It is a proud day. The Institute has been awarded the inaugural Ponceby Prize for Excellence in Cultural Significance, a prestigious honour established earlier today and bestowed, after a rigorous and tearful judging process, upon the Institute.
On the Prize
The Ponceby Prize recognises institutions that have made an outstanding contribution to taking unserious things seriously. The judging panel (Nigel, a kettle, and the framed sunset photograph) deliberated for nearly four minutes before reaching a unanimous decision.
The trophy is a small object Nigel found in a drawer. We have engraved it. We are not entirely sure what it was originally, but it now means everything.
The Acceptance Speech
Nigel's acceptance speech ran to forty minutes and thanked, among others, "the committee, the kettle, the concept of beige, and the haters, who do not exist but whose imagined disapproval has fuelled me daily."
He was visibly moved. He moved himself. He had written the speech the night before, weeping at his own anticipated triumph.
Looking Ahead
Buoyed by this recognition, the Institute has already established three further awards, all of which we expect to win. A press release detailing our dominance of the awards we run will follow, written by us, about us, for us.
We thank the academy. We are the academy. There has never been a clearer case of merit.
The Committee, laureates of our own design