Irish Blog Awards, oh what a night..

Kaz at the awards
Originally uploaded by Joe Drumgoole.

My fingernails were chewed to the quick, I was lightly sweating, slightly manic and looking feverishly from one group to the next. No, not a Mountjoy escapee on the run, simply an Irish blogger looking for the pre-Irish Blog Awards bash in the Cellar Bar.

"Do you think that’s them," I mouthed at my friend as we were tottering oh-so-casually around the room, gesturing not-so-subtly at a group of well-heeled individuals at the bar.

"I ‘unno ‘aybe ‘sk," she suggested through the rictus grin she had plastered on her face just in case it was them. But then thanks to Red Mum who arrived in the nick of time, we eventually hit the jackpot.

The walk over to the much larger than expected crowd of bloggers in the corner, one positively dashing in a tuxedo, was nerve wracking, but after the initial ice was broken, it just got better and better.

It turned out the tux guy was from Letters to America, the young pretty woman was Sinead Gleeson, the woman in the pink top (and later double award winner) was Annette from Thinking Out Loud, the guy I’d pegged as JL actually was him and the guy in the glasses was Colm Bracken from In Fact Ah.

Ah yes Colm. Who took one look at me and said "you’re Kaz right, I recognised you from your photo". Delighted I was...until I remembered that I’d absolutely trollied on the make-up, spent hours and a fortune on curling my hair and had squeezed myself (literally, Mammy Dunne was on hand with the cooking oil) into a black dress for the occasion, so he SHOULDN’T have recognised me.

Ah well, I tried.

After scaring the Letters from America guys with my slightly nervous insisting that if they won an award they had to do the "funky chicken dance" (no, I’m not sure what it is either, but I did a kinda half-hearted example which was when people started backing away) it was off with us to the Alexander Hotel.

Well actually, we were almost in the Davenport thanks to our so-blonde-he-was-almost-white haired escort (who’s name I can’t for the life of me remember, sorry) but then we sorted it out and hurried into the right place.

We needn’t have worried about being late however, as the show didn’t get underway on time, but this was actually a good thing as you got to mingle and speak to people – such as Suzy from Maman Poulet, photographer Joe, one half of Slugger O’Toole and his lovely girlfriend/wife, Claire from Ginger Pixel and her lovely husband – as well as having a steadying drink (or two.)

The awards themselves were a resounding success and all kudos must go to Damien for organising them and for Rick O’Shea for hosting with such aplomb as well as the sponsors and the hotel (did anyone else think the bar guy was cute?!).

All credit to Thinking Out Loud for winning Best Personal Blog but I have to say with absolutely no bias and not because Red Mum is one of my best friends or because I babysat the Young Wan when she was an even Younger Wan or anything, but Red Mum woz robbed. Look out next year Annette!

I didn’t win anything in the raffle. There will be an independent inquiry, but that’s all I can say on the matter right now.

Of course the biggest question of the evening was whether Twenty Major would show up in all his glory, smoking and effing all over the place but alas it was not to be, as only his "representative on Earth" put in an appearance. Or did he?

Hmm, despite his protestations that he really wasn’t there, I have my doubts. Only time will tell though I guess and I look forward to awards night 2007 with bated breath, where I’m sure he’ll sweep the boards again. The c*nt.

After the awards, which despite the late start, ended unfeasibly early, things did peter out a little quickly but this is only to be expected when a group of virtual strangers get together; next year I hear there may be music, which will help keep the party going a little longer.

I’m already looking forward to next year and have threatened, er secured, nominations from various friends so that I’ll at least I stand a chance to get to the long list in 2007.

I also didn’t get to talk to a quarter of the people who were there on Saturday and I’ll bet I’m leaving out a heap of people that I did talk to, so apologies for that and hopefully I’ll be less hesitant and have a better memory in the future.

All in all, a great night, with my only gripe being that after spending all that effort tarting myself up like a dogs dinner, it turned out that another blogger showed up with the same hairstyle as me, namely, this guy....

...who I believe is from Disillusioned Lefty (or perhaps The Community At Large...eeek, I can’t remember!). I think next year I’ll have to try a Dolly Parton wig or something.


(NOTE: You will have noticed that I haven’t linked or done the whole HTML thing with any of the people I’ve mentioned above. JL Pagano very kindly emailed me a while ago telling me how to do it, but I’m a complete technophobe and when I read his mail there was a shrieking in my head so I gave up. So sorry about that, you’ll just have to Google them or come back here in a while where I’ll have added them to my links sidebar. Thanks.)

Pic 1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joedrumgoole/111073543/
Pic 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rymus/111514788/