Five Centres

Can I just say that everyone's be so, so kind. Dear friends like Kitten In A Brandy Glass and the famous author Graham Kibble-White begging me to keep this going. Oh, alright then I will.

So, have you ever considered suicide? Me neither, but I have considered buying the DVD boxed set of The Lakes. Having just been in the Lakes at a very nice wedding, my interest in the series has been reawakened. IIRC, series one had the terribly serious (in real life too) John Simm, who I'm sure was killed at the end of it. Series two had the marvellous Anthony Newley as the local bishop who had to admonish Robert Pugh's saucy priest after he got local Catholic mum Mary-Jo Randle up the duff. And wasn't there a gruesome murder too, something which was nothing to do with anything? It was Anthony Newley's final TV role. He was very good.

I interviewed him once, when he was in a few episodes of EastEnders as a dodgy car dealer. I was very nervous but he was super, though he did refer to himself as "Newley" throughout, which at first I thought odd, but eventually found very endearing. We touched on all sorts of things: Stop The World I Want To Get Off, Vegas, planes writing messages in the sky, and how he laughed when I told him I owned his greatest hits, and that the marvellous Strawberry Fayre was my favourite in his oeuvre. We never got round to Joan Collins though. Still, a good one to have in the collection.

Sorry, no stories about celebrity bedsheets as requested, but it's funny things you notice - or rather don't notice about a famous person's house. It's hard to concentrate and take it all in. But let me tell you that Ross Kemp has a made-to-measure suit of armour in his hall and one of those Queen Vic busts in his living room, Nerys Hughes does a very nice quality biscuit and will run you to the station afterwards, and The Archers' Peggy Woolley - who told me she had a lovely litte cottage in the country which actually turned out to be a 1950s pale brick bungalow on a main road. Still, she was very welcoming. Whisky in your coffee, a spaghetti bolognese which seemed to have been cooking all day, and a very nice letter thanking me for coming afterwards. And it snowed, Great day.

Anyhoo, I think I will get that boxed set. But first we've got to get through This Life and Band Of Gold. This life does seem dated but it's hugely entertaining. Band Of Gold became simply Gold in series three. As to why is a mystery. I think Cathy Tyson's still in it. Now there's a funny one.

A very quiet voice, lots of intensity. She told me that the biggest compliment anyone could give her about her work was that it moved them. I told her I was moved by her performance in Mona Lisa- and I was, it was no lie. She seemed really genuinely pleased. Perhaps she was worrying as this was on the set of the long-forgotten soap Night And Day - or Nightanday, as they sometimes billed it. It was a disaster, after all. She was a breeze compared to Glynis Barber, cool and aloof, yet looking 20 years younger than she is. She refused to be drawn on Dempsey and Makepeace. Other than that, what is there to talk about? Then in came Lesley Joseph in her dressing gown to check me out. She seemed okay. However when the interview came she would not be drawn on personal deatails. I think there's a reason for this.

Anyway, I could go on, but I won't.

I love you all.