Overtones

Today we spent a very pleasurable couple of hours in the presence of newsreader, Jon Snow, who tells me, in two days' time, that he will have been working on Channel 4 news for twenty five years. What a legend!

I probably shouldn't tell you what we were up to. You'll have to see the film to find out, but I can reveal he was wearing a very snazzy tie, and that we were with him in the Channel 4 news studios and at Alexandra Palace, which looked absolutely stunning in the sunshine.

The blossoms are very much blooming, and the daffodils have not yet gone over. It was a riot of colour; the deep blue sky, the green green grass, the bright sandy hue of the Palace itself, and, as if CGI'd to make the scene even more perfect, first two, then four and then ten glorious magpies, hopping around on the grass, appearing in pairs to wish the project the best of luck.

Jon himself is a wonderful sport, and hugely entertaining. I bet he gets invited to hundreds of dinner parties.

It thought we were getting on famously until he made the shocking assumption that I was ten years older than Nathan, comically using the phrase "cradle snatcher!" For the record, Nathan is much much older than me. Six whole weeks! That's six whole weeks this summer I'll get to crow that he's 40 and I'm still 39! It doesn't help if you look 50, however... My mother has been telling me for weeks that the beard makes me look ten years older. It looks like she might be right!

This evening we went to the O2 to meet housewives' choice, Michael Ball, and those other housewives' choices, The Overtones. What a lovely bunch they turned out to be. Michael Ball was charming in the extreme, and the Overtones were just great; really into the project, really keen to help us and congratulate us. They also looked remarkably dapper in their suits.

They invited us to stay and watch the show, which we did with great pleasure. For those who are unfamiliar with the band's work, they're a sort of dream-boat cross between the Flying Pickets and Shawoddywoddy. They make ladies of a certain age go weak at the knees with all of that sort of do-be-do-wop repertoire, which my Mum would absolutely adore. I must buy her an album for Christmas. I have, however, never seen so many disabled people at one gig. A whole rack of wheelchairs was sitting up on a platform. There were maybe 40 or 50 chairs, which in a venue which seats no more than 800 feel like rather a high percentage!