AT A distance of a fortnight from The Q Awards themselves, you can, all but briefly, allow yourself a moment to sit back and take stock of how the event is shaping up. And, by doing so, ensure a cold dread begins gnawing away at your insides pretty much instantly.

Because the only things you really see, or focus upon, are all those that could go wrong. Or those for which it is still impossible to have crossed all the i’s and dotted all the t’s, and as such are just waiting to implode right before your very eyes. I suppose this would make me a glass-half-empty kind of guy.

Were I not, I’d presently be sitting in a relaxed, and yes, self-satisfied fashion surveying a guest list which, as it stands, is – and what’s the technical term for this? Ah, yes… – a cracker. Perfectly composed as it currently is of: a more than healthy array of contemporary and upcoming talent; a similar amount of venerable musicians with long and fine careers; a couple of curve balls; and at least two national institutions. One of the latter, though, is only 95% confirmed, ergo I have an increasing paranoia that he/she will soon decide a last-minute holiday is in order, to begin on 8 October. And, in doing so, the other will drop too, like some sort of awards domino effect. Thus, the event will go from being glittering to merely good. Then, what if others don’t turn up, and we’re into the realms of the ever-so-slightly disappointing?

You see how these things can snowball? But these are, sadly, the things that occupy one’s mind much of the time at this stage, in a way that is neither healthy nor indeed conducive to remaining married and/or strictly sane. For distraction, there is only the question of who should present which award to whom, the finalising of which takes part round about now.

It is, like so much of awards business, a funny old game. Sometimes, people will suggest that their artist is available to present an award, any award, on the day. Having dismissed the notion that such seeming desperation (sorry, public-spirited behaviour) implies that their charge must smell of wee or have some similar affliction restricting their social life, you settle upon the notion that these budding presenters can, and invariably will, be useful come the time you run out of options. Except this year, when we have far, far too many presenters – voluntary and otherwise – to go round. Why, I do not know.

Our second source of presenters is the artists themselves, or at least their ‘people’. In approaching the latter to necessarily tell them that their act might be popping open the champagne on the day (this, I should stress, strictly for the purposes of the merit awards, not the voted for categories), we always enquire as to whether there is anyone from whom they would especially like to receive the award. This can be like opening the world’s largest can of worms. Save for God and the Man In The Moon, we have had every wholly impractical suggestion possible for such a duty. Some we get, others we are forced to refer to the ‘If not them, then we’d like…’ list. If not any of them, safe to summise the winner is wholly unpopular with his fellow man.

Lastly, there are the awards for which we, occasionally inspired folk that we are, suggest a presenter, have it agreed by the artist’s people, and then await the magic happening. Oh, how hit and miss this can be. Paul Weller presenting to Noel Gallagher? Went like a charm, as perhaps a man who has lived under a rock for three decades might have foreseen. Britt Ekland to Marilyn Manson? A broken ankle, a court case, and a world of literal and figurative pain ensued. Who knew, and indeed who knows?

Once all of the above dots have been joined, and the pieces slotted into place, there then follows the manifest vagaries of what might actually happen on the day itself. Sometimes, people perform just as you’d expect people used to performing in front of other people to perform (if you follow my drift, and if you do, well done). Other times they don’t. There is nothing worse on the day than watching a presenter freeze in the stage lights, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, eyes strafing the room in a mad panic. Sometimes, they keep to the script and the running time, and everything passes without incident. Other times they are Elvis Costello, and they talk for hour upon hour, as the polar ice caps melt and tectonic plates crash against each other. Sometimes they are Bono, and they have their hair set on fire by Shane MacGowan.

All of this may or may not happen on the day. Either way, it isn’t making that glass seem any more full. Indeed, there is one award and one presenter in particular that is scheduled for 8 October that, should it all come together, has a boundless capacity to be a triumph of the unexpected, or to go horribly wrong. You’ll know it when, or should you see it.

And craziest of all? This year, someone has actually asked me to present them with an award, rather than having me foisted upon them. They must smell of wee…

PAUL REES – Editor, Q