Imagine that you’re trapped in a room. You’re sitting in an uncomfortable chair surrounded by vain egomaniacs. Your face hurts from fake-smiling and your arms hurt from clapping people you’ve never met. Congratulations, it’s your university graduation!

Not really, you’re at the Emmy awards, the longest awards ceremony in all the world, and you’re clapping someone who’s won an award for Outstanding Single-Camera Sound Mixing For A Miniseries Or A Movie.

This year’s Emmy nominations have been announced – 434 of them, for 88 mindnumbing categories. We’d list them all for you, but we just don’t hate you that much, so here’s a condensed version…

It’s been a good year for the British at the Emmys. Kenneth Branagh (DVDs) is up for
‘Best Actor (Miniseries Or Movie)’ for something called Warm Springs,
which sounds a lot like the feeling you get when the boy next to you in
the swimming pool wets himself.

In the ‘Best Actor (Drama Series)’ category, Ian ‘Don’t call me
Lovejoy’ McShane (DVDs) is nominated for being a sweary cowboy in Deadwood,
and Hugh ‘Don’t call me Steven Fry’ Laurie (DVDs) is nominated for being a
hateful doctor in House.

Ali G goes head-to-head with David Letterman for one award, and The Office Christmas Special is up for two others.

Desperate Housewives has also received a lot of nominations,
probably for ‘Best Series That Heat Magazine Keeps Telling Us We Love’
and ‘Best Shampoo Commercial’ categories.

Everybody Loves Raymond also picked up nominations for ‘Least Funny
8.30am Channel Four Imported Sitcom’ and ‘Most Annoying Serious Bits In
A Sitcom’.

Lost also gained a handful of nominations. Lost should win
everything, even in the categories it isn’t included in. You’ll see
what the fuss is about when it starts over here next month.

And terrifyingly, the TV coverage of the Oscars is up for some
awards, too. We’re predicting that when a clip of people fake-smiling
and clapping at the Oscars is clapped by fake-smiling people at the
Emmys, gravity will stop working and we’ll all float off into space.

Better hold onto something sturdy on September 18th just in case.

[story by Stuart Heritage]