The Turnip Prize is a spoof UK award satirising the Tate Gallery's Turner Prize by rewarding deliberately bad modern art. It was started as a joke in 1999, but gained national media attention and inspired similar prizes. Credit is given for entries containing bad puns as titles, displaying "lack of effort" or "is it shit?" Conversely, entries with "too much effort" or "not shit enough" are immediately disqualified. The first prize is a turnip nailed to a block of wood. The prize giving is currently held at The New Inn in Wedmore, Somerset. History The prize was conceived in 1999 by management and regulars of The George Hotel, Wedmore, Somerset, after the exhibition of Tracey Emin's My Bed was shortlisted for the Turner Prize. It is owned and organised by Trevor Prideaux and was announced thus: "The Turnip Prize is a crap art competition ... You can enter anything you like, but it must be rubbish." The competition is based on the supposition, "We know it's rubbish, but is it art?". Competitors submitted entries of ridiculous objects posing as contemporary art, mostly made from junk titled with spoofs or puns. The prize is a turnip impaled on a rusty six-inch nail. In May 2000, the nominees appeared on the BBC TV Esther show, presented by Esther Rantzen and featured by national and international media. In 2001, the competition was held in the public conveniences in Wedmore. In 2002, the "Monster Raving Loony Party" attempted to hijack the competition at The Trotter, Crickham, Wedmore. In 2003, the prize moved to the New Inn, Wedmore. The winner was James Timms with Take a Leaf out of My Chook, an exhibit of a raw chicken stuffed with leaves. James Timms subsequently appeared on BBC Radio Scotland's Fred MacAulay Show with Ed Byrne. In 2005, Ian Osenthroat, a 69-year-old former photocopier salesman, won with the exhibit Birds Flew, a bird's nest with a flu remedy box. He commented "I have entered this most coveted art award on several occasions and I really feel that the lack of effort this year has really paid off." Winner in 2006 was Ian Lewis with the exhibit Torn Beef, an empty corned beef can. He stated, "The work took no time at all to create." Trevor Prideaux commented, "I believe that over the last seven years the bad artists of Wedmore and surrounding areas have created far better