Life on the Red Carpet for a Reporter Covering the Oscars

They are simply the only award show that really matters. It is the first date A-listers put in their diary, the one awards where everyone turns up. Jack Nicholson will wear sunglasses and sit in the front row just to be the butt of the jokes.
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Barbra Streisand and Adele share the same taste in chicken pies. Gordon Brown has been spied book shopping in Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica. Joey from New Kids on The Block was at the same event last night as Princess Leia.

I have been in Los Angeles for less than 24 hours and those facts have all been gleaned. The Oscars never fail to disappoint.

This is the 13th time I have covered them. There was the year I asked Steve Guttenberg where he'd watched the Oscars. His answer? "At the ceremony. I'm a member of the Academy." Without thinking, I replied: "What the Police Academy?"

There was the look on Tim Robbins' face when I asked him if his Oscar for Mystic River made up for the Academy snubbing Howard the Duck.

And last year, the day after Russia moved troops into Ukraine, I was the editorial in the Daily Telegraph for having shouted "Bono" live on Radio 4. A lot.

For the rest of the year, other awards shows try to bolster up their worth by giving themselves the "Oscars of..." tag. The Oscars of the radio world (the Radio Academy Awards). The Oscars of the theatre world (the Oliviers). This never happens in reverse. You do not catch the Oscars describing themselves as the Radio Academy Awards of the film world.

They are simply the only award show that really matters. It is the first date A-listers put in their diary, the one awards where everyone turns up. Jack Nicholson will wear sunglasses and sit in the front row just to be the butt of the jokes.

An Oscar win will be mentioned in the first line of an obituary - something not so likely to happen with a TV Quick Award. Last year the Oscars was the most watched non-Sports TV programme of the year in the US.

This is why it is so exciting to broadcast live from the red carpet at the Vanity Fair post-Oscars party, as I will be doing into BBC 5 live Breakfast on Monday morning. Actors are arriving with Oscars in their hands, in many cases this night will be the pinnacle of their careers.

In 2009, Kate Winslet even let me have a go at holding her Oscar and for some reason I decided it would be good radio to jump up and down holding it, not realising that I was in the background of the BBC Breakfast TV shot. I looked like I had been Tasered.

She also took it in good spirits when I asked her if a win after five defeats meant she was no longer the "Colin Montgomerie of the Oscars", even going as far as pretending to know who he was.

There was also the year Nicky Campbell asked me to take my headphones off and put them on Stevie Wonder. The next thing I knew, Stevie was singing an improvised version of a 5 live jingle.

Memorable stuff happens. As for the new information; Wolfgang Puck, who is cooking the food for the Governor's Ball, spilled all about celebrity crusts when I spoke to him in the kitchen at the Dolby Theatre.

Gordon Brown was spied by a member of the BBC team and last night it was the Irish Oscars - the Oscar Wildes - where Joey McIntyre from New Kids on The Block wanted to show Carrie Fisher she still has The Right Stuff by turning up to see her collect an honorary award.

The red carpet is currently under protective tarpaulin with a multitude of international TV News crews filming each other for a lack of anything else to shoot. Thankfully it is almost time for the plastic to be peeled back and for the Rear of the Year of the film world to begin.

See it really doesn't work.

Colin Paterson is BBC 5 live's entertainment correspondent. He will be hosting an hour-long Oscars preview show on 5 live on Sunday at 21:00 and will be reporting live into 5 live Breakfast on Monday from 06:00.