That’s a news headline? Actor telling other actors that she has “located something real”? There’s nothing real about it: it’s the opposite of real and that’s the whole point. The movie business is make-believe: men and women pretending to be people they aren’t to an audience which wants to forget who and where they are – a monumental exercise in mutual self-delusion.

The awards ceremonies themselves don’t even have the justification of being great art, since that’s been and done, watched and paid for. We, the public, are merely being asked to gawp at the exponents congratulating each other for their handsomely remunerated displays of impersonation. And, being superb impersonators, those of them who fail to win do a brilliant job of looking delighted for the victor as he or she walks up to collect the award. In fact, that might well be the best acting you will see during the entire event.

… It is hard now to come across any trade or profession which doesn’t have a slew of awards. We all seem to have become infected by the actors’ love for self-congratulation. You can’t enter a hotel, a supermarket, a school, or even – I imagine – a funeral parlour without seeing prominently displayed on a wall a framed award for the provision of some service or other: Most promising new Bed & Breakfast of the year, Best Provider of Organically Farmed Pork, Most Environmentally Conscious Geography Department; Most Imaginative Embalmer in the South-East of England.

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