“Fook it,” said Manky, turning to the mike while Bushy picked out the familiar opening notes of “Get Real”, Mirage’s current smash. I must say, Manky can certainly sing. He has a wonderful sneer in his voice which really does sound like he doesn’t give a fooking fook.

Some people detect a Beatles influence.

When the song was over, Manky snorted with contempt and burped hugely into the microphone. It was amazing. This colossal belch rang around the vast aircraft hangar, bouncing off the walls and the concrete floor. I thought it would bring the ceiling down.

“Ya disgosting cont,” said Bushy, “I’ll ’it ya with me knob, ya sweaty twat.”

After that the whole band had a fight.

As they left the stage I could see two familiar figures approaching across the vast acreage of the venue. It was my old lunch buddies, Dog and Fish, who were to compere the night and provide the “comedy” element. From experience I knew that basically this would involve them coming on between each act and pretending that they did not really want to be there. The strangest aspect of modern compering (or perhaps I should say post-modern compering) is that the host of the evening invariably seems to feel the necessity to disassociate himself from the proceedings, as if it was all some sad joke they’re indulging in for a laugh. You see it at award ceremonies all the time. Some young blade comes on and basically says, “Look, we all know this is a pile of self-indulgent shit and it’s probably fixed, but welcome anyway.” I think it’s a shame. Bring back Michael Aspel, I say, but you see my problem is that I like things to be nice.

“Hullo, Sam,” said Dog. “Shag the Mrs that day, did you?”

For a moment I was at a loss but then I recalled the circumstances of my hasty retreat from One Nine Oh. I didn’t know what to say, so I laughed a bit and left it at that.

“Yeah, sorry you got shafted out of telly,” added Fish. “You were a straight geezer. Best thing that could have happened to you, though. Radio’s the only truly post-modern no-bullshit medium. It’s the new TV.”

“So my successor didn’t give you a series, then?” I asked.

“No. Bastard,” Fish said morosely. “I couldn’t believe it, even after we stormed it in Montreal and all the Yanks were queueing up.”

Oh well, it wasn’t my problem any more. I had this evening to worry about.

“Now, you do know you can’t swear, don’t you?” I said.

“No fucking problem, Sam,” said Dog and laughed as if this was a brilliant joke and they headed for the stage.

I could see why. Brenda was starting her sound check. Brenda is a singer but her real claim to fame is that she is heart-stoppingly gorgeous. A regular star of the cover of Loaded magazine and a new-lad icon. She usually performs in tiny see-through nighties and sings like she’s having an orgasm. The number she was rehearsing is called “Sex Me Again Sexy Baby”. It’s the follow-up to her big hit “Sex Me Sex Me Sex Me”. Unfortunately “Sex Me Again Sexy Baby” seems to have flopped. And our sound engineer told me he’d read that she was going to have to do another Loaded magazine photo spread to revive her career but that the editor has insisted that this time there was to be none of this coy stuff and it would have to be nipples out. In our sad modern world female pop stars have to be very successful indeed before it’s allowable for them to perform with their clothes on.

Brenda was not doing a proper sound check because she was performing to a tape, but obviously a rehearsal was required so that the director of the concert video could ensure that Brenda’s body would be well covered by the cameras if by nothing else.

Brenda’s voice thundered out of the sound system as she strutted and pouted, miming the words.

It was all a bit too much for me. More of that and I’d have had to have a lie-down. I wandered off to have a mooch around the hospitality section. I can’t be standing about in vast empty arenas ogling young girls like that. It’s not good for me. Besides, what would Lucy have thought? I always feel very close to her when I’m away, absence making the heart grow fonder and all that. It made me a bit sad to think of her sitting at home, probably having a solitary bowl of soup or something in front of EastEnders. I called her, but she sounded a bit distracted. She said she was tired and was going to put the answerphone on and go to bed really early.

Dear Penny

We met at Quark. I’ve never been there before but I know Sam goes quite often on his numerous important lunches. It’s very posh and they give you little plates of nibbles the moment you arrive. I got there first (of course!) and sat there feeling like an absolute slut! I mean of course I hadn’t actually done anything wrong but it just seemed to me that everybody knew I was there for a clandestine dinner with a man who was not my husband.

I knew the rash on my neck was coming up. No red wine, I told myself, in fact no wine at all. My God, if I got pissed there was no telling what would happen.

The next thing I knew was that this dashing maitre d’ was opening a bottle of champagne in front of me.

“Meester Pheeepps ’e ’as call to sigh ’e will be a leetle light. ’E sigh to geeeve the liedy shompine.” Well, long story short, as they say, I’d had two and a half glasses by the time Carl turned up. I didn’t want to but when one is just sitting there like a lemon, one does.

Carl looked incredible. Everybody turned to stare. He’s grown his hair and sideburns again (for a part, Dick Turpin, American cable movie, silly script but fun) and what with his dark curls and big coat he looked as if he’d just come back from writing epic poetry and fighting duels in Tuscany. Anyway, he strode straight across to me and without so much as saying “hello” or anything he kissed me on the mouth! I mean he didn’t try to slip me the tongue or anything but it was quite lippy and totally took me by surprise. Then he stood back, stared at me with his smouldering coal-black eyes and said that I looked absolutely ravishing, which I did not, although I must admit that I was wearing a new silk blouse with no bra (silk does rather flatter the smaller bosom like mine).

Anyway, he was full of apologies about being late, rehearsals or something and terribly important meetings. He said he already felt cheated because he knew that my husband was only away for the evening and that he’d already wasted forty precious minutes of it.