Watching them watching them

It's Bafta season, apparently. That fact seemed to sneak up on me - I hadn't realised the awards were tonight until I flipped the television over and saw the programme beginning. It's not something I usually pay attention to, but it gave me something to concentrate on whilst my hands were otherwise engaged with my balls (for contact juggling, obviously. Sigh.). Not too many upsets along the way, but the biggest surprise was the sublime "Curse of the Were-rabbit" taking home best British picture. It's a rare honour when animated films win out against what are generally considered, as Nick Park himself wryly noted, "proper" films. Perhaps the most moving part of the awards came when Peter Sallis took to the stage alongside Nick Park and other members of the Wallace and Grommit production team. He shuffled up to the microphone, a cane bearing his weight, and began to give his thank you's. Though his voice was unmistakably that of Wallace, his halting delivery seemed a million miles removed from the sprightly energy in the voice of his animated counterpart. A far, far frailer figure than I'd expected to see, he looked all of his eighty-five years. I watched the remainder of the awards under a bit of a pall afterwards.