Last week we went to the Conservatives Annual Ball - the biggest date in the Conservatives fund raising calendar. David Cameron himself came over to our table to congratulate Bella and I on getting married.
We took two of our good friends with us - Lord Kerry Hamer and Lady Karen Hamer.
This photo shows me introducing David to Lord Hamer and sadly Lady Hamer was standing just behind and missed out on the photo. Needless to say Bella was truly the ‘belle of the ball’.
The dress theme for the night was blue so I thought it would be really good to wear my blue suede shoes (This was the1st record I bought by The King) But dammit! nobody noticed but Bella who said she thought I looked cool.
Whilst we were in London we joined the big bad wolf himself James Whale and his lovely wife Melinda at what has become his annual dinner in aid of Kidney Cancer.
James is, in my opinion, the number one DJ in the UK. He’s the nearest thing we have in England to what the Americans call a ‘Shock Jock’ which means he just tells the truth as he sees it. You can catch him on LBC radio.
In this photograph are two of our other good friends who we took with us. Richard Keys and his wife Julia. Richard of course is a star presenter on Sky Sports.
The dinner was at the House Of Lords which was sponsored by Earl Howe. He himself is an absolute gentleman and is of course one of the hereditary peers.
This is the legendary and iconic singer and pianist - Buddy Greco and his lovely wife Lezlie who are both appeared at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho London.
Of course whenever Buddy is in town we go and see him and then always end up, as you can see from this photo, in one of my clubs. Usually it’s Stringfellows because he has great history there. In the 80’s and early 90’s Stringfellows used to have a stage with a Yamaha mini-grand piano and around about 2 o’clock Buddy would make his way to the stage and jam with whoever was in the club, singing and playing for at least an hour. Sadly the piano and stage are no longer there. The piano is now at my villa in Mallorca.
If you don’t know much about him check him out on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Greco - you’ll be astonished at the success of Buddy. He’s what’s known as the last of a breed and was once a member of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack.
There are only a few more names left of Buddie’s ilk and that would be Al Martino and of course Tony Bennett. You could add Jack Jones to that list but in comparison with the others he’s still a young kid.
In the 20 odd years have known Simon he has gone from being quite affluent to very rich to Mega Billionaire status but you’ll have to believe me when I tell you that the guy hasn’t changed a bit. He’s still one of the nicest celebrities that I know.
Anyway, the story is that he came in last night with his very good friend and also mega superstar in the USA Ryan Seacrest.
This is the guy that presents the American X Factor and they decided to party for the rest of the night until 4.50am.
Suffice to say they made 25 of our dancers very, very happy (out of 85 on the night) and they had them exclusively at their table for the whole night.
On top of that, just about every dancer’s got a photo of Simon on her mobile phone, which I don’t normally allow to happen but Simon being Simon said “No Problem let them take their photos”.
This is an old photograph of Simon and Piers Morgan from 2005.Of course since then Piers has also become a mega superstar in the USA.
Believe it or not this is the night that Piers learned that he was to be offered the position of Judge for Britain’s Got Talent and like Simon I have known Piers since the early 80’s.
In fact when he worked for the Sun he brought in a brand new boy band and introduced them to me saying that these were going to be the biggest name in pop music. To me they looked rather shy but nice boys so I just nodded and said, “Yeah right, Piers”. OK so the name of the band was and still is “Take That”…
You see - that’s why Stringfellows is so special. The club has great history.
Here is Boris Becker - the six-time Grand Slam singles champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and the youngest-ever winner of the men’s singles title at Wimbledon.
In those days Boris would come into Stringfellows (it was a disco-nightclub in those days) with other legendary tennis players John McEnroe and Pat Cash.
Anyway, the story is that last Friday he celebrated his stag night in Stringfellows with eight of his closest best friends and I was there personally to welcome him. They had such a good time that they all came back on Saturday night and did it all again!
No bigger accolade can any star give my club. So thanks Boris its always a pleasure.
PS. The photograph we have here is one of him playing tennis from the 80’s that’s just in case you thought he dressed like that on his stag night.
We had a fantastic time in Monaco where we took over the Pizzart club for the duration of the F1 Grand Prix. Just thought we’d show you this photograph taken by one of our dancers who didn’t realise it was Jenson Button. She took it because she liked the colour of the car and then of course he went on to win the race.
Sadly we didn’t see him in the club, but neither did we see Lewis Hamilton… with good reason I suppose, because he travels with his own dancer - Nicole Sherzinger (the lead singer from the Pussycat Dolls).
Bella and I went off to Italy to celebrate her 27th birthday with her mum and dad who live there. It’s a wonderful part of Italy called Puglia. Bella’s mum and dad have a villa there just outside Brindisi which in Roman times was known as Brindisium and so of course it has a fantastic history.
Anyway, we have just spent a week there just relaxing and eating the best Italian food ever - all made by Bella’s mum Greaziella.
OK that’s really nice but what about this photo and well you may ask. Bella has a bit of a fetish thing going for police uniforms and especially so if the guys are carrying guns.
Anyway, we were coming back through Stanstead Airport when one of the policemen asked me for my autograph and I said sure but only if my wife can have a photograph taken with you guys which they readily agreed to (I wonder why). Big cop and little cop. So there you are fellas, you’re now famous on the Stringfellows website. If ever you want to come to the club just email me and I’ll send you a couple of invitations. You can come in your uniform but you’ll have to leave your machine-guns in the cloakroom…
Here is Maurice Boland - a very good friend of mine and also a very nice man. Maurice and I go back a long way to the opening of my old club The Hippodrome, Leister Square in 1984 (I sold it in 1990).
These days he presents his own radio show on “Talk Radio Europe” whilst living in Marbella.
He is constantly giving all three of my clubs great plugs and is a genuine fan. He joined Bella and I for dinner on Friday with two of his friends. Like me he rates our restaurant one of the best in London and thinks the steaks are the best in all of London and his American friend Shaun who works at the Pentagon said they were the best he had ever tasted and his other friend Nicholas said the same about his lamb.
O.K… may as well tell you about the rest of the meal, Bella had sea bass and salad with oysters (12!!) to start with. I had fish and chips, which are the best in the world (I should know because I am a northern boy and was brought up on the stuff!!).
Of course Maurice fell in love with Bella and insisted on having his photo taken with her and not me…. Steady Maurice, don’t forget Wendy your lovely wife. Just for the record he didn’t have any dancers …but he did a lot of looking.
Having just returned from Mallorca, Bella and I had dinner in Angels with her two brothers Brian and James.
James is an officer in the armed forces. (A Major no less and is about to join his new regiment with The Gurkhas in Afghanistan.) Anyway, we were just finishing our meal when in came one of the craziest and most charismatic Americans I have ever met and believe me I have met quite a few over the years.
His name is Mark Schwartz this is him in the photo with me. Mark is a very famous world renown producer in the theatre world (he is best buddies with Brad Pitt and that line always goes down well with the girls) His new show has just finished touring the U.K and is now opening in London in the West End at the Arts Theatre it is called “ SHOUT!”.
