Portofino, the Millionaires' Playground

Friday, 25 September 2026. One of the highly anticipated days of our cruise. We are in Portofino and, as the ship is anchored off the port, we are tendering directly into Portofino with no need for a costly tour involving a ferry from nearby Santa Margherita.

One of just a handful of spots along the north shore of the Mediterranean Sea where the millionaires and A-listers flock, Portofino is a gorgeous tiny harbour with a curving access lined with pleasing coloured hotels, shops and villas clustered around a tiny space beore the land rises steeply to the truly magnificent and expensive properties on the hillsides from which those superstars rarely emerge before at least noon.

Luckily I can be up early mornings because at best I'm a K-lister (sold CDs around the world but in laughably small numbers, played on numerous ships from the Caribbean to the Greek Islands, been on TV and radio and also known for this blog which currently gets around 5k hits daily). Not exactly an influencer but not bad for a pensioner content creator...

Here you get an idea of the curved aspect of the approach into the harbour as witnessed by the buildings to the right of the photograph. The empty bay is where the ferries from nearby Santa Marguerita dock.

Between the ferry dock and that which we have just arrived at is a large bay devoted to the modest little motor yachts of the rich whether famous or not.

I'm in two minds about fame. I've had people come up to me in airports to say how much they enjoyed my singing on various cruise ships and once got recognised in a crowd of 12,000 people waiting to be admitted to an Andre Rieue concert and I always enjoyed it in such moderation but I imagine it must be a bit galling when you are constantly interrupted by fans in restaurants or whilst out with your family.

I think I've only ever been asked for an autograph twice, so I must be doing a good job of remaining relatively anonymous...

The last time we were here, we enjoyed a wonderful gelato at a table outside a cafe but this time we found it gone. A small kiosk nearby but without any tables and chairs carried the same name and was selling cones but we were ready for a sit down and found a place on the opposite side of the harbour.

Their gelatos were a bit more like sorbet but just as welcome and a limonata went down very well.

Then a sit on a bench on the edge of the harbour and relax...

Miss Franny woke me when I started to snore and I woke with a start, staring wildly around at the empty space where surely just a minute ago all the autograph hunters had been waiting patiently...

"Dream on..." said Miss Franny tolerantly, upon which instruction I closed my eyes again only to find an elbow in my ribs...

Oceania Sirena Cruise Index

London and Wembley Record Fair, 2002

This series of articles covers a short weekend break in London over 30 November - 1 December 2002. We had a look around London on the Saturday and visited a record and film fair in Wembley on the Sunday, catching up aith a few celebrities.

Click each of the photographs below to read the articles. A link at the bottom of each one will bring you back to this Index.

Return to Holidays and Days Out in the UK Index

Wembley Record and Film Fair, 1 December 2002

Sunday 1 December 2002. We had chosen this particular weekend to come to London especially for this event. We were staying in the Premier Inn at Wembley and it was a short walk to the exhibition hall where the Record and Film Fair was being held.

There were far more records than films, sad to say. But at the time I was collecting records from the 1930s up to the late 1950s on 78 rpm 10-inch shellac discs. Again, sadly, only one stall had any of those in the entire place.

I found a familiar face on one stall though - Ian MacLagan of The Small Faces! So we chatted for a while and then I moved on, aware that there were a couple of other people I wanted to catch up with. One was the actress Ingrid Pitt who was sitting quietly behind her sets of photos. I didn't know Ingrid then as well as I would in later years, but I knew she could be very witty, but had also had quite a traumatic early life. I think there were more people there for the records than there were for film-related photographs or pre-recorded film.

In the UK this still meant VHS tape as 2002 was the first year in which DVDs started to outsell VHS tapes and for a fair like this they would have to wait a bit before second-hand DVDs turned up in the UK.

Anyway I digress. Ingrid was sitting on her own and her eyebrows lifted in recognition as I went upto her stall. "You look fabulous!" I said and was rewarded with a broad smile as her face lit up. "Do I?" she asked, and we fell into a conversation.

