I cannot abide annoying people who try to impress others by name dropping.
And I’m not alone in feeling this way.

Paul McCartney and Sting told me they held exactly the same view about name droppers when I chatted with them at George Clooney’s birthday party on board Leonardo De Caprio’s $20 million yacht while it was moored off the coast of Monte Carlo, just half-a-mile from Shirley Bassey’s house – which I’ve only been invited to twice.

The first time with Barack & Michelle and the second time with The Chuckle Brothers.

While their table manners left something to be desired, the ex-President and his wife made amends for their lack of etiquette by offering to do the washing up and to brush away the cake crumbs they’d thrown all over the table during a furious argument about whether Lemon Drizzle cake was tastier than a Victoria Sandwich.

While he could easily have been judgmental about their behaviour, all credit to the Pope, who was sat between Dame Judi Dench and Tony Blackburn at the opposite end of the table. He pretended not to have noticed the tiff, even when a piece of lemon icing landed on his mitre.

When he closed his eyes for a few moments, I wasn’t sure if he was in silent prayer or if the undercooked linguine had given him indigestion.

As you can tell, I keep very close to my chest all the things I’ve witnessed when I’ve hob-nobbed with A-list celebrities over the years.

And we didn’t just hob-nob. Oh no! Many’s the time we shared a digestive or a jammy dodger or even a rich tea biscuit.

And if you think I’m going to slip in some suspect double entendre about ginger nuts, you’re in for a disappointment my friend.  I’m saving it for next week.

By the way, I’ve been aware of ‘rich’ tea biscuits all my life but I’ve never come across ‘poor’ tea biscuits.

This is something I mentioned to The Krankies when we were guests at Meghan and Harry’s wedding.

See, once you start, it’s difficult to stop!

As I was saying to…