Tits, Ass and True Class

No matter the award ceremony the Brits give the best acceptance speeches. They tend to be unwritten (though it's unclear if they are unrehearsed or unplanned in some way) and they kick off with a good joke, almost always acknowledge the rest of the nominees and then they wrap with something thoughtful and thought provoking. I just finished watching the good bits of last night's Emmies (hurrah for the DVR!) and I give you my homegrown transcript of Helen Mirren's acceptance speech for her performance in the miniseries Elizabeth I.

My great triumph is not falling ass over tit as I came up those stairs. If you saw the shoes I’ve got on you’d understand.
Um, you’ve seen many of the people up here on this stage already which is so exciting for us who’ve contributed to the piece so I’m not going to thank them personally. HBO obviously incredibly important, Channel 4.
I want to talk about writing because without the writing, you know, we can’t do it and especially us women. And I know that every one of these great performances by these great actresses in this category were revealed to us by some wonderful writing. Now women are 50% of the world’s population maybe more and, um, I know that there are many, many more brilliant performances by women of all ages and all races waiting to be revealed by some great writing so let’s look forward to that.
Thank you very much! Going to take my bloody shoes off now!

Yes, yes indeed most beautiful, talented and hilarious woman of well deserved accolades. That's not only the sort of performance I'm waiting to give (I really need to start performing more often) but the kind of writing I'm trying to do. Thank you for the focus, the direction and the inspiration.