Then I went off to meet another of my favourite actresses. I had been a keen photographer since teenage years and had always looked for photos of the then model, Caroline Munro, in the pages of Practical Photography and Amateur Photographer. Then, following a long contract as the Lambs Navy Rum Girl, she broke into films and starred in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and a few Hammer horror films before (as far as I was concerned) totally stealing the limelight from Barbara Bach as a Bond Baddie in The Spy Who Loved Me. An absolutely lovely lady to meet and know.

She was there with the equally delightful Jayne Crimin, both of whom I have had the pleasure to know for over a quarter of a century. Neither of them look today like that could even be possible...

Star Wars Imperial Troopers. I was in no danger - I was right in front of them and their weapons don't work if pointed at people. Mind you, one of them nicked a doughnut off Miss Franny once - she was very indignant...

A few records from the 78s stall found their way into my possession. Elvis's early hit Heartbreak Hotel was in near mint condition and plays superbly. If you get a shellac record in this good a state it sounds much better than the easily-scratched vinyl of a 45 rpm record. Unfortunately it cost just a bit more than three shillings and sixpence as written on the cover. That would have been just seventeen and a half pence!

I bought Ron Goodwin's version of the Theme from "Limelight" as much for the original cover, which was a design I didn't have in my collection at the time.

Laurie London's "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands". Give me a bit of time - I still haven't worked out why I bought this yet - it's horrible...

And so we returned to the car for our journey home, passing the doomed twin towers of the old Wembley Stadium, seeing them for the first and last time.

Return to London and Wembley Record Fair Index

Memorabilia Show November 2014

We had a run out today down to Birmingham to meet up with some friends we've come to know over the years. The Memorabilia Show is run twice a year at Birmingham NEC and also has a slot in London. This year it was teamed with a Comic Con - one of those conventions where a sizeable proportion of the visitors dress in costume. There were super heroes, manga characters, Jedi knights, Tuscan raiders, Jawas and a couple of Princess Leias from Star Wars, a few Jokers, a lot of Harlequins (some quite sexy, some quite gross) and a plethora of Poison Ivys from Batman and er... a couple of Lego men...

There were also lots of Gothic horror characters from the likes of Twilight, Hunger Games and so on. Apart from all the weaponry, there were acres of flesh on display, much of it concentrated on just a minority of people... eeeew! Costumes ranged from slinky, to really authentic looking to... yes, well, there was at least one made of painted corrugated cardboard.

It made for a much more geeky Memorabilia than when it was teamed with a sports theme, but we were there to meet some friends we've made over the years, most of whom were first met at such shows.

Caroline Munro (Career highlights [will follow this approach for all artists below]: The Spy Who Loved Me, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Journey To The Centre of The Earth, Dracula AD72 etc) has been a friend since 1997. We first met at a quite early Memorabilia show, when she was sitting with that other lovely star of the big screen, Ingrid Pitt. I remember her days as a model who appeared regularly in Amateur Photographer and Practical Photography in the late 1960s. Then she won a ten year contract starring in adverts for Lambs Navy Rum.

She was the female lead in Golden Voyage of Sinbad and became the only actress contracted to Hammer Films, appearing in Dracula AD72, I Don't Want To Be Born (aka The Monster) and Captain Kronos, Vampire Killer. She memorably eclipsed Barbara Bach, the female lead in the James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, playing Naomi, the beautiful assistant to the villain Stromberg. She is memorably killed when pursuing Bond and Russian Agent Amasova when her helicopter is blown up by a missile fired from their submerged car-submarine. Her wink at Bond as she flies past him is always included in the top Bond film sexy moments.

We've had the pleasure of showing Caroline some of the better places to eat in Blackpool and whenever I'm in London we try to meet up for a drink and a natter. A nicer person you just couldn't hope to meet.

