[cma-l] Sony Radio Academy Awards 2011

[Ed Baxter]

Dear Joanne,
I somehow missed last year's debate, evidently.
I do not think there is very much expertise involved in entering; and
indeed I have heard some of the Big Guns' entries and not been
especially impressed. Insider knowledge is another matter and it is
hard not to view the nominations in the light of the kind of closed
shop or cosy club that characterises so many industry jamborees. The
politics of the Awards is always curious to observe, if not exactly
edifying. The occasional bone is thrown from the high table, for
certain. But I am not sure what it has to do with radio as I
understand the meaning of the word. Good grief, how utterly tedious
and arse-numbingly dull it all is! I nearly wept with boredom as I
scanned this year's nominations. Only a dentist would find anything to
celebrate on the awards' website.

I sat through the ceremony last year in a stone-cold sober stupor of
glassy-eyed indifference, baffled by the in-jokes, depressed by Chris
Evans's hyper-kinetic banter, and ruminating on the fact that while I
had stood outside the hotel Evan Davies had portentously cycled past
on his way home, smirking, evidently too savvy to turn up for the
"Today" programmes's award. Of course the closed shop, if that is what
is it, is that of Luvviedom: this is a showbiz event for showbiz
people. Hoi polloi should understand that and the clue lies in the two
hundred pounds it costs to get into the ceremony, let alone the amount
it costs to enter the competition. I tried of course to down two
hundred quids worth of booze during the ceremony, but it was
physically impossible given the quality of the wine. And I searched
the toilets in vain for signs of discarded cocaine, again to no
effect. Hard times!
But I did at least have a decent chat with a Mongolian waiter whose
lack of knowledge in the feted broadcasters was eclipsed only by my
own lack of engagement. The highlight for me was the award given to
Bono for his radio-art portrait of Elvis Presley, which met with near
universal indifference and even hostility on the part of some of the
guests. As usual, I found myself in a minority of one in thinking it
was actually deserved and that millionaire rock stars should try their
hand at something new. It was surely well-made and heartfelt, which
alone distinguished it. Hilariously, the broadcasters and their teams
evidently mostly believed that they were somehow cooler and hipper
than the terminally uncool and unhip Bono. Nothing could have been
further from the truth. The same people will be cheering on Ronnie
Wood this year, sure as night follows day.
Jarvis Cocker was greeted as if the Queen Mother had risen from the
dead and one longed for a doppelganger to get on stage to bear his bum
at the new, my-people-deserve-me Jarvis. David Attenborough was
applauded as though he could turn water into wine - or even transform
the Chateau Enver Hoxha with which the tables were set into something
drinkable. And Jenny Murray did what I insensibly mistook to be a Lady
Macbeth routine, which set a thunderous tone of moral outrage that
subsequent winners each tried feebly to emulate. But knowing
self-congratulation was the overwhelming order of the day and if you
had not actually heard of, worked with, or gone to school with
Chris-this or Zane-that, it was because your natural place in the
world was surely with the waiters and waitresses in the no man's land
of cultural disenfranchisement.
My companion, a fine artist used to the steamy solipsism of such
industrial feeding frenzies, observed that it could just as easily
have been an aluminium sales convention. Oh, how we laughed and
crammed breadsticks into our mouths.
I staggered onto the bendy bus reeling from my failure to beat whoever
it as who had won the award I was up for. Back home, I hit the bottle
of Buckfast I'd been keeping for special celebrations, downing it in
one savage gulp; furiously, I swept the candles from in front of my
little shrine to "Peely" off the kitchen table as the tears streamed
down my now tattered tuxedo; and with a hollow bark of contempt I
hurled my copy of PB Randolph's "Sex Magick" manual into the bin as a
worthless distraction from reality. As I tossed and turned in my
dreams that night, Jarvis, Jenny and the rest rose above me, forming a
minor celebrity caravan of disdainful radiophonic phantoms, their
faces looming in hideous close-up, their voices reworked as  if by
Delia Derbyshire herself into a symphony of sneering superiority.
"Sour grapes! Sour grapes!" they cackled, each poking at me,
carressing me with corpselike fingers. And I awoke in struggles and
cried, " I will sleep no more!"

This year I am mercifully spared all the suffering as none of the five
programmes Resonance entered even made the short list.

Yours
Ed Baxter

PS caveat: none of the opinions and views expressed in this email
represent or are intended to represent the opinions or views of
Resonance FM, but are merely and solely those of the author.