Woke up this morning, got myself a gun. . .

First day back from hibernation, and already we've got two Flackenhacks 2009 award entries in the bag.

The first comes from Jeff Jarvis at the Personal Democracy Forum in (where else?) New York City.

"We must give the government permission to fail," says Jarvis.

Oh right. I thought we'd been doing that for years. As in (say) New Labour's inability to deliver its promises on child poverty.

The second. . . (and I don't know what category this qualifies for) is inevitably Pirate Bay.

Having fought the law like pirates for however many years, Messrs Piratical have now sold out to The Man. This morning. For around $7.7m.

Way to go. No interim mention of putting the site up for sale, no preparatory indications that the financial stress was taking a toll. No: just sell it.

Dewy-eyed peer-to-peer idealists around the world are currently wreaking their revenge. This includes a DDoS attack on the site itself. Nice.

By how much will Global Gaming Factory X AB reduce its bid for The Pirate Bay to compensate for collateral brand damage by the time the deal closes a month hence?

Your guess is as good as ours. Meanwhile, the notion that direct contact between organisations and their users/customers can replace the dark art of spin. . . well, it just took a blow.

What the Pirates needed above all, it turns out, was a decent PR agency. Global Gaming Factory could do with one, too. . .

Lost at The Flackenhacks: One mobile (Nokia/Bite)

Lost at The Flackenhacks (or possibly in a cab afterwards)...

One  Nokia handset: "Black, very new and the screensaver is of the top of the Alps. Some of the names you’ll find in it are Bethan Onions or Greg Callus."

Owner = Tony Lederer of Bite. It would be grand if we could reunite him with his handset...

 

Oh yeah, the winners. . .

1) PR Agency of the Year

Rainier PR

2) Tech hack of the year (freelance)

Jessica Twentyman

3) Tech hack of the year (staff)

Charles Arthur & Michael Cross -- The Guardian
(For their excellent Free Our Data campaign.)

4) Biggest fuck up

Microsoft: The $300m Gates-Seinfeld campaign

5) Rudest hack (Voted for on the night)

Gary Flood

6) Media budget cutter

The shortlist included Sly Bailey (Trinity Mirror), Graham Harman (Incisive Media), Geoff Wilmot (Centaur), Jerry Yang (Yahoo). And the winner was. . . all of 'em.

7) Up its own arse

Google's Zeitgeist conference (feat. Rania Al Abdullah, Queen of Jordan)

9) Wank 2.0: User-generated twat

Richard Bailey, PR Studies ("Created Aug 03")

10) Loyalty to dead media formats

The Financial Times

11) Rebrand of the year (Not)

Enfatico (Probably not a pizza restaurant in East Sheen)

Puzzled hack will say sorry: if necessary

'Twas put to the popular vote on the night. Borrowing from the finest traditions of Zimbabwean democracy, MC Paul Wooding asked for a vote from the floor.

Who was the rudest hack? Charles Arthur, Gary Flood or Giles Coren?

It was Gary. By a nose, we think.

Now here's the thing. At 22.06 last night, Mr Flood rapped out an email to his mailing list as follows. (He must have started writing a few minutes after the award was announced).

Er, apparently I beat Charles Arthur to win 'rudest technology journalist of the year' at the above tonight.

I am a bit confused. I was last a bit 'rude' - aguably, I thought I was doing my job and defending the interests of the readers/users - let's see, when I was the News Editor of Computing - that was in 1999-2000.

I have been freelance since the start of 2001, seven years, and to the best of my knowledge have been nice as pie ever since.

If I'm not then, Jeez, I'm in a bit of trouble on the old self-awareness thing.\

Can anyone - genuine plea - tell me/give me an example of IN 2008 how I have been 'rude,' I'd like to know and if necessary apologise.

But then, as Charles Arthur said on Twitter, pointing out why he wasn't at the 'ceremony,' it's half term and he has better things to think about...

'Puzzled Hack'

Here at The Flackenhacks, we're mindful of the need to promote peace, love and understanding on our fragile planet.

Boys and girls, you know where to send those emails. . .

Award time: The two Steves (of Rainier) & Dan Ilett

Rainier won agency of the year at The Flackenhacks last night. Here's Steve Earl adopting the position alongside Wadds and award presenter (and fabricator) Dan Ilett.

Knackered, but...

. . . you'll find some pictures here on Flickr. (Taken with our special camera that records the date as 15th October, accentuates yellow teeth and makes Mike Butcher look like Shakin' Stevens. Please, feel free to borrow it. Soon.)

Ice creams? Allegedly, you lot ate 120 odd cones. That's what Onur, the nice bloke in the ice cream van, told us. Can't quite believe it, but he had no incentive to lie and used to run a nightclub in Thamesmead. So there you go...

Booze? Mmm. Was it impending recession, or did y'all drink less this year? Last year, believe it or not, you consumed 1.5 bottles of wine each. By the looks of it, less this year.

Sound: there's an inquisition in motion. But we reckon apologies are in order to you the audience (and compere Paul Wooding) for the PA during the first onstage bit.

We think it got better during the awards. But by how much? It was hard to say from our perch on the far left of the venue. Let us know how it was. We'll carry your verdict back to our suppliers...

Oh, and the pies. Where were they? Answer: because of cost pressures, we had to nix them in favour of paella. Good choice? Bad choice? Tell us.

Anyway...........we hope you enjoyed it. As for us, well, The Flackenhacks is signing off after a 22-hour day. AKA seriously bushed.

Tomorrow, we'll put up a post thanking those who need to be thanked (and there are quite a few of you). For now, though, cheerio peeps. And thanks for coming.

Last minute things (including a 3-ton ice cream van)

Righty-ho. We're just getting ready to head off to the venue, where a 3-ton ice cream truck will be arriving at 3pm. Yeah, we're hoping it'll make it down the ramps on to the floor... Fingers crossed...

What's been happening?

• Steve Earl from Rainier PR has just booked a ticket. He's asking that we keep all the horrid PR people away from this year's event. Sorry, mate, it's a bit late for that. 250 of them have their compasses fixed on Shoreditch tonight...
  
  
• eBay bidding

-- Martin Veitch: £200

-- Phil Muncaster: £86.00

-- Gordon Kelly: £86.00 (ongoing)

-- Eric Doyle: £50.00

-- David Meyer: £36.00

-- Mark Dye: £36.00

-- Bryan Glick: £30.99

-- Mark Samuels: £26.00
-- Rob Kerr: £26.00

-- Jeremy Kirk: £26.00

-- Mike Dempsey: £19.99

-- Rupert Goodwins: £19.99

-- Andy McCue: £19.99

-- Tim Phillips: £19.99 (ongoing)

• Dress code

-- We keep getting people asking us this. There isn't a dress code. Come as you are. . .

• Ticket sales

-- They stop at 1pm today. No ticket sales on the door (really -- it will just hold everything up...). If your name ain't on the guest list by 1pm, Brendan Cooper of Fleishman-Hillard will deny you entry.

• Er, that's about it. See you lot at 7.30.  We're off to buy in some more wine. Just in case. . .