Another award

From where I work on the kitchen table I can see at least fifty windows. When it gets dark, the lights go on and off like some kind of curious arcade game, or a message from an alien life form. There's a blue room with an ornate fire place. An orange room with a fancy standard lamp with fringing all over it. Occasionally I catch a glimpse of one of my neighbours peering out, or a cat sitting happily on a window ledge. There's a little Christmas tree in one of the windows at the moment, with dark red lights. It's rather magical. 

This evening we went to the British Museum, where, I'm proud to say, we won the Rose D'or award for Best TV arts programme. It was a genuinely lovely surprise. We made fairly political acceptance speeches. I told the audience to remember that bigotry was bigotry whether or not it was being justified by religion and that the people in the room from countries where gay marriage was not legal needed to return home and lobby! 

The ceremony was presented by the lovely Paddy O'Connell with whom we had a lovely chat about Eurovision afterwards. As part of his presentation he'd managed to track down some seriously amusing clips from highly camp 1960s European TV shows. The awards themselves are run by the EBU and whenever a judge from another country got up to announce a result, they were serenaded by an obscure Eurovision song from their nation. My brothers would have been in heaven!  

I also finally got to meet Stephen Fry, who, of course narrated our film, but also became the first recipient of a Rose D'or life time achievement award. I'm rather proud to say that he congratulated us on our speeches;  "Thank you for the comments you made. Both of you. It's important that those things get said." I could have melted there and then! 

precious! 

We also got a chance to meet Rob Delaney, who wrote and performs in the incredible Channel 4 sit-com, Catastrophe, which also won an award. He's a massive fan of musical theatre (he tells us) and was actually a musical theatre major at university. You learn something new every day! 

Rob Delaney

Mary Berry was there, although Bake Off was beaten in its category by one of the few mainland European winners of the night. It really was an award show which was all about the Brits, a fact which became a little embarrassing as the evening wore on, particularly in the radio awards which almost exclusively went to the BBC, including a gong for a show about the brilliant John Grant, which featured Fiona's string arrangements. The clip they chose from the wedding was Nathan's vows (which also include Fiona's arrangements) so I think she can legitimately claim to have won two Rose D'ors tonight. 

Everyone was super-friendly to us, and I don't think that's just because we won. I think the Europeans are simply a friendlier bunch. End of... 

Anyway. I should probably Foxtrot Oscar. I've been drinking a ginger and lime drink all evening, which I was assured was non alcoholic, but it's made me a little light-headed and I have a busy day tomorrow. 

Nathan and Ben