Shirley Bassey

ANYONE with an envy problem should click the page now, before you turn so green that the neighbours have to sprinkle LawnGro on you and give you a mow. When the ticket arrived for Another Audience With Shirley Bassey, I had to hide it. I’m not telling you where I hid it, because even my wife and daughter don’t know my most secret hidey-holes (correction: “especially” my wife and daughter don’t know. . . )

The ticket clearly said: “Admit One”. It did not say, “Uri Geller and Guest”.
It did say, “Second row, seat 11”. It did not say, “Second row, a nice pair of seats”. And on the envelope, “Mr U Geller” — not, you’ll notice, “Mr and Mrs”. Or “Mr and Daughter”.

I was invited to a fabulous night with the extraordinarily wonderful Dame Shirley, and she sang all the big, big numbers — Goldfinger, Hey Big Spender, Diamonds Are Forever — and I was surrounded by a galaxy of the biggest stars you could name (and you could name every one of them).

And the rest of you will just have to watch it on the telly. I did warn you about the envy thing.

Angela Rippon was sitting right next to me. She was wearing a stunning piece of jewellery, a bijou that was rippled and curlicued in a design that fascinated me. She bought it in France, she told me, and added that her eye for unusual brooches had been sharpened by her experience from the Antiques Roadshow. I’d love to go shopping with Angela, especially if she has the luck to discover pieces like that.

Right behind me were the most famous barmaids on earth — Babs Windsor and Julie Goodyear, aka Peggy Mitchell and Bet Lynch. It was no accident they were sitting together — someone in the ticket office must have a wicked sense of humour. And they both looked like Christmas trees, all flash and bauble, and when they both grinned I could feel the rays on the back of my neck like a sunlamp.

Barbara and I met 33 years ago — I know I turned up at the BBC studios to appear on the live Blue Peter broadcast, though I can’t remember now whether Babs was on the show too or if she was recording elsewhere in the building. What I do remember is being knocked out that someone so sexy could be so tiny. She was like a doll-sized Marilyn Monroe. She gave me a cuddle, and we talked about the Seventies, when she was the Carry On queen and my hair was longer than hers. “Oh Uri,” she said — “where do the years go?”

She’s had more than her share of hard knocks in those years, and it was great to see her looking so bubbly. Louis Walsh threw an arm round my shoulders, and told me he wanted to set up a duet with Michael Jackson and Westlife. Since Michael is shying away from all public appearances, and definitely not talking about any concert comeback yet, and definitely definitely not thinking about recording new material, I told Louis he was showing even more sheer brass neck than usual.

But if anyone’s got the X Factor it will take to get MJ back on stage, maybe Louis is the man. Danny La Rue sashayed by, looking magnificent. He’s a legend among showbiz people — I saw one or two kneel to touch the hem of his dress. Ben Shepherd from GMTV was there, and Gloria Hunniford, and Esther Rantzen, and Jimmy Tarbuck. Vanessa Feltz gave me a smacking kiss, I’ll swear Emma Noble winked at me, and Jodie Marsh flashed me a . . . well, I won’t say what Jodie flashed.

It was great to catch up with Sian Lloyd, a veteran of I’m A Celebrity — we’ve been friends from the day we recorded Stars In Their Eyes together. Sian’s partner, the MP Lembit Opik, is a huge fan of the paranormal, and he asked if I’d bend a spoon for him. I tried to dodge the question, but there’s no doing that with a seasoned politician — even though all the cutlery was plastic, Lembit sent up to the 12th floor canteen to get a metal spoon. His reaction was so boyish — jaw dropped, eyes bugged — that I invited him and Sian to call in for dinner. Poor Lembit: when I show him the spoon-covered Cadillac, he’ll probably faint.

Off to London’s City Hall for another gathering of famous faces, courtesy of the law firm Clinton’s, who were staging a gala “In Celebration Of Sport”.

Mel Stein, who was Paul Gascoigne’s agent, invited me, and the guest of honour was Lord Sebastian Coe.I congratulated Seb on the Olympics coup, which is going to be a bigger deal for Britain in 2012 than most people can imagine. And I also marvelled at his youthful appearance — he’s nearly 50, but looks 20-something.
He attributes it to two things: peak physical fitness, particularly through martial arts training, and positive thinking.

Barry Fry, the soccer manager, was there too. He’s just had a hip replacement, and I told him bluntly that he needs to lose a few pounds if he wants a speedy recovery.

The actor Michael Brandon, one half of Dempsey and Makepeace, also dropped by, and told me he’d just finished filming on a movie called Are You Ready For Love, with Leigh Zimmerman, for release next summer. Funnily enough, Jodie Marsh will be in it too.

We walked down the embankment later and bumped into Paul O’Grady, who was out for a stroll with his two dogs by Tower Bridge. “Where can they do their business round here?” I asked, and Paul grinned with a malicious glitter. “In the Lord Mayor’s garden,” he said.

Sarra Elgan, the children’s presenter from Welsh TV, called in to shoot a segment.She’s so pretty that I heard myself telling her to come back and bring 100 children next time, to make it a proper show.That’s going to be a lot of jelly and ice cream!