Animal Pharm's Inaugural Industry Excellence Awards: let's call it a B plus...

The thing about awards ceremonies is that they're a bit like childbirth (I admit I don't speak from personal experience on both counts here).

Months and months of work, stress and discomfort followed by a burst of pain, intense effort and misery. And then, by some mysterious alchemy, the big event itself wipes the worst of the whole preamble from your memory and you find yourself thinking that it was all well worth it and you're looking forward to doing it all again next year.

The British Olympic rower Sir Steve Redgrave said, as he stepped from the boat after crossing the line for his fourth Olympic gold, "Anyone who sees me go anywhere near a boat again has my permission to shoot me."

That's more or less how I felt yesterday.

But not today.

I was taken aback, touched, surprised and delighted by the amount of positive feedback and support and all-around happiness being expressed by people around me both during the ceremony and after the formalitites at the first Animal Pharm Industry Excellence Awards last night.

Hand on heart, I can't say it went perfectly. It didn't. But it went well. The delight of the winners was a delight to behold.

(And if you want to know who they were, you'll have to check the Breaking News Blog to find out!)

http://animalpharmbreakingnews.blogspot.com

I thanked everybody I could think of last night; but if you're reading this and you were among the contributors in any way, thank you again.

You did us proud. I hope we did the same for you.



(Steve Redgrave went on to compete in the following Olympics; he earned a gold medal there too.)

Marvellous...

Four days to go and I'm coming down with a heavy cold.

I'm drugged up to the eyebrows with Nurofen cold + flu but, nevertheless, it now seems inevitable that the posh frock will be accessorised with a glowing red nose. Very fetching!

But less worrying than the prospect of losing my voice. (Although some might feel differently about that of course!)

A second fresh topic of worry has arisen; there are people out there telling their colleagues that they're attending the event, but they haven't actually RSVP'd to us.

How many of them are lurking out there? We identified one, but what if there are more?

Should we have a spare table set up and waiting or should we send them away into the darkness unfed?

Well obviously I'm not going to allow the latter. But for heaven's sake, if you're planning to be there please tell us!