MONDAY, MAY 20
I took my parents to the Chelsea Flower Show, and the first famous person we bumped into was Mary Berry.
Normally, celebrities greet Mum and Dad with ‘hilarious’ entreaties like ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry…’ or ‘So, YOU’RE to blame!’
But Mary just chuckled and said to them: ‘It must be SUCH fun having a son like Piers!’ ‘Well it’s certainly never dull,’ was my mother’s non-committal reply.
Coincidentally, Sophie Raworth, the BBC’s face of the Flower Show, texted me to come and meet HER parents, who share my bemusement at their daughter’s new marathon-running obsession.
Normally, celebrities greet Mum and Dad with ‘hilarious’ entreaties like ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry…’ or ‘So, YOU’RE to blame!’ But Mary just chuckled and said to them: ‘It must be SUCH fun having a son like Piers!’ ‘Well it’s certainly never dull,’ was my mother’s non-committal reply
‘What did you think about her yomping 150 miles through the Sahara desert last year?’ I asked. ‘Crazy,’ chuckled her father, ‘but once Sophie decides to do something, she gives it everything.’
‘You should try running marathons,’ Sophie told me. ‘You’d love it.’ ‘I’d rather lower myself into a pond of piranhas,’ I replied.
Ironically, ruthless Raworth would happily feed me to piranhas if she spied a bigger name to drag in front of her cameras – as proven when Dame Judi Dench suddenly appeared.
The great lady, now 83, suffers from macular degeneration of her eyes, a condition that can eventually leave you blind.
So she wasn’t able to see us until I enthusiastically threw myself towards her. ‘Dame Judi! Piers Morgan!’ ‘Hello Piers,’ she sighed, not quite so ecstatically.
As the paparazzi swarmed around us, I cut to the quick: ‘Would you mind doing a photo with me? The debate is still raging about who will be the next James Bond, and M backing me from beyond the grave could really help my chances.’
She snorted with mocking laughter.
‘You? As 007?’
‘Pierce Brosnan to Piers Morgan is not a giant leap,’ I replied.
Shaking her head slowly, Dame Judi did the picture. As I thanked her and walked away, Sophie marched off with Dame Judi.
‘Why waste time with a cactus when an English rose is available?’ she chortled.
Later, I found Chris Evans in a bright yellow jacket, which, with his white hair, made him look like a giant psychedelic daffodil.
He’s just passed a million listeners for his new Virgin Radio breakfast show, far fewer than the nine million who tuned in to him at Radio 2 but more than double the number that listened to his new slot before he arrived.
‘Congrats,’ I said, ‘you having fun?’
‘Thanks man! I’m absolutely loving it!’ he replied.
‘We both like a fresh challenge, right? I could have rested on my laurels at Radio 2, but if you climb mountains and get to the top of your favourite mountain, and then just stay there, you become a mountain observer not a climber. I need to keep climbing.’
He’s also lost a stone due to his own new craving for long-distance running.
‘Honestly, I’ve never felt fitter, healthier or happier,’ he insisted. ‘You should try running marathons, you’d love it.’
Jeez, it’s a contagion.
Continuing the mother theme, as we left, we bumped into Susanna Reid’s mum, Sue, at the gate. It was the first time the two women who brought us into the world had met, and they got along a lot better than their permanently squabbling children.
In a taxi to the Ivy Chelsea Garden restaurant for lunch, Mum expressed one regret: ‘I’m sorry we missed Christopher Biggins. He’s such a nice man.’
Coincidentally, as we were led to our table, we saw Biggins sitting nearby, and he instantly made a charming fuss of her.
‘Mums are the most important people in the world!’ he declared. Sadly his own died last year after a long battle with dementia.
‘I spent three hours with her shortly before she died,’ he smiled, ‘and she didn’t respond to me at all. So eventually I quietly got up to go, gave her a kiss, and said, “I don’t know if you can even see me?’’ and she immediately replied: “Of course I can see you, you’re so bloody big!” Those were the last words she ever said to me. Hysterical!’
SATURDAY, JUNE 1
Lunch with Joan Collins and her husband Percy at our mutual favourite restaurant, the fabulous Club 55 in St Tropez.
They’ve been through a dreadful time recently, with their beautiful London home being wrecked by first a flood and then, just when it was repaired, by a fire.
‘Bad things come in threes,’ I warned. ‘I know,’ said Joan. ‘That’s what worries me.’
A few minutes later, a French woman at the next table suddenly jumped up, shouted ‘ATTENTION!’ and launched herself at a startled Joan, roughly ripping her beautiful monochrome wide-brimmed hat off her head.
‘WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?’ exclaimed Joan, who turned 86 last week, but still looks younger than me.
Her assailant was frantically examining the hat with a look of abject terror on her face.
‘CHENILLE!’ she cried. Chanel? This seemed a rather drastic way of establishing a hat’s designer.
‘CATERPILLAR!’ she clarified in broken English. What? All this fuss, for a bloody caterpillar? ‘DANGEROUS!’ the woman added. At which point, Percy understood the enormity of what had happened.
‘Oh my God, some caterpillars down here are poisonous. This must be one of them!’ He raced over to trap the offending threeinch creature in a wine glass. It was a vicious-looking snake-like thing covered in spiky barbed hairs.
I Googled it on my phone, and discovered it was a pine processionary caterpillar whose hairs can inflict very painful rashes on humans, and if inhaled can spark swelling, vomiting and in some cases, severe anaphylactic shock.
Victims who swallow them have even been known to have their tongues amputated. Good grief.
‘Thank you,’ I said to the French woman. ‘You may have just saved the life of Dame Joan Collins!’
‘It was my honour,’ she replied. And with that, we returned to our lunch. ‘You can relax now,’ I told Joan. ‘That was No 3.’