Superyachts, Seal and seriously good fun

I have been following the developments at News International with horror. It’s a bit like watching a car crash in slow motion. Seeing Neil 'Wolfman' Wallis, my old features editor, arrested and become the catalyst for the resignation of the two top dogs at the Met was surreal enough but events took a very tragic turn with the death of Sean Hoare yesterday. We worked together on the showbiz desk at The Sun and despite the dark turns his life took after that period in the early 1990s, I remember him as a funny, genuinely nice newspaper guy who was kind and had a good heart. Very strange to see my old stamping ground right up there making headlines as shocking and sensational as any of the scandals we ever unearthed.

So, the girls spent two weeks in London and I can’t pretend it wasn’t a little bit of a holiday for me too. No mess, no screechy hormone-driven hissy fits or shuffling around unwashed in pyjamas until late afternoon, just peace, tranquility and a house an OCD sufferer would have had trouble finding fault with. I missed them, and they missed me (I think) but as all my friends were going into meltdown about the long stretch of school summer hols that lie ahead, it was blissful to know that they were off having fun while I worked, relaxed, socialised and had some time to myself. Made me laugh when they started asking what handyman and I were having for supper every night…I think takeaways lost their allure after a week or so and they couldn't wait to get home for a proper cooked meal.

I had to ask my friend Karen, who has four lovely kids aged between 20 and 12, if it was weird not to miss your children painfully after two weeks. She told me that she thinks we have done such a good job of bringing them up and being there for them that we reach a point where they need us less and it all feels perfectly natural for them to flee and for us to have some quality time without them. That day is probably not so far off for Livvy, who is planning to go back to the UK to study at the end of lycee in three years time. I’m hoping Issy might wait a few years before I have to deal with empty nest syndrome but I think a two week sojourn to break up the ridiculous 11 week summer break is going to be a permanent fixture chez Kershaw.

They arrived home with piercings (ears - Issy, belly button – Livvy), dirty washing and a desire to once again sit in their rooms on their PCs Facebooking all their friends rather than seeing them in the flesh.

The highlight of last week, apart from the girls returning (this turned quickly into a lowlight when they embarked on a screaming row within an hour of arriving home) was being asked to meet Tamara Ecclestone, billion-heiress daughter of F1 supremo Bernie, on board the spectacular £100m plus superyacht Sea Force One in Saint-Tropez to interview her about her forthcoming Five documentary series Tamara’s World. I wasn’t sure what to expect but she was charming, funny, self-deprecating, refreshingly down to earth and a very good interviewee. And the boat wasn't bad either, as you can see above.

My only concern is how I will come across, as the Five team spontaneously decided to film me meeting her on board and interviewing her. I know I wasn’t looking my glamorous best after an hour in 90 plus degrees waiting for them to moor in the harbour, so if you see a sweaty, shimmering mess sitting opposite a beautiful, natural, non-sweaty brunette dressed head to toe in Missoni on your TV set sometime in October or November, please bear this explanation in mind.

Work was interrupted by a rather lovely night out with Milly at the Nice Jazz Festival last week, drinking champers in the old town, before watching a stonking performance in Place Massena by Macy Gray and Seal. Macy (whatever happened to her?) was great value but Seal topped her with an electrifying performance which included Crazy, Kiss from a Rose and Love’s Divine. He even spoke some French, which the mainly local crowd loved.

Have been rather busy with interviews this week, including Disney megastar Selena Gomez (sweet and professional) and Hustle actress Jaime Murray (wicked sense of humour) who stars in Warehouse 13 on SyFy next month, as well as moving to Mougins for two weeks before our trip to Italy at the end of the month. We are staying in a quaint stone cottage on the edge of the old village with a beautiful pool which has seen rather a lot of me since our arrival at the weekend. It’s way too hot to run so 40 lengths a day seems like the way to go and is far more enjoyable than puffing up hills in 32 degrees of July heat (sorry to all UK readers for whom 30 degrees would be a joy right now.)

So lovely to be able to work in the morning and take a few hours off with no chores beckoning, cobwebs to hoover or painting to do. Anyone who knows me will tell you that while Hockers works hard, she plays even harder. I have come to the conclusion that a functional two bedroom cottage with small terrace and a pool you don’t have to clean makes a pleasant change from a large, totally white house, which while chic is also a nightmare to maintain, plus an acre of weed-infested grounds which won’t obey the rules and stop growing due to the unusual humidity we are experiencing right now.

