Mazeltov to Dannie Abse for winning the £10,000 English-language Welsh Book of the Year prize for The Presence (Hutchinson), his moving memoir of his wife Joan, who died in a road accident in 2005. This was a greatly deserved, but how sad it was for young novelist Tom Bullough, whose name was originally announced as winner by Welsh culture minister Rodri Glyn Thomas. He realised his mistake just as a smiling Bullough reached the podium — only to be turned back.