The sophomore year of the Irish Blog Awards saw a mixture of old and new keyboard pounders convene at the Alexander Hotel at the weekend. But the same old Chinese whispers could be heard like an echo from 2006. "Who is Twenty Major?", "Does he really work for the Dept. of Agriculture?", Was Tim, the emissary last year, the man behind the much-discussed corner of the Idirlíon etc?

Before long, I saw a man enter room and his eyes instantly gave the game away. Scanning the room, Twenty Major looked like a kid in a sweet shop. Okay, bad analogy but you get the picture. Ireland's most famous anonymous writer had outed himself. It was Blog Pride.

At the bar, my fourth whiskey was about to plunge from the optic as I chatted with Jett Loe. At this stage, I'd like to apologise for my contribution to his podcast which should go large this Friday. Of the old guard, Sinead, Kevin, Treasa, Copernicus, Gavin, Fustar, Claire, Red Mum, Caitriona and many more were all present.

And the newbies were out in force too. The garrulous music maven Nialler9 introduced himself. I can confirm that he is a very nice chap indeed. And he had groupies! We need groupies next year. Beaut.ie commanded the attention of eyes in the room. Swearing Lady was in from the West, Tommy Martin (a face that contradicted the one I had conjured up in my head) said hello, the lovely Lauranen from Newbrowne spotted my name on my badge and we chatted about her recent move. Bhi Ach go Hairithe agus An Spailpin Fanach ag caint le cheile sa chúine and my drunkenness gathered apace.

Yellow raffle ticket 31 earned me a woman's beauty bag from the ladies at Beaut.ie. Suffice to say, PMc's lady will find more use from it than I ever would. Rumours that I combed some conditioner through a homeless person's hair on the way home later are completely untrue.

An undeniable fact however is that I choked while accepting the award for Best Group Blog. It's very easy to blame the unexpectedness of it all, considering we were up against previous winners TCAL, the hugely popular Blogorrah, and the star-studded Dublin Blog, but my effort on stage proved that I should stick to the written word. That needs to improve too.

What I should have done was elaborate more on my gratitude for each and every post that has been written here by Paul, El Commandant P, PMc, Dae and Francie.

I wish I could recount more of what happened at the tail end of the night but I can't. Put simply, I was trolleyed. Like so many others, I wish I had the opportunity to meet more people on the night. It's truly fascinating to put faces to names. Next year.

tags:irishblogawards

Published by Colm.