Just to make you Brits feel better, it is actually raining as I write which is why I’m finally updating the blog instead of pounding the pool.

The World Ends...

Yesterday was a bleak day for journalism. The News of the World, the UK's most popular newspaper (yes, contrary to all the knockers, it actually had quite a few million readers) closed under the shadow of phone hacking.

I can't defend the ghoulish revelations that have come to light in recent days detailing murder victims and grieving relatives whose phones were hacked by the paper in the endless search for stories (although I find it hard to have sympathy for any hacked expense fiddling MPs, playaway Premier League footballers and poncey 'my family are my world' actors who are secretly sleeping with prostitutes.)

But I can shed some light on what it's like to be a tabloid journalist, having worked at The Sun for four years and later for the News of the World when I first went freelance. When people ask me the innocent question 'So what do you do?' I steel myself before answering as it's usual for the conversation to take the direction of 'Okay, where is the tape recorder hidden, all this is off the record.' Journalists, and tabloid journalists in particular, are generally a distrusted, even despised breed, and you get used to defending your reputation to people you have never met before at a party or a dinner. I've done it so often, it doesn't even occur to me that it's not normal behaviour to defend your profession and qualify why you do it.

When I started out on Fleet Street (Wapping actually) at News International, it was 1990, Piers Morgan was my first boss as editor of Bizarre, Andy Coulson was a keen young showbiz reporter just across the newsroom from our desk and Rebekah Brooks was soon to be promoted from Sunday magazine to be features editor at News of the World in the office just down the corridor.

While tabloids are looked down upon (even by the people who surreptitiously hide their copy of the NOTW under their Sunday Times or Telegraph) broadsheets are feted yet it's widely known in Fleet Street that any tabloid hack could cut it at a broadsheet (many have jumped ship to work for the respectable press) while there aren't many broadsheet journos who could hold their own at a tabloid. The pace is rapid, the competition to get a story cut-throat but the camaraderie and loyalty is never in doubt. If you are lucky enough to be at a dinner table with a bunch of journalists, I can promise it will be the most entertaining, witty and outrageous spot in the entire room and the best night out you might ever have.

I had four of the best years of my career at the Currant Bun, working for Kelvin Mackenzie in a newsroom where there was rarely a dull moment. It wouldn't suit everyone but even the madness of standing on The Highway with the entire editorial team being urged to shout 'Up yours Delors' for a front page decrying the idea of Britain joining a single currency in Europe, through to being asked to sing rather tunelessly the song I reckoned was going to be the new chart No 1 that Sunday in the editor's office in front of a roomful of grinning executives (FYI it was Crystal Waters' La da de La da da...and no, it didn't reach the top)couldn't dim the excitement of working at the newspaper every other daily watched so they didn't get left behind.

Andy lived and breathed the job, often wiping the floor with the opposition which is how he came to be promoted to editor of the News of the World. Rebekah was ambitious but friendly (in those days) and Piers was, by his own admission, celebrity-obsessed and always destined for a career on the other side on the fence. This all feels like a very long time ago.

Journalism is full of talented, erudite, streetwise people who expose wrongdoing, scandals and cover ups at the highest levels of society, as well as the tittle tattle gossip that even the broadsheets cannot resist rewriting from the front pages of the red-tops. Let's not forget all the good the power of a free press can achieve.

Lots of decent people are now paying the price for the reprehensible behaviour of a few bad apples. And to the gloaters who are basking in the glory of seeing a 168-year-old newspaper go under in shame, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Don't believe everything you read, especially if it's in the red-top bashing Guardian.

Surfing...not drowning

Have been rather busy of late (not just lying by the pool, uncorking rose, shopping etc) but working hard, travelling and generally getting things done. Then I had a few emails and calls saying, why haven't you posted for the last two weeks, so while Bar sur Loup sits under a big threatening rain cloud, rendering the pool sadly out of bounds, here I am.

I left you a day before Biarritz, which was our annual surf trip. I also left blazing sunshine to be greeted by grey skies, drizzle and chilly temperatures which meant I had to wear my cleverly packed capsule summer wardrobe all at once in order to keep warm. Having been told that our beachside apartment at Hossegor was within walking distance of everything, it came as a shock to find walking distