Clarke Awards
May. 3rd, 2007 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizwilliamsI got up to London last night about 5, blessed the food gods for providing a Yo!Sushi! bar at Paddington (blessed the food gods for inventing sushi, in fact. I try and eat something before these functions, otherwise I starve halfway through the evening, and sushi is great - it counts as dinner if nothing else follows, but if one does end up going out for dinner, it's light enough to eat other stuff). Anyway, enough about my food preferences. The Apollo did us proud, once again, although the venue was packed to the gills and ONE HAD TO SHOUT.
Kudos to those who uttered sentences they'd never thought they'd ever say ('So, have you actually been in the Sex Temple?'). Who says LJ has no function?
The ceremony was brief, to the point, and accompanied hy free ice cream (Purbeck ice cream sponsored the event). No bad, really. I'd like to thank Tom Hunter and all the team for a massive amound of hard work - the Clarke Awards always glides on like a swan, with legs paddling frantically underneath. So thanks to the legs! I though it was an interesting short list and I was pleased that Mike Harrison won, for NOVA SWING. He gave a short and modest acceptance speech.
Afterwards, I did in fact go out to dinner, at a Chinese place in Soho, with Chris Priest, Rob Holdstock, his wife Sarah, Brian Turner of the Chronicles website and Ian and Helen Whates - a pleasure to see everyone, and I'm only sorry it was so rushed on my part - I had a train to catch. Thanks to CP, who put me in a taxi, I got safely to Paddington to find that the train had gone.
Bout of cursing ensued. Luckily, Bristol is a major city and has two stations, about 6 miles apart. No train to Parkway, where I'd left the car, but there was a train at 11.30 to Bristol Temple Meads. I reasoned that I could catch this, and then get a taxi to Parkway and collect the car, which is in fact what happened. I got home about 2.30 a.m., having been helpfully but annoyingly flashed (I mean the lights!) by every trucker on the M5: I need to do something about the back brakelight. Off the motorway, saw a barn owl, a fox, a hedgehog and a mother and baby bunny, none of whom I ran over, thankfully.
Got in to find Sid sprawled luxuriously over the entire bed, with T consigned to a narrow strip on the side. Seriously considered sleeping in another room.
Kudos to those who uttered sentences they'd never thought they'd ever say ('So, have you actually been in the Sex Temple?'). Who says LJ has no function?
The ceremony was brief, to the point, and accompanied hy free ice cream (Purbeck ice cream sponsored the event). No bad, really. I'd like to thank Tom Hunter and all the team for a massive amound of hard work - the Clarke Awards always glides on like a swan, with legs paddling frantically underneath. So thanks to the legs! I though it was an interesting short list and I was pleased that Mike Harrison won, for NOVA SWING. He gave a short and modest acceptance speech.
Afterwards, I did in fact go out to dinner, at a Chinese place in Soho, with Chris Priest, Rob Holdstock, his wife Sarah, Brian Turner of the Chronicles website and Ian and Helen Whates - a pleasure to see everyone, and I'm only sorry it was so rushed on my part - I had a train to catch. Thanks to CP, who put me in a taxi, I got safely to Paddington to find that the train had gone.
Bout of cursing ensued. Luckily, Bristol is a major city and has two stations, about 6 miles apart. No train to Parkway, where I'd left the car, but there was a train at 11.30 to Bristol Temple Meads. I reasoned that I could catch this, and then get a taxi to Parkway and collect the car, which is in fact what happened. I got home about 2.30 a.m., having been helpfully but annoyingly flashed (I mean the lights!) by every trucker on the M5: I need to do something about the back brakelight. Off the motorway, saw a barn owl, a fox, a hedgehog and a mother and baby bunny, none of whom I ran over, thankfully.
Got in to find Sid sprawled luxuriously over the entire bed, with T consigned to a narrow strip on the side. Seriously considered sleeping in another room.
