[Press Announcement by Harrison George on Being Awarded Numerous Prizes]

In response to the signal honour of being awarded the Wurlitzer Prize for Promising Journalism (Retirement Age Category), I wish to express my humble and sincere thanks to the selection committee. Although, as the award citation notes, I have yet to make any significant positive contribution to journalism, it is a great personal encouragement to me that the committee sees the potential for this in my future career. I solemnly undertake to do all in my power to strive for the achievement in my part-time profession of which the awards committee evidently feels I am capable (lèse majesté and cybercrime laws permitting).

I note that the roll call of previous awardees include such yet-to-be-illustrious names as Frank Lee Clewless, formerly of the Skegness Mablethorpe and Umberworth Tabloid, now believed to be writing copy for time-share scams in Marbella while hiding from the UK libel laws; Asif Faq-Smattard, then of the Waziristan Independent Media Press and currently blogging Pakistani government propaganda from his cell in Peshawar military jail, bravely typing at his computer with his two remaining fingers; and Liza Ndunt-Ruth, who writes glowing reports on good governance and respect for human rights in Gabon for the Omar Bongo University’s ‘La Libération’. I look forward to continuing the tradition of fearless and courageous reporting that all these recipients will doubtless one day produce.

I would like to express my deepest thanks for the steadfast support and encouragement of the editors and colleagues at Prachatai that have enabled me to qualify for this award, especially for their decision, some months ago, to stop asking ‘What on earth is he on about?’

I am further honoured to have received the Authors of Forthcoming Titles award, granted yearly by the Society of Illiterates, Dyslexics and Herniated Librarians to discourage writers who are thinking of writing a book from actually doing so. The Society’s laudable goals include the prevention of massive overproduction in the publishing industry, conservation of forests that would otherwise to be turned into pulp for paper, and the puncturing of already dangerously inflated egos. I was nominated for not completing my Bangkok-based English as a Second Language saga of sex, violence and dangling participles entitled ‘The Penis on the Table’.

In order to increase the effectiveness of the Society’s work, multiple awards are given every year and I am delighted to have been chosen as one of this year’s 554,723 recipients. I look forward to receiving my award in person at the ceremony in Nestor’s Bar, Galway, as long as I can scrape together the air fare and attendance fee.

I must mention here the debt of gratitude I owe to English Premier League broadcasts, the suppliers of Dreamy Down pillows and the inventors of Chuzzle Puzzle Deluxe for keeping me distracted from any literary endeavours.

In a year of outstanding personal achievement, I have also won a Gammy Award for Best Contribution to Back-up Vocals in an Unusual Key for the truncated yelp in F# minor that can be heard at the end of the middle eight in Caveman Ugh and the Four Skin’s cover version of ‘Get Your Tongue Outta My Mouth Cause I’m Kissing You Goodbye’ (thanks to Steve the roadie who dropped an amp on my foot at the crucial moment). I have also won the Grassy Knoll Prize for Most Intriguingly Irrelevant Contribution to a Conspiracy Theory for my observation that ‘Da Vinci Code’ is an anagram code for ‘candid voice’.

STOP PRESS

In response to rumours that I have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010, I hereby unconditionally and irrevocably withdraw my name from consideration for this award. Unlike earlier recipients, such as Henry Kissinger who prosecuted the secret bombing of Cambodia before and after the award and involved the US in extrajudicial killings and kidnappings in Latin America, former terrorists and dictators such as Yasser Arafat, Menachim Begin and Anwar Sadat, and Barack Obama who has, in his short stint as president, expanded the war in Afghanistan, I feel that I am totally bereft of the resources necessary to further world peace in this way and am therefore unworthy of this prestigious award.

About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).