years, so he opened a hand grenade with a chainsaw. 

  Ig Nobel Awards:  The irreverent Ig Nobel awards parody the Nobel Prize, where improbable scientific research and unlikely (and, at times, trivial) studies are awarded. Winners of previous awards include a team of medical researchers who found that decision making is impacted by the need to urinate, and an inventor who designed an alarm clock that runs away and hides when it goes off. Peace prizes have been awarded to a man who determined that illegally parked cars can be solved by flattening them with an armoured tank, while another team of modern-day Mother Theresa’s pioneered research into the activity of locusts' brain cells while watching Star Wars film clips.

The Stella Awards:  If you too have noticed people filing outrageous and frivolous lawsuits far too frequently (#firstworldproblems) then The Stella Awards may be of interest to you. Named after Stella Liebeck who, in 1992, spilt hot (McDonald’s) coffee over herself and was subsequently awarded $2.9 million in damages, The Stella Awards have maintained a commitment to giving these ludicrous lawsuits the attention they deserve.  
Other noteworthy cases include a woman who was awarded just under $800,000 after she broke her ankle over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store, and a man who was granted almost $15,000 after being bitten on the backside by his neighbour’s dog. Injuries are seriously the best things that have ever happened in these people’s lives. 
Most Phallic Building Award: This one is pretty self-explanatory, so we’ll just leave you with a selection of pictures via the link to ponder on...
The Foot In Mouth Award: Awarded by the British Plain English Campaign, The Foot In Mouth Award is celebrates the most “baffling comment by a public figure”. For more explanation, see below quotes by previous winners:
“I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe and somebody said I was a snake, I'd think ‘No, actually I am a giraffe.'” – Richard Gere
“I love England, especially the food. There's nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta.” – Naomi Campbell
“I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe – I believe what I believe is right.” – George W. Bush

Ernie Awards:  On a less tongue-in-cheek note, The Ernie Awards bring to light the most misogynistic comments made in Australia. Named after former Australian Workers Union secretary, Ernie Ecob, who was famously quoted saying, “Women aren’t welcome in the shearing sheds. They’re only after the sex”, the awards name and shame the say-ers of that year’s most sexist comments. 
Here are some gems:
1995: Justice John Gallop, Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court: (upon imposing a bond upon a man convicted of raping a 12-year old girl), “Our jails would be full if we locked up everyone who did this.”
1999: "Magistrate #1" (in a case reviewed by the Judicial Commission): “Women cause a lot of problems by nagging, bitching and emotionally hurting men. Men cannot bitch back for hormonal reasons, and often have no resource but violence.”
2002: Archbishop George Pell, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney: “Abortion is a worse moral scandal than priests sexually abusing young people.”
Yeah, an Ernie is probably a trophy you don’t want in your pool room. 

And of course we are currently in “Hollywood Awards Season” with The Golden Globes which were held on 13 January which delivered a few surprises.

The winning films set the tone and Les Misérables was named best comedy-or-musical whilst Argo shot down Lincoln to take the best film drama award.  The Oscar race was blown wide open by some of the winning decisions at The Golden Globes.

By rights this should have been Lincoln's night. Steven Spielberg's meticulous tribute to the civil war president strolled in as the lofty frontrunner, having led the nominees at the Globes, Baftas and Oscars alike. So it was startling to note that it was promptly sent packing with just one prize to its name (a best actor gong for Daniel Day-Lewis), whereas Django Unchained – an altogether brasher, bloodier approach to the subject of American slavery – came away with two.

Many will feel that the real "best drama" at this year's Globes came courtesy of Jodie Foster's extraordinary speech on receiving a lifetime achievement award. Judged in terms of emotional voltage and sheer nail-biting fascination, Foster's monologue (not so much a public declaration that she is gay as a celebration of privacy in general) risked casting Argo's high-wire antics as so much excitable tomfoolery.

In conclusion, then, we're none the wiser. At various stages of this most confounding of awards seasons, the favourite's baton has been passed from Argo to Zero Dark Thirty to Les Mis to Lincoln and now back to Argo again. The Globes have spun and brought us all full circle.

We suspect now that the Baftas may plump for the musical while the Oscars will go for Lincoln. But who knows? The experts are in uproar and the consensus is a joke. The real best drama may be yet to unfold.

One thing is for sure, we will be glued to our screens on Sunday 10^th February for The BAFTA’s and again on Sunday 24^th February for The Oscars.

Of course, you could actually win a couple of tickets to TheOscars. Not to sit next to Brad or Angelina we suspect, but you could win a Red Carpet Experience with 2 tickets for the bleachers.

The winners also get Airfare for two to Los Angeles, 2 nights hotel accommodation and a Gift bag with Oscars merchandise and 2013 Program. It’s free and you have until 12:00 PM (noon) PT on Friday, February 1, 2013 to enter

So that’s it for this week, we’ve lots to tell you about upcoming events but for now, we’ll wish you all a great week!

Enjoy!