WEEK FOUR, troops. Hang on in there, things could get messy from hereon in.

What the hell is he waffling on about?, I suspect you, the loyal reader (and hello there, Mum) are thinking round about now. Well, bollocks is the answer. But, should I have opened this week’s edge-of-the-seat installment with… say, Ho hum, not a lot’s happened in the last seven days, you’d not be here now, would you?

And, lo, much has happened. Compared to last week. Then, if you recall, we were merely patting ourselves on the back at the fact that four major artists and one national treasure were signed up to wing their way to the Q Awards come 8 October, whilst cursing the fact that our best intentions to cut a swathe through the number of merit awards this year appeared to be going up a certain creek minus anything resembling a paddle.

Now? Now we’re getting ready to sell tickets for the Q Awards Launch Night at Indigo Rooms, a spiffing new venue located in the heart of O2’s, er, O2 entertainment complex in London. Tickets for said event go on sale from 1 August and the show itself will take place on 12 September. It will feature a number of bands and artists playing exclusively for Q and some very special guests among them. We'll be posting the full line-up, plus details of how to get tickets, on the site next week.

And – be still my beating heart – we will unveil the nominations for the Q Awards 2007 for the very first time during this star-studded extravaganza. Almost certainly in some eye-poppingly exciting fashion. Can you afford not to be there? No. Especially since you really can afford to be there, as you’ll see when ticket details are announced right here in a mere two days’ time.

Using this as a segue, I could relate to you here the saga – and it is a chilling one at that – of how the Q Awards Launch Night came together. But I won’t. Indeed, I can’t. Even thinking about several days on still makes my head hurt and my eyes water. Better to move on with all due haste…

To lunches, in fact. Yes, round about now I charge myself with the arduous task of trooping off to a procession of lunches with a motley crew of high-powered record company folk. The purpose of which is not to consume fine food and wine, perish the thought, but to slip in the following phrase during the meal: “You might care to insert Q Awards, 8 October into – name of band/artist on high-powered record company person’s label – diary; they’re starting to poll a large number of votes.”

On occasion, I have inadvertently launched into this brief spiel before we have actually announced that anyone can vote. But even then, the high powered record company person will not refer to me as a “lying toad” and suggest I take my diary entry and insert it where the sun doesn’t shine. This is not the way it works. They will simply nod profoundly in a way that conveys their absolute power to do such a thing. And then, a couple of months later, claim to have no recollection of having done so.

So, an utterly pointless exercise in many respects. But the food, and the wine, is good, the company often convivial, and we all like to pretend come 8 October that these lunches were hugely significant in the grand scheme of Awards things. Or at least I do. They are sitting in the Ballroom at London’s Grosvenor House thinking, “Now where do I know that harrassed looking blonde bloke from.”

Such liasons can also ensure that I am out of the office whenever someone shouts, “So-and-so is on the phone wondering if you can get him/her an Awards ticket this year. He/she says that he/she knows you.” This will start to happen any time soon; the glut of calls/emails/carrier pigeons from folk who’d love to come to the ceremony, and whom I ran into once at the bus stop.

It’s a terrible old cliché, but tickets for the Q Awards genuinely are like gold dust, principally because there are not enough to go around. Once we have allocated them to the winners, nominees and their fleets of ‘people’, and to our sponsors (who, I should note here, are wholly lovely and charming), there ain’t many left to go around. Hence, if your granny did once teach me Needlework, I’m sorry to say it still won’t cut any ice.

Get yourself nominated for Breakthrough Artist, well then, that’s another matter. The category is a new one this year, recognising the ever growing amount of new music rising to prominence, and the speed with which it does so. And it should not be confused with the Best New Act category, which is so clearly entirely different as to not even require a comment.

Although, perhaps confusingly, many of the same names may be in contention for both awards: Mika, Kate Nash, etc, etc. The likes of Newton Faulkner may also have risen to prominence by the time the voting closes. And you, wise old you, may even decide that Amy Winehouse has only truly broken through in the last year and nominate her by the drove. How thrillingly unpredictable it all is.

And we still have to wait more than two months before we can put such things to bed. However will we manage?

Same time, same place, next week, eh, Mum?

Paul Rees – Editor