Martine Beswick (From Russia With Love, Thunderball, Dr Jeckyll and Sister Hyde, One Million Years BC, A Bullet For The General, Slave Girls, etc) I met Martine through Caroline and spent a couple of hours one afternoon acting as her minder at a signing. She was one of the fighting gypsy girls in From Russia With Love and met a sticky end as Bond's colleague Paula Caplan in Thunderball. She was the brunette counterpart and main rival to Raquel Welch's blonde in One Million Years BC and was the female Hyde to Ralph Bates' Dr Jeckyll in Hammer's Dr Jeckyll and Sister Hyde. Few men would disagree that her dance in the Hammer film Slave Girls (aka Prehistoric Women) is something every man should see before he dies...

Carole Ashby (Chariots of Fire, Octopussy, 'Allo 'Allo, Bergerac, Minder, Dr Quinn Medicine Woman etc.) Carole is probably best remembered as Louise of the Communist Resistance in TV's 'Allo 'Allo. She was one of Octopussy's gang of female circus gymnasts. A real character is Carole - she once had me sitting on her knee for some photos with Helene Hunt, one of her colleagues from Octopussy - how could I refuse...? The first time I met her, a sound technician was feeding a mini-microphone up her shirt and out of her neckline. A tough job, but someone has to do it... She's a delight to talk to.

Shane Rimmer (This could take all day even sticking to the highlights: Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, The Saint, UFO, Rollerball, Space 1999, Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope, The People That Time Forgot, The Spy Who Loved Me, Superman, Hanover Street, Secret Army, Superman II, Ghandi, Superman III, Lace, Out of Africa, Whoops Apocalypse, Coronation Street, Lipstick On Your Collar, Batman Begins, etc etc etc...) A modest Canadian with the oh so recogniseable voice - yes! Scott Tracy from Thunderbirds!!! He has an amazing list of 154 credits on the Internet Movie Database going right back to 1957 (remember Hawkeye and the Last of The Mohicans? I didn't mention at least three other James Bond films and he was in just about every TV series in the 1960s including Danger Man, Dr Who, Orlando, The Saint, The Persuaders, The Protectors, Quiller, Hadleigh... - the man is a legend!

He was in The Spy Who Loved Me with Caroline so I got to know him as he was often sat next to her and we'd chat when she got busy with other fans. He was telling me he has even found time to write a book, a thriller called Long Shot. You can buy it as an Kindle book at Amazon.

Now, this lady I hadn't met before. Margaret Nolan aka model Vicki Kennedy is probably best known for playing the masseuse, Dink, in the early stages of Goldfinger. She too has a list of credits as long as your arm, including A Hard Day's Night, Crossroads, Carry On Cowboy, The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery, Witchfinder General, Nearest and Dearest, Carry On Henry, Carry On At Your Convenience, The Persuaders, Steptoe and Son, Carry On Matron, Budgie, Carry On Girls, Carry On Dick etc. Very friendly and the beauty of that 1960s glamour girl is still there shining out!

Fenella Fielding (Carry On Regardless, Doctor In Love, Doctor In Distress, The Avengers (TV), Doctor In Clover, Carry On Screaming, Drop Dead Darling, The Prisoner, Lock Up Your Daughters etc.) The legendary vamp who played up her man-eating image in a couple of Morecambe and Wise TV shows, Fenella Fielding is the only person featured here that I didn't meet through the Memorabilia shows. I first met her at one of Ingrid Pitt's birthday parties-cum-fan club dinners when, to the envy of all other men in the room, I found myself sitting next to her for the night. There was a very glamorous blonde sitting opposite me too - either Ingrid was looking after me or she was trying her best to get Miss Franny sore at me... Anyway I spent the evening acting what I like to call "charming and witty" and what others like to call "like a prat"... I've met Fenella a couple of times since and she always remembers me - hopefully for all the right reasons! Sorry for the awkward pose, there wasn't a gap in the tables at this point and I wouldn't expect a lady to climb over...

Wow... Wish I could write this sort of article every day lol!

Hobnobbing November 2011 Part 2

I meant to publish this one last Sunday... It was last Saturday when we went with David and Jeannie down to Birmingham to meet up with Caroline Munro, who was at the Memorabilia Show.

