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AND SO to the last lap. Three months on from when we first started here, we
are but days away from the Q Awards. As I may have mentioned a time or two
before, now more than ever is the period where anything can, and wearily
often does, go wrong. But let us not linger on such things. Rather, let me
take you through how the day itself, 8 October, is likely to unfold from
inside the event.

For me, Q Awards day will actually start, confusingly enough, on 7 October,
when I’ll travel down to London for the night (oh woe is me, with only a
night in a posh hotel to soften the blow). The next morning there’ll be at
least one radio breakfast show interview to conduct, and since I commute, no
one (least of all me) is prepared to rely upon the British rail network’s
random time keeping to have me where I will need to be at the appointed
hour.

I say this based on the unhappy example of last year, wherein I rose an hour
before I’d gone to bed in order to get into London. The net result being I
was so tired and delusional I may have inadvertently given away a couple of
Q Awards secrets hours before they were due to be revealed. That’s my excuse
anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

So, I’ll be trundling into at least one radio station to wax lyrical – and
give absolutely nothing away – on the morning of 8 October. By then, several
members of the grandly titled Q Awards Organising Committee (for those
uninitiated in these things, this is a committee that organises the Q
Awards) will arrive at our venue for the day, London’s Grosvenor Hotel, to
ensure that all the fixtures and fittings are in their allotted place. And to
look worried and drink lots of coffee, since last year this was the point we
discovered that key guests The Killers were marooned in Las Vegas due to a
faltering plane and wouldn’t be coming.

Fresh from titillating the listening millions (ahem), I will arrive at the
Grosvenor at 9-ish to… well, ponce about and look like I know what I’m
doing. Which is a ruse I’ve managed to pull off for the last four years, so
there’s clearly no sense in changing a winning formula. This, and the
endless fretting about who’s coming and who might not (cunning readers will
have detected a recurring theme here), takes up at least another hour, by
which time our Awards host has usually arrived for the dress rehearsal.

For the last three years, our host has been Jonathan Ross (who knows,
history may repeat itself). Hence, his arrival is done with a flourish and
an attendant flood of libellous, but hugely entertaining celebrity gossip.
Ross is a force a nature, but a massively entertaining one. We like him.
It’s also educational watching him during the aforesaid dress rehearsal.
Whereas my introductory speech isn’t going to get any more scintillating no
matter how many times it’s done, Ross’ act only really comes to life during
the show itself, and jokes which seem to flat during the read through
somehow hit every one of their targets when it really matters. This may
explain the comparison between his Q Awards appearance fee and my own
(healthy/nothing covers it).

The run through done, there is just about time for me to do two things: 1/
Change into my Awards Suit, a garment never seen outside of this particular
day and the dread business of weddings and funerals, and thus as ill-fitting
as gloves on a snake; and 2/ Watch everyone else (ie those with clearly
defined roles on the day) running around and attending to business. They do
it so very well. Especially Deputy Editor Gareth Grundy, the man in charge
of running all Q magazine business on the day, and who mutates into one part
air traffic controller to one part military dictator for the duration. It’s
an impressive transformation, if one that fades out less and less with each
passing year.

Favourite hang out spot for those with little to do besides ponce about (ie
me) is the Q photo shoot room. Here, our photographer and crack art team are
preparing for an utterly breathless, and wholly stressful hour, during which
every award winner, presenter and notable guest will troop into their
domain, and they will have five minutes to make pictorial magic whilst being
shouted and/or moaned at by all and indeed sundry. They do so love it.

Alas, we had planned to stick a webcam in here during the ceremony this year so
you could watch, should you wish, their ordeal in real time online, only for
the unforeseen presence of large chandelier to snooker that particular plan.
Ever resourceful, we’re now attempting to screw said webcam to an inanimate
object above the red carpet entrance to the awards, which will be nice and
give a view less populated by harassed looking folk from Q.

And then, always before you expect it, there’s the summons to go and meet
the great and good as they arrive. There’s an undoubted frisson of
excitement and anticipation at this point, and also the capacity for
strangeness to intrude at any given moment.

The other year, Rufus Wainwright, a man I’d never previously met, clamped a set of headphones to my ears and attempted to play me his new entire new album seconds before the awards themselves were due to start. The dictates of time, and logic, meant
I heard but a few bars, before smiling politely and running away like a
scorched ferret, never to speak to him again from that moment on.

All of which leads inexorably to the moment a loud voice fills the room…
“Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats, the Q Awards are about to
begin…” From here… Well, join us at this very meeting place on 8 October,
and you’ll be able to follow and watch the action as it unfolds, live via
the Q Awards blog. How very modern. And, whilst we’re doing the public
service announcements, the results of the endeavour in the photo room (and a
rather fine Best Of 2007 CD) can be obtained on 1 November, when Q’s Awards
special issue goes on sale.

For now, though, thank you one and all (or perhaps, more accurately, just
thank you one) for joining me for the last three months. See you on the
other side...

Paul Rees – Editor, Q

11:32 AM | 03/10/2007