Of course, it was a Norwegian panel that gave him the prize, providing Chinese officials and their supporters with ample ammunition to denounce the move as another attempt by the West to impose its values on China.
Mouse Morris would dearly love to run War Of Attrition in Friday's wide open Gold Cup but there is a developing view in Ireland that Beef Or Salmon, so often a disappointment at Cheltenham but reportedly in the form of his life, can finally lift the prize, providing the ground is not too quick.
Some long-grained basmati rice — with the highly crunchy exterior that Iranians prize — provided the base.
Each prize provides $12,000 a year for the next four years to a college-bound high school senior in New York City.
The Nobel prize provides a boost to those efforts, according to César Rodríguez Garavito, director of Dejusticia, a Colombian thinktank.
The Commonwealth Writers' prize provides a cautionary tale: in 2011, they made the decision to stop the main prize, and just continue with a first novel prize.
"The Gish Prize provides credibility and recognition for artists who invented a new path for themselves and their work," Ms. Smith said.
"This typically requires that government be involved: to identify the problem; specify it; corral key people; offer the prize; provide funding.
These days, the festival supplies a parade of movie stars, especially French ones, and occasionally the film that wins the Palme d'Or, the top prize, provides some controversy, the case last year with "Fahrenheit 9/11" and its director, Michael Moore.
The $40,000 prize, provided by Citibank, consisted of: a $5,000 scholarship for each team member; $10,000 for their school (to develop an in-school economics lab); and $5,000 for their faculty advisers: Jack Weber, Tom Clifford and Tom Manos.
But talking over tea in a London hotel, she takes a different tack, arguing that the prize has never been more necessary than it is now: "I think the mere existence of the prize provides a thoughtful, intelligently structured place to have the debate about gender and representation," she says.
