BAFTA WEAK

awards are for losers

So its the annual luvvie-fest at 195 Piccadilly. Sadly, Sunday's event (which put the "F" in BAFTA) is one of several in their calendar, but the only one anyone in the real world really cares about. Some time later this year, the same venue will be the location of TV's very own backslapping festival, the TV BAFTAs. For the sole reason that the BAFTA TV awards are given to TV people, the same TV people make sure they broadcast them ("hi mum!"), but nobody really watches and there isn't a red carpet worth reporting on: Claudia Winkleman giving it some "and Alan Yentob's in Dolce and Gabbana tonight" isn't really going to cut the mustard, because frankly, if nobody cares what comes out of his mouth , they aren't going to give a toss what he's wearing. But its also because TV BAFTAs are for TV people, that I have actually held one of the aforementioned trophies in my sticky little mitts. In fact, I held two at the same time. They were for the BBC's The Human Body** but the winner in question was rather non-plussed at my parading round the office playing with his gongs (as it were). And that's about as close as I ever got to having my own. Once upon a zillion years ago I went to the Broadcast awards, but only because the exec was ill and had fallen out with the series producer who wasn’t speaking to the director, who was being sued by the editor for unfair dismissal. The AP had already shagged and been dumped by the notoriously randy director, which left only little-old-me not in (or perhaps, still in) the firing line. As the director had nominated himself for the award (modesty not being a virtue that he was endowed with), it was decreed that he should attend but nobody else would. However, the matter of the empty table he would then be sitting at become an even bigger blow to his ego. Obviously he didn’t want to look like Jonny-no-mates, and that, my friends, was the only reason I have ever been invited to attend an award ceremony. Anyway, I'm making a documentary at the moment, and I reckon it could be BAFTA material – at least that’s what I told the Wellcome Trust who funded its development, so it must be true. ophelia.bottom@googlemail.com **Incidentally on the BBC's follow up series to The Human Body, entitled, "Superhuman", I can be seen in the opening titles parading around as a Lilliputian scientist. Can you spot me?