When we got there she had a massive queue of people in front of her. I recognised a couple of mates sitting with celebs as minders and they were waving to indicate the size of the queue and raising eyebrows and thumbs at me.

We stayed to say "Hello" and exchange hugs and then left her to get on with talking to fans who were now queued up behind us. We promised to come round again and she pointed us towards where Martine Beswick was sitting so we went off to boast again about being grandparents to her!

Martine has had two featured Bond roles and a walk-on part to make the hat trick and was the dark-haired counterpart to Raquel Welch's blonde in Hammer's One Million Years BC, going on to play a memorable part in the same company's Dr Jeckyll and Sister Hyde.

Lindsay was acting as her minder and I nudged him to get some of his wonderful celebrity sketches out. He's a talented lad!

Then I spotted another acquaintance. I sat next to Fenella Fielding at one of Ingrid Pitt's birthday-party-cum-fan-club-nights. She remembered us and we spent a while chatting.

There was a large number of other famous people here and there at the show. So much so that I found a young lady sitting all on her own on a row of seats with no one taking any notice of her. Always a sucker for a pretty face I said hello and then noticed her photos showed slightly more than her face - but those bits were quite pretty too...

Flickr Viewings

For the last few days I've been keeping a record on Facebook of the top scoring photographs from my Flickr collection.

Inevitably on a daily basis this leads to some repetition as my most viewed photos come top on a regular basis. But on those days I choose the No.2 or No.3 photo to feature.

The celebrity photos understandably come high up on the list of most-viewed photos with this one of actresses Carol Hawkins and Sally Geeson being all time top scorer by far. Currently (and this will change in 10 minutes or so) it has been viewed 13,452 times. Carol played Sharon in Please Sir having taken over the role from Penny Spencer. Sally was Sid James' daughter in Bless This House. Both appeared in Carry On films also, notably Carry On Abroad.

All time No.2 currently with 7,319 views is this one of me with Helene Hunt and Carole Ashby, who were both member's of Octopussy's all-girl team in the James Bond film of that name.

I'm actually sitting on Carole's knee here - at her insistance I hasten to add! We'd met a couple of times previously and she has a great sense of humour. She played Communist Resistance girl Louise in TV's 'Allo 'Allo.

Both of these photos were taken at the Memorabilia events at Birmingham's NEC. There's always a number of film and TV people there signing autographs and willing to pose for photos. Just don't expect treatment like this until you've got to know them though! And even then don't expect it!

Here's some of the quirkier photos to crop up in the top 3 ratings this week. The Citroen was found in St Tropez in 2008 and at first I thought it was a surviving 1960s Mini Moke. As seen in TV's The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan. Even the gear stick coming out of the dashboard or the chevrons logo didn't make me twig it was a Citroen based on a 2CV chassis from the 1980s until some kind soul commented on the photo!

Yesterday for some reason the focus was on this shot of Manchester Cathedral from 1998. It was Fran's birthday and we'd gone to Manchester for the day and the shopping got a little much for me so I left Fran and daughter, Gill, to the shopping and wandered round with the camera!

The black granite stone used inside is slightly oppressive I thought. A bit of limestone would have lightened the place up a bit.

Large versions of the photos: Carol and Sally, Helene and Carole, Citroen fun car, Manchester cathedral

Memories of Ingrid Pitt

I got back last night from a works trip that had taken me to Swansea and then Telford in Shropshire to find a message from Tony, the husband of actress Ingrid Pitt who so sadly passed on last November.

Tony enclosed the above photo and as part of the message he had written on the back said "Remember Wigtown and the Kirroughtree Hotel?" Ha! As if I could ever forget! This, then, is the story of one of the most amazing, happy, frightening, funny, frustrating and altogether fabulous weekends we've ever spent.

It was Mayday Bank Holiday weekend, 2006. We had heard that there was a celebration going on in Wigtown in Scotland. It is Scotland's National Book town. Almost every second shop is a bookshop and when we arrived in the late morning of 29 April 2006 there were books everywhere you looked. On the village green was a maze made up of old obscure books that were being sold off for next to nothing.

