It’s the PPA Awards on Thursday night, the big annual magazine Oscars shindig.

I went to my first one in 1987 and went home disappointed, spouting off that this stuff’s rigged and none of it matters.

I won the following year and still remember finding a pay phone on Park Lane to ring my mum. A few weeks later I sent her the official picture of me onstage getting my award.

She died in 2008 and when me and my brother cleared the old house in Belfast we found that picture carefully filed away.

It isn’t rigged, and dear God it matters.

Barry McIlheney | Former Editor, Smash Hits and Empire; CEO, The PPA