Brace yourselves everyone – it’s the Oscars on Sunday night which will make for some excruciating viewing for those of us who tune into breakfast news channels on Monday.

There are many terrible things about the Academy Awards (dull, over-earnest and, at three-and-a-half hours, about three hours too long), but the sight of news reporters lining the red carpets desperately trying to grab a few inane words with a ‘movie’ face is surely the cherry on the top of a particularly distasteful cake.

Worse still, they all seem obliged to have to turn up dressed to the nines as if they themselves were nominated for a gong. Why bother?

I hesitate to ever pour scorn on my fellow journalists, but come on now – isn’t it just a little bit demeaning?

What do they expect the stars to say as they sashay past heading to another all-expenses paid after-party? It will, almost inevitably, be anodyne quote followed by anodyne quote.

We put movie stars on a pedestal like no other. Yet they are celebrated and lauded for a profession in which they pretend. Pretend to be heroes, pretend to be emotionally vulnerable, pretend to be real.

I’m not saying they’re not without their worth – we all like a movie after all - but I do feel the millions they receive for their performances in a world where wars rage and people starve is, for want of a better phrase, all rather distasteful.

Yet fans are complicit. Just look at the numerous conventions held around the world which offer the chance to meet and greet your on-screen heroes – albeit at a price.

At the recent Star Wars Celebration in London, fans wanting to get an autograph from the likes of Ewan McGregor (who portrayed Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequel movies) were shelling out the sharp end of £250 for the privilege. And the same again if they wanted a photograph with them too. How, on earth, is that justified? Ripping off the very people who elevated you to that gilt-edged pedestal upon which you now sit?

Of course, those with more money than sense can spend whatever they like on whatever they like, but there are, surely, limits to buoying the already bloated bank balances of these people?

And they are, let us not forget, just people.

How often do we hear of them referred to as “the talent” at event shows? As if everyone else involved behind the scenes have none. It’s ludicrous.

But the Academy Awards is the epitome of our fawning and showering already horrifically rich, powerful people with yet more wealth.

The goody bags prepared for the acting nominees are valued at around £100,000 each and include, among other things, three free holidays (including to a Swiss chalet and the Caribbean retreat of St Barts).

Cillian Murphy, nominated for best actor in Oppenheimer, was reportedly paid close to £8 million for the role. He is not, therefore, short of a bob or two. Frankly, he could probably afford to buy his own island.

So why present these – undoubtedly talented - folk with such additional luxury when there are such pressing better causes to donate to?

It is, if we’re being honest, a tad obscene.

Monday morning breakfast shows here – given the time difference to Los Angeles – will coincide with the end of the event and that great ‘hey so-and-so can you spare 10 seconds to talk live to the BBC’ fiasco.

I’ll not be tuning in.