The countdown has started to the biggest event in the British music calendar - tonight's Brit Awards (Tuesday).

The stars have started arriving for the Brit Awards which kick off at 5pm.

Radio 1's Edith Bowman is on the red carpet chatting to the celebs as they turn up and broadcasting live on Sara Cox's show until 5.45 this afternoon.

Two of the first people to arrive were an unlikely couple - Dermot O'Leary with Avid Merrion, who admitted to Edith he is suffering from the flu and also that he needed the toilet.

Dermot is presenting the Dance Award at the bash and told Edith he'd quite like to present it to Basement Jaxx.

It turns out the two are great friends, or so Avid says:

Edith: So are you two best showbiz buddies now?

Avid: "No, we came from his house."

Dermot (through gritted teeth): "You're not supposed to say that."

Avid: "We're great friends, and we have been ever since I followed him a little bit."

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Lemar is up for two gongs at tonight's Brit Awards - British Breakthrough Artist and Best Urban Act.

He's looking forward to the bash, although he seems a bit more bothered about what to wear at the moment:

"I'm not one for picking out clothes so my stylist has been running around. I might come suited and booted, and all slick and smart for this one. I've heard that it's supposed to be quite glitzy - it's supposed to be that pinnacle of award ceremonies."

"I'm expecting to enjoy myself - hopefully it'll be that star-studded event that it's supposed to be and I'll be able to enjoy myself, and if I do pick up an award…wow, what a night it'll be!"

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Sara checks out band sets

Sara Cox has been hanging around backstage at the Brits all day.

She snuck up to the Black Eyed Peas diner which they'll use during their performance - it's full of ice cream sundaes, donuts, American flags and knicker bocker glories.

The Darkness have an "underwater city" style set - on one side there's lots of roman pillars with huge boulders and rocks with starfish stuck to them, and on the other side are four huge unicorns with glittery mains, hoofs and horns.

But while Sara was there, one of the horns fell off - hear her report here...

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Sara Cox will be live backstage from 3pm on Radio 1, and we'll be updating the Brits results as they come in here on Radio 1 Online.