To vanquish the US president in a competition to find the greatest violator of the English language is a considerable achievement (or, as some might put it, a calamitous misfortune).
Steve McClaren, the recently sacked England football manager, snatched the trophy from the ever open jaws of George W. Bush to win this year's "Foot in Mouth" award for gobbledegook from the Plain English Campaign.
In the great tradition of football managers, he mangled the language with this prize-winning gem when speaking about his star striker Wayne Rooney: "He is inexperienced but he's experienced in terms of what he's been through." As Mr McClaren sadly contemplates how to spend his redundancy payment of £2 million, he can take some comfort from knowing he beat the most powerful player on earth.
George W. limped into second place with this answer at a news conference: "All I can tell you is that when the Governor calls, I answer his phone." Runners-up in the gobbledegook stakes receive Golden Bull Awards. Among those humiliated this year are Northern Ireland Railways for a sign at Coleraine railway station: "Every autumn a combination of leaves on the line, atmospheric conditions and prevailing damp conditions lead to a low adhesion between the rail head and the wheel which causes services to be delayed or even cancelled. NI Railways are committed to minimising service delays, where we can, by implementing a comprehensive low adhesion action programme."
Another transport company, Virgin Trains, is on the list for confusing its passengers with a letter about online booking: "Moving forwards, we as Virgin Trains are looking to take ownership of the flow in question to apply our pricing structure, thus resulting in this journey search appearing in the new category matrix format. The pricing of this particular flow is an issue going back to 1996 and it is not something that we can change until 2008 at the earliest. I hope this makes the situation clear."
At least the British Airport Authority's award-winner was less wordy. Its sign at Gatwick Airport read: "Passenger shoe repatriation area only." More verbose was another transport company, Fastway Couriers, with this befuddled legalese: "This Carrier shall not be liable for injury or damage to or destruction or loss of the Goods or any other property arising out of the incidental to or in connection with or occurring during the provision of the Services or for the mis-delivery or no delivery of the Goods and whether or not caused or contributed to by the default (including negligence) of the Carrier or any agent, servant or officer of the Carrier or any other person entitled to the benefit of these conditions."
Local bureaucracy, as always, features on the list. Warwickshire Children, Young People and Families Division had this incomprehensible minute of a meeting: "The APA will assess all partnership arrangements affecting children, young people and families. In the past the APA was not as important as the JAR but this will be reversed. The JAR is no longer being scored; the scores for the CPA will be the APA score so the score we are given as a result of the APA this year will count to the JAR next year so we need to ensure the best possible APA. This year's APA will focus on our CYPP. . ."
There is an indigestible titbit from Nestlé. "Green sauces," it says, "are an important product group for Buitoni Pesto Basilico. Their quality and flavour profile are enhanced by the basil used in production. However, Buitoni faced sensory profile reproducibility problems due to heterogeneous raw material, challenging the production of uniform quality."
And, of course, no Golden Bull list would be complete without an appearance from the media. This press release from UKTV about a new series is guaranteed to encourage viewers to reach for the remote control: "With a brief to establish Dave as the home of witty banter and as a refuge from the everyday, the award-winning Red Bee's innovative and original creative juxtaposes traditional weekend retreat imagery with contemporary talent from the channel's key content in a humorous and irreverent way to represent the channel's key brand values."
The Plain English Campaign, a British-based self-funding group dedicated to persuading government and other organisations to communicate with the public in plain language, also makes positive awards.
Top of the worthy winners this year is the Liverpool Housing Trust for its Pictorial Tenancy Agreement. The Sun gets the award for best national newspaper. The BBC took most of the broadcasting awards with Panorama being named as the best national television programme and the Midday News on Radio 5 taking the radio prize.
Irish nominations were few this year. We did have a winner last year when the Crafts Council of Ireland got a Golden Bull for this mystifying piece: "The re-writing of the vocabulary of intemporal Irish heritage is a possible vector for submissions on the condition that this transposition is resolutely anchored in the 21st century through a contemporary lens that absolutely avoids drifting into the vernacular."
Brian Cowen's budget speech came too late for nomination this year but some of its tautological passages were hammered by our native plain language watchdog, John Murray, is his weekly programme The Business on RTÉ Radio 1. The master's voice is echoed by one of Mr Cowen's press officers in a letter to this paper, published on Thursday. How's this for clarity of meaning?
"The Government's approach to payments strategy is based on the needs of society as a whole and the common good and not that of any one sector of the economy. This was stated publicly by the Tánaiste last month in speaking to the banking industry when he said that a pre-requisite of the design of a successful payment strategy is one that meets the financial needs of all in society and in particular that the principle of financial inclusion must be the lynchpin of future payments strategy."