Ever had two different thoughts on one day and then realised they’re connected? Please say ‘Yes’ or we’ll get nowhere with this.

I was thinking about celebrities whose names are, despite their fame, often incorrectly spelt in newspapers and magazines.

If you’re a fan of Judy Dench….Shane Ritchie….Matt Munroe…Cliff Richards… or… Brian “It’s A Puppet!” Connolly, you’ll realise I deliberately misspelled their names – but that’s how I’ve seen them spelt in print many times.

For the record, here’s the correct spelling(s) – Judi, Richie, Monro, Richard and Conley.

The L.A. Times has dropped the second ‘t’ in veteran American actor Elliott Gould’s first name on no less that 47 occasions. His agent complains, but it keeps happening.

Edgar Allan Poe’s middle name is invariably spelt ’Allen’ in the ‘papers.  Obviously there’s no point in his agent tapping at the editor’s chamber door….

These mistakes aren’t confined to print. James Bolam was being interviewed on Breakfast TV and the on-screen caption spelt his name ‘Bollom’.

It was corrected after a couple of minutes, but how does a mistake like this happen? The man’s been a star for over 45 years!

Then, at the weekend, the BBC Sport website made a blunder with Scarlets and Wales lock forward Jake Ball’s name. Adding the word ‘sack’ after his surname was plainly somebody ‘trying to have a laugh’. Not very funny, in my book. Some heads should roll at the Beeb. Let’s hope Jake saw the funny side, as he’s such a big lad I wouldn’t want to cross him!

I get angry at what you might consider a trivial matter because these mistakes are a result of sloppy research, no research or plain ignorance. If you’re happy to accept information that’s based on such shaky ground, so be it.

My second thought was about the song “If I Never Sang Another Song” which has been recorded by many people, including Matt Munroe.

No, I’m messing with you. Matt Monro.

See how my two thoughts were connected?

Anyway, the song contains this line “I was the celebrity celebrities would die to meet”.

The song, the confession of a once-famous singing star that he doesn’t miss his glory days, is especially poignant when you hear Matt Monro’s recording.

When Don Black wrote those lyrics back in the 1970’s, celebrities really were celebrities who’d worked hard over many years to reach the very top of the pile as singers, actors/actresses, comedians, musicians, etc.

Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Burt Lancaster, John Wayne, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, James Stewart and many other ‘greats’ were still alive and working.  When one of them appeared on “Parkinson” it was an event!

Today, anyone willing to sit around in a house full of cameras with a bunch of fellow deadbeats, behaving as obnoxiously as possible, is considered to be a ‘celebrity’.

Most mercifully disappear from view within a few months, but some mysteriously manage to create a career and get their faces all over the media – even though they can’t actually do anything!  They star in their own series, sometimes travelling all over the world, despite the fact they can barely string a coherent sentence together.  Then they turn up in ‘celebrity’ versions of existing game and quiz shows.

It’s madness.

As is the fact newspapers have trouble spelling Dame Judi Dench’s name correctly, but have no problem with Kim Kardashian…whoever she is!