And the winner isn't ...
This must stand as one of the most embarrassing moments in the history of awards ceremonies -- anywhere. Last night, the Welsh Culture Minister, Rhodri Glyn Thomas, somehow managed to announce the wrong winner of the Wales Book of the Year award before correctly naming Dannie Abse's The Presence as the actual winner. The novelist Tom Bullough, initially named as the winner for his book The Claude Glass, suffered an unimaginably excruciating experience which he has described in his blog as "a glimpse of hell". Not that he has anything to feel embarrassed about: by all accounts he has written a superb novel. In fact, I am going out tomorrow to buy a copy of The Claude Glass.
Watch, if you dare, the entire sorry episode here and (from a different angle) here. The Welsh culture minister, in a painful effort to maintain the dignity of the moment, looks like he's reading one of Steve Coogan's scripts for "I'm Alan Partridge". It's all too awful.
Comment number 1.
At 23:39 2nd Jul 2008, petermorrow wrote:Cringe making indeed.
And what would Motson have said about that?
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Comment number 2.
At 23:42 2nd Jul 2008, U11831742 wrote:Just watched it. Horrible. Horrible. That poor guy - walking all the way to the stage. No one should be treated that way. Who was responsible for this blunder?
I am also going to buy Tom Bullough's book ... he deserves the support after this.
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Comment number 3.
At 14:33 3rd Jul 2008, John Wright wrote:All absolutely hilarious - the clip is priceless and my only regret is not being able to see the face of Bullough as he was told he wasn't the winner - I played this on the air this morning and had some fun with it.
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Comment number 4.
At 14:34 3rd Jul 2008, John Wright wrote:Actually I just watched the second clip and it does show his reaction. How embarrassing.
(He'll get over it.)
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Comment number 5.
At 20:18 3rd Jul 2008, Dylan_Dog wrote:Ouch!
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