I've had an e-mail today from the Austin Film Festival. It's just a confirmation that they've received my entry for their 2005 screenplay competition. A competition I entered THREE MONTHS AGO. Not that I'm saying they're slow to respond. Well ok, I am. But putting that aside, it also happens to be the coolest confirmation e-mail I've ever received. Having thanked me for being part of the 2005 Austin Film Festival, they say:

"Contests are very subjective. No matter where your entry stands in our competition, I congratulate you for putting forth the time and effort into creating a world of characters and conversations."

Which is nice. I just found it refreshing for a competition to acknowledge the effort involved in actually entering, and openly admit that their judgement isn't necessarily right, rather than pretending that the best entries always win, which is so patently not true.

Apart, of course, from all the competitions I've ever won.

But on the subject of writing contests, the tragic news is that my cough acute tonsilitis has now forced my withdrawal from the Channel 4 New Comedy Writers award. Frankly my keyboard was getting covered in phlegm, and after a couple of days of postponing the inevitable, I've finally called time on my brief foray into sketch-writing.

But in an effort to find something I can win which doesn't actually involve any work, I've turned my attention to music, and entered...


... which shows the value of having numerous little ditties what you wrote, just sitting around on the computer in MP3 format. I knew my cluttered hard drive would come in handy one day.

After much thought, I decided not to enter the hip-hop category, and instead went for the folk section. I've always fancied myself with a beard, going 'hey nonny nonny' in my sandals, so I think I should fit in quite well. And according to the website, the judging panel includes two guys called 'The Bacon Brothers', who I presume are like The Chemical Brothers, only fatter.

So I'm quietly confident. That twenty grand prize is in the bag...