Prize wallies

In one überblog, Dave rounds up all the unsavoury shenanigans from this year's Channel Awards

For the umpteenth year in a row, Dodgi failed to bother the shortlist-makers for this year's channel awards (although I heard our Gord was a whisker away from being up for the ‘Most Fanciable Male' gong), but I had a smashing time as the conversation and the vino flowed readily.

Although, for one distribution marketing bod, the booze appeared to have been flowing all-too freely long before proceedings got underway, seemingly since about 9am. The previous day.

A veritable gaggle of staff from another distie gathered outside and could be heard collectively guffawing at a series of jokes that could generously be described as a bit un-PC. Loud, bawdy, brazen and tanked-up? No, sir, that's not the channel I know and love.

Distribute this, darlin'
I was disappointed to see various staff from one well-known distie make repeated attempts to take the award for the night's most charmless nerk.

The night was relatively young when I saw one recognisable face trying to push itself into one of my female employees. Most unpleasant, given the 10-year age gap - not to mention the 12-inch height difference (did someone say ‘short-man syndrome'?)

En route to the after-party a group of loathsome, sniggering halfwits from the firm propositioned another of my staff in the most vulgar fashion. Impressive stuff, given their limitation to using words of one syllable or less. And it only took five of them to find the courage to talk to a real woman. Admirable.

And, as I was shepherding my flock into a cab at the end of the evening, another charming young man in the employ of this distie tried to jump the queue. After his ploy proved unsuccessful, he launched into a four-letter rant, accusing me of throwing a diva strop and attempting to abuse my position - as managing director of Dagenham's fourth-largest reseller.

For a worrying moment, it looked like Gord was going to kick off, big style. It's a good job we were behind a locked door, driving off at high speed, when he decided to give the chap what for.

Worse for wear
While many of us were nursing a sore head, it seems staff at one reseller were in a worse state than most the next day.

One guy from the firm is now sporting a broken arm after taking a tumble at the nightclub.

And this is while one of his co-workers was coming off second best in an altercation with a bus. Thankfully, I'm assured he's on the road to recovery.

And here I was feeling sorry for myself after sustaining a sprained knee. Apparently, my body has undergone significant changes in the two-and-a-half decades since I last indulged in a spot of body popping.

Right time, wrong place
Finally, it's mad props to Jon Atherton of Enta, who heroically ignored specific instructions given two minutes beforehand and took to the stage to collect his firm's commended certificate, just as the award's winner was being announced. (In case you missed the first three announcements, it's in the post, Jon.)

And who was the mystery man who collected the Specialist Distributor gong? The cheeky chap had already beamed for an official snap and was blubbing to CRN TV about how much it meant to win when the bemused VADition boys turned up to collect their rightful prize.

And it was nice to see Servium boss Paul Barlow begin his stint as Channel Personality of the Year in understated fashion. So much so he didn't show up to pick up the award for five minutes, owing to a poorly timed toilet break.

Really, Paul, at your age, I shouldn't have to remind you to go before you go.