celebrity interest

i walked past Buckingham Palace this evening on the way back to the station. Michael Burke, the newsreader was outside the palace recording a live bit for the BBC evening news.
he was probably reporting on the Prince Charles thing which all international (non UK) readers of this blog can read in their local papers, but we in the UK can’t. but that’s alright as we’re not bothered.

i have some nice Royal commemorative items i could show you sometime. i might take a few pictures of my favourite Charles and Di items tomorrow. you can look forward to that if you want (optional)

here is one of those old phone boxes like dr who used to drive about in.
i expect some kind of comment from Matt who is the landlord for the server where this blog lives. he loves dr who he does.

we’ve just got back from attending the film premier of Bright Young Things, which is the first film directed by Stephen Fry. It was a real posh affair (black tie) and we got to walk throught the paperatzee (spelling corrector required – basic rates of pay, no benefits).
we arrived at the same time as david mellor which was nice. prince charles turned up eventually and we all sang a song to his mum (god save ‘er)

we saw loads of celebs as well as prince charles. here are a few photos
jim broadbent, stephen fry and some of the cast (Dan Ackroyd on the right)

angus dayton with an equally unfashionably shoulder bag

john sessions with one of my colleagues in the background

ben elton and rowan atkinson

apologies that most of the photos are of people’s backs. i was good at spotting people just too late ! we also saw tracey emin and salmon rushdie on the way out. There are some better photos and an interview on the BBC website
the film was really good, the seat comfortable and we all got a free bottle of diet coke as well.

Apparently my davescollections website was on Terry and Gabby a few weeks back ! i think they may have pitched it as ‘photos reunited’.
no wonder people keep pointing at me in the street.

big car boot sale today in Henley. i wore a hat to stop my oozing head getting even more burnt. two of our very good friends were (seperately) selling their wares. we wanted to buy from them to support them, but also didn’t want to buy any of their old cack (we have enough cack of our own).
amongst all the general car boot sale nonsense was some TV recording of some car boot sale program.

when i got to heathrow last night i thought i would go looking for celebrities as there is no where for them to hide in the baggage reclaim area.
i went and stood at the side and there was ulrika ! she was just leaving so i grabbed my camera and caught this rear shot. i wasn’t sure if it was her as her hair looked a bit of a mess, but then she said something to her travelling companions and she had the voice of ulrika.
BA781 from stockholm:

this chap looks like richard whiteley. but don’t be fooled. because he isn’t

compare to the front page of richard whiteley’s book ‘himoff’:

if you are an international visitor to this site and want to know more about Richard Whiteley and the program he presents called countdown then go here or here !

elvis was on the plane. whenever i saw him he was talking on his mobile and looking quite angry. so i went for the sneaky photo option instead of the blatant asking approach

there is much in the news about the Hutton enquiry. the enquiry itself is of interest, but of equal interest is the media surrounding the trial (which is itself about manipulation of the media etc).
they aren’t allowed to film in the courts so they get people to draw what happened instead.
brief aside: do you remember when they had to do that for people in Ireland. i was too young to understand at the time of course. poor children must have thought ireland was full of drawn characters like in the comics they read like the Beano. i support that is why there are so many Irish comics (it’s the way I tell them) – when they are not betting on pies climbing up walls of course.
anyway, i always assumed that the drawings were nicely scanned in before they appeared on the news. but in fact they are stuck on old doors and filmed for the telly:

here is the media frenzy:

upon closer inspection of the photo i realise i may have been spotted taking it (they appear in the top right of the photo above):

i’m glad there were plenty of barriers between me and them

they are filming some movie near my office this morning. very exciting. i didn’t ask who was in it or what the film was. here is a picture from the street

have you ever wondered what is on the other side of the smoke in ‘Stars In Their Eyes’ ? i recon it it’s a space time portal thing. anywhere you see smoke look to see if there is anyone dressed as elvis, buddy holly etc entering or emerging from it.
perhaps i’ve been reading too much harry potter and this is an extension to the Flue network thing. or maybe i’ve stumbled upon the truth …
here is one entry point i saw at near Paddington Station this morning. A man had just gone through the smoke and dissapeared (he could have just gone in to the van of course).

it’s impossible to have a quiet drink in a london pub. here is a man minding his own business, whilst being stalked by the paparazzi.
who is he ? dunno. no one famous i think (i didn’t recognise him). probably a local news program “man drinks alcohol in pub – we have exclusive footage”

on my way to work this morning i met foppish celebrity Hugh Grant. He got out of a car near Harley Street and was hobbling over to a parking meter, obviously in some discomfort (looked like his back was giving him jip).
I asked if I could take his photo and he said “oh don’t please”, which i took to be a negative. i left him in peace to go about his day.
I guess I could still have taken his photo as he is a ‘celebrity’ and therefore public property, but I decided that was a bit cruel.
I did a quick search for Hugh Grant and Back Pain and it appears he has suffered from back pain before. I should have shared some of my stories of Chronic Pain with him. We could have bonded over some Gabapentin (or something).

i was sent to coventry today. whilst there some men demonstrated the future of telephones (it’s much like the present with telephones, only you get some video as well and you can see who is phoning on your TV). my two colleagues and I were joined by a Saudi Princess for the presentation, which was nice. she didn’t say anything, but that’s what being sent to coventry entails.

as you can see below I nearly saw Kylie and did see nigel havers. I also saw that bloke off scrap heap challenge who gets excited about old pieces of metal. he was at paddington station waiting for a train. didn’t get a photo. sorry about that

after not seeing kylie i did see nigel havers:

he posed nicely
here he is big

nigel with a scarey man

she was due to arrive at 10am. I was there 9.50am on the way to a meeting. So i didn’t see her.
She’s the new face of BA. face my arse.

so i never got to see the pint sized aussie
other people were making the most of the giant sand pit though

Denis Norden, round the corner from my office. he’s often mooching about.
this morning was quite sunny so there is lots of reflection in the window giving him a ghost like appearance. and if he were a ghost he wouldn’t be buying sandwiches. unless he was just reminiscing about eating.

best of all – whilst researching Denis for the link above I came across Bill Hanson who does a Denis Nordan tribute show ! It was the real one i saw this morning.
This whole entertainment site is fantastic