I WON'T conform with the fashion of today. All that body piercing the lads and lasses seem to go in for - must be torture.

Mind you, I'm used to pain - I've been married twice!

But I digress; so there I was in the Museum Gardens dressed to the nines in a frock straight out of Catherine Cookson's era.

I was about to make a call on me mobile phone when an American tourist stopped me and asked me if I was from York.

I explained that I was a refugee from Sunderland and that all attempts to deport me had failed.

He pointed to the ruins of St Mary's Abbey and said "Do you know who bombed this site?"

Desperate to make me telephone call, I brusquely told him it was something to do with Henry VIII.

I was about to tap in the number when I heard him say to his wife in his brash American accent, "Do you hear that, Wilma, Henry VIII bombed this place"!

The mobile phone rang.

I let it go on ringing so as to annoy as many people as possible before answering it.

It was a woman from HELLO; they'd heard that Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Joan Collins were organising a secret 50th birthday bash for the greatest entertainer of all time.

They also knew that moi had an invitation and a world exclusive on the story.

More to the point, they knew that I was going to reveal the name in me column.

I quickly covered the mouth-piece so she wouldn't hear me thinking.

I was in a sweat, obviously someone at the Evening Press had 'tipped them off' as we say in the paper industry.

The Sloane Rangers from HELLO! magazine then tried to bribe me with two quid cash and an introduction to Gloria Hunniford, if I would allow them exclusive rights to take the photographs of the event.

After telling her I had me own Kodak Brownie, I slammed the receiver down on the brazen hussy, then spent the rest of the day in casualty nursing three broken fingers as I painfully realised mobiles don't have a receiver.

The greatest names in showbusiness will gather under the rafters of a verr, verr posh restaurant called The Collection in London's Brompton Road this Sunday to celebrate the 50th birthday of the biggest entertainer the world has just about heard of.

Yes, the subject of so much secrecy is Christopher Biggins! Oh, come on Babbies, you can't get bigger than Biggins - he's over six foot and weighs 25 stone.

A couple of years ago, this old Dame was in Barbados to do Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, directed by Biggins.

After two days of rehearsals, he heartily agreed with me when I told him he couldn't direct a bus out of a garage.

He returned the compliment several days later when we visited a verr, verr posh department store in Bridgetown.

It was packed with sedate shoppers.

I was pondering about spending quite a bit of dosh on a painting.

He was quite a distance from me, so I held the painting up and mimed "Will this go well in my dining room?"

In the loudest imitation of Noel Coward I have ever heard, he bellowed: "Oh for God's sake buy it, no one ever visits you anyway"!

11/12/98

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.