We weren't exactly there to celebrate books however. In 1972, the area around Wigtown had been home to a film production. The film, whilst not a huge success at the time, went on to become a cult classic. The Wicker Man.

The film starred Edward Woodward as a police officer conducting investigations into a kidnapping then running into a pagan cult led by Lord Summerisle, who was played by Christopher Lee. Ingrid played a rather sexy librarian (discovered at one point playing with herself in a hip bath) and was billed 5th behind Woodward, Lee, Britt Ekland and Diane Cilento.

A drive through the town showed us this straw man - close enough if you use your imagination - by the side of the Bladnoch Distillery. They were to host a showing of the film on the Sunday night which would be attended by Ingrid and the film's director, Robin Hardy.

We hadn't told Ingrid that we would be there and met up with her on Saturday night as she arrived to be interviewed in front of an audience as a build-up event to the showing of the film. She received an enthusiastic ovation from a very decently sized crowd inside the hall, where we had found ourselves front row seats.

Writer Allan Brown as the interviewer gave Ingrid a hard time, wanting her to recount wartime memories when she was incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp. Whilst this admittedly produced moments of great drama, it didn't endear him either to her or to the audience.

Afterwards we joined Ingrid and Tony behind the stage and were introduced to Robin Hardy (seen dancing with Ingrid above)and his wife.

We were there longer than we thought we would be. Wigtown is in the middle of a coastal and rural area. It took half an hour for a taxi to come and take them back to their hotel. Now came the frightening bit. As we went down the steps from the hall doorway Tony slipped and rolled, very elegantly I have to say, down the steps until the elegance stopped with his head banging the door sill of the taxi. He assured us all he was alright but we worried about it until we saw him the next day when, sure enough, there didn't seem to be any lingering effects at all. Phew!

We were staying in a small hotel, the Wigtown House Hotel. I'd recommend it to anyone it was wonderful. It overlooked the church and was quite close to the salt marsh that led eventually to the sea and had been the scene of a horrendous execution of two women in 1685. I've previously told the story on this blog.

We were back at the whisky distillery early enough to get fairly near the front and were looking forward to the evening.

The event was to start with Robin and Ingrid welcoming everyone and talking about the filming of The Wicker Man. Then the film would be screened and following that Ingrid was to set fire to the straw man we saw earlier.

All started according to plan and the two of them kept the audience enraptured with some hilarious tales including one about one of the film makers knocking up the owner of this very distillery early one morning, coming to an agreement to buy it for a six figure sum. This same film maker's first words the following morning were: "I did WHAT?!?"

The film was screened and we were the last out as Robin and Ingrid were in great demand for autographs and to chat to locals some of whom had been extras in the filming.

Then one of the frustrating bits. Some TV news crews, waiting for the straw man to be set ablaze had decided not to wait because it had started to rain outside. They had set the thing on fire and had gone. By the time we got out there, flames were shooting a hundred and fifty feet into the air!

"Noooooooooo!!!" cried Ingrid and dashed off through the crowd.
"Hey, where's she gone?" said Tony, "Go after her John!"

By the time I forced my way through - strange but the crowd that had just opened to let Ingrid through didn't do the same for me - she was far too close to the blazing figure and striking dramatic poses with a big grin. She had her back to it of course and could not see all the burning bits of straw flying through the air and landing near her!

The crowd were loving it and flashguns were going off on all sides. We managed to convince Ingrid to move away from the fire, but the straw burned quite quickly anyway. Either that or the rain was putting it out...


Well the jollity went on for a while until the crowds started to dwindle. It was raining and it was getting cold and Ingrid had undergone surgery not too long before all this. We knew it was likely to take at least half an hour for a taxi to arrive, so I offered to drive them back to the hotel.

"Do you know where it is?" asked Tony.
"Er... well don't you?" I said...

I got some directions from the organiser of the event. They sounded very complicated! Things went a bit surreal as Ingrid found a piper in full regalia and had to be photographed with him.
"John! Sing with him!" she said excitedly. He didn't know Johnny B Good though...

We set off down pitch dark country lanes. Then more country lanes... Then a l-o-n-g country road.
"I must say you're driving very confidently!" Tony said cheerfully, "I've no idea where the hotel is from here..."

We passed through a town and... "I don't think it's this far..." said Ingrid. I went back to talk to the smokers outside the town's pub. It was that far plus a bit...

We reached the hotel, the Kirroughtree House Hotel. It was 11:30pm and Ingrid and Tony had not eaten before going to the evening's event and so were starving. "Come in and eat with us!" they insisted. Well we all went in but, perhaps unsurprisingly the kitchen staff had long gone. The porter offered to make some sandwiches and bring them to the lounge so we went into this large and very nice lounge where another small family party were sitting.

Then followed one of the most excellent hours I've ever spent as both Ingrid and Tony regaled us with tales of TV, films and motor racing (Tony's background). We were, perhaps a little noisy for the other party but I settled them for the night when I mentioned to Ingrid that I had recently run a training event in the room that was used as the location for the nude wrestling scene between Ollie Reed and Alan Bates in the 1969 film Women in Love.

"Ohhhhhhhhhh!" Ingrid exclaimed at the top of her voice, "before they filmed that they went off to look at each other's pee-pees so they wouldn't be bothered when it came to filming!"

The other party hurriedly left the room...

Ingrid, you were one of a kind! We'll always cherish those memories! Tony, thanks for the photo and memories. We think of you often!

On the Fourth Day of Christmas...

On the fourth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me



Four annoying birds
Three French men
Two turtle gloves
And a pro-biotic yoghurt in a tree

A Wizard Encounter

There's a story behind this one.

This is my daughter, Gill, with actor Chris Rankin who plays Percy Weasley in the Harry Potter films. We were at a Memorabilia show at the NEC and it was 24 July 2003.

Too shy to ask him for an autograph she got me to do it. However Chris's manager phoned her up and said she had to come herself and they were holding her dad hostage until she came!

She turned up with a very red face and then, when he realised it wasn't a child they were teasing, Chris too went very red!

However the photograph made up for Gill's embarrassment!

April Memorabilia Show, 2007

Hazel O'Connor and Ingrid Pitt

Actress and singer, Hazel O'Connor (the film "Breaking Glass" gave her punk rock status and hits such as "Eighth Day" and "Will You") catches up with actress and writer Ingrid Pitt. Ingrid is best known for Hammer Horror roles in "The Vampire Lovers" and "Countess Dracula" but has an impressive string of movies including a debut in mainstream movies as the lovely Heidi in "Where Eagles Dare" starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.

I met up with them at the Memorabilia Show, held this weekend at the NEC in Birmingham. I've been friends with Ingrid for ten years but it was the first time I've met Hazel, whose first Memorabilia appearance this was. I've always said I don't have favourite artistes, as every song has to stand on its own merits, but Hazel's "Will You" would be in my top ten of best ever musical recordings!

I also caught up again with Toyah Willcox and owe her a debt of thanks. Fran took a photo as we were talking and she said "Take it again - I probably look all gobby!" Anyway Toyah, you looked fine but I look like a complete prat in it... The second one has been added to the Celebrities set at my Flickr site (no longer available) along with others of Dr Who, Colin Baker, helper Deborah Watling, and me with Hazel and Ingrid. The first one will never see the light of day!

Ah, and thanks to Ingrid who enthusiastically told all these successful singing artistes that I was a "fabulous singer"... Yep - 35 years on now so it can't be long before I become an overnight success...

Hobnobbing with Celebrities

I've added an album of photos of myself with some celebrity friends to my Picasa site.

Bond Girls Caroline Munro, Martine Beswick, Tanya Roberts, Britt Ekland, Carole Ashby and more, Hammer Horror stars Ingrid Pitt, Madeline Smith, singers Toyah Wilcox and John Leyton and a few other assorted people!

Since this post was originally published the album has been taken down, sorry! There's several of the photos elsewhere on the blog though - click the link below for topic "Celebrity"