It’s my trumpet, and I’m going to blow it…

Ahhhhh, the smell of self-congratulation, the bright lights, cheap wine, over-cooked chicken, dusty dinner suits, flimsy dresses…hmmm…drunken young idiots, lecherous old fools, lost knickers, lost morals, champagne, cocaine, cognac and cigars…it can only mean one thing…it’s nearly time for the 2006 PR Week Awards!

By all accounts the lists have been shortened. How do we know? Well whispers and rumours abound – and, of course, people have started shouting it from the rooftops. First of the press with its “aren’t we great?” piece seemed to be Hotwire PR which, it tells us on its home page, has been shortlisted for “not one but two” (Hotwire’s own bold) awards.

Companies shortlisted in “agency” categories were required to present in front of a judging panel…Hotwire revels in telling us all about the experience:

“Being a creative bunch, when called upon to argue their case to the Specialist Consultancy of the Year judges, the Hotwire team shunned traditional PowerPoint for a more interesting approach. The Hotwire representatives instead donned Hotwire-branded t-shirts and carried a series of presentation cards with core facts that showed why we deserved the award. The whole team of seven enthusiastic, passionate and determined PR practitioners wowed the judges with not just their approach, but the underlying performance of the agency over the past year.”

Surely the judges will be the judge of that? Unless the Hotwire team knows something we don’t? “Carried a series of presentation cards”? Carried a suitcase full of used twenties more like.

Anyway, best of luck to Hotwire and, indeed, anyone else who’s been shortlisted. In fact, if you have we’d like to know about it…and then we’ll run an unofficial viewer-voted virtual awards ceremony of our own.

By the way, The World’s Leading is planning on being at the PR Week Awards. If anyone fancies hosting TWL, do let us know…failing that, just at the bottom of the left-hand staircase of the Great Room in Grosvenor House there’s a fire exit. If someone would be kind enough to pop the door at about 9.00pm, we’ll be outside if our gladrags ready to party.