Live from the red carpet in Norway!
The buzz in Bergen is building ahead of tonight's 'Excellence in Aquaculture Awards 2013' - with Marine Harvest Canada strongly tipped to scoop the "Excellence in Disease Transfer" and "Excellence in Losing Money" award.
Marine Harvest Norway is a nailed-on certainty to cry like Gwyneth Paltrow when accepting the "Best Bullshit" award although SalMar and Scottish Sea Farms will give them a run for their money.
Given the salmon farming industry's endemic problem with infectious diseases it is entirely appropriate - if not perversely ironic - that Professor Are Nylund from the University of Bergen (a world expert on infectious salmon anaemia and other diseases of farmed salmon) is presenting.
Professor Nylund is speaking about Amoebic Gill Disease - a "Hot Topic" in the salmon farming industry (read a report on Gill Diseases online here).
Read the programme in full online here
As an antidote to the PR bullshit on show in Bergen tonight (7 March), the 'Excrement in Aquaculture Awards 2013' are taking place outside the same venue. The nominees are already stacked up like diseased farmed salmon on the red carpet!
Marine Harvest's owner John Fredriksen - nicknamed 'Storeulv' (Big Wolf) in Norway - is the big favourite to go home back to his $11.5 billion tax haven in Cyprus stuffed to the sea-lice infested gills with awards.
His 'Super-Size Salmon' - a sequel to Morgan Spurlock's 'Super-Size Me' - is fancied in the "Excellence in the All You Can Eat Junk Food" category.
Another sequel - 'Salmon Farming in Norway' - will provide stiff competition as the film hopes to rival its Oscar-nominated predecessor 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen'.
Marine Harvest will not have a salmonopoly on all the awards - Grieg and their fake 'Skuna Bay craft-raised salmon' will take all the beating in the "Excellence in Bad Taste & Shameful Marketing" award.
Another Norwegian-owned company, Cermaq, will be tough to beat in the "When In A Hole Keep Digging" award for piss-poor PR.
In the foreign awards, the Irish and Canadian Governments are strongly represented in the "Best Supporting Agency" and "Best Government-sponsored Bullshit" categories. The Irish Government agency BIM is a hotter favourite than Shergar was for the 1981 Epsom Derby.
Speaking of horsemeat and horseshit, the frozen food giant Findus is rumoured to be supplying the food for tonight's 'Excellence in Aquaculture Awards'. Findus is sponsoring the North Atlantic Seafood Forum also taking place in Bergen and could be looking to rollout their new line in chicken and pig fed farmed salmon.
Read more via "Norway’s Salmon Confidential - Media Blackout & Film Premiere in Bergen!"
Back to the 'Excrement in Aquaculture Awards' and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Cooke Aquaculture will surely be rewarded for their tireless work in promoting disease-ridden and chemically embalmed farmed salmon. If Glen Cooke, CEO of Cooke Aquaculture, is convicted of illegal chemical use and the killing of hundreds of lobsters he could be staring at his "Excellence in Excrement" award from his prison cell for many years to come.
And the sequel to the 2009 movie 'The Slammin' Salmon' is a shoe-in for "Best Picture". 'The Scammin' Salmon' features the King of Norway, John Fredriksen, Norway's Minister of Trade & Industry, Norway's Minister of Fisheries and the Norwegian Prime Minister.
All the winners will be announced tonight (7 March) in Bergen during the 'Excellence in Aquaculture Awards'. With all the disease-ridden farmed salmon on show, please make sure you bring your sick bag and sick bucket!
For more details read "The Scamons & Sockeyes - Aquaculture Academy Awards 2013" and "The Sockeyes - Oscar Loves Wild Salmon!"
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