The UQ Law Awards are a hallowed event in Australia’s society calendar, celebrating the greatest achievements in art, culture, and indeed, law. With the big players of the TC Beirne School of Law donning their tuxedos and evening gowns, the red carpet is littered with nervous grins and uncertain energy.
Who would take out Best Actor? Would it be Jason Chin, who reportedly spent years in Canada to hone his craft in readiness for the role of ‘creepy tutor’?
Would it be Rick Bigwood, who had to adapt his native Jamaican accent to a New Zealand one when asked to play ‘Bald Kiwi,’ in ‘Contracts 2,’ the less well-received sequel to ‘Contracts 1’?
Or would it be Andreas Schloenhardt, who will be leaving the faculty at the end of the year to play Moby in a film about Natalie Portman.
But as the night grew on, and the tension grew even more palpable, one winner soon became immediately obvious.
It looked like the ‘Best Original Score’ category would barely be competitive, as an incredible score of two bags of coke for the night was immediately reaping dividends. It wasn’t immediately clear who had scored the bags, but suspicions fell upon a few very talkative first-year lecturers.
Best Original Score has historically been awarded to scores that get your heart rate rising, make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, and dilate your pupils. With this framework in mind, it seems the illicit cocaine scored from a dealer in West End who you have to stay and chat to, is an absolute shoo-in.
As if an evening of law awards and serious academic discussion could be made more interesting, the presence of the two small black ziploc bags really amped things up, and became the obvious leader for the prestigious ‘Best Original Score.’
Few could begrudge it when the award was announced, and as the triumphant award music played, a presently-unknown lecturer charged on stage with reckless abandon to begin a thank-you speech that was described as ‘surprisingly tender,’ ‘compassionate,’ and ‘can we get in on this?’
The other nominees for Best Original Score smiled on the outside, but clearly they felt pretty defeated. Russell Hinchy had gone to all the effort to score two lukewarm Furphys for the night, only to find out it was an open bar! And poor Mark Burdon went to all the effort to score a better job at QUT, and still didn’t win Best Original Score!
More to come from our boots-on-the-ground reporters at the UQ Law Awards. If it happens, you’ll hear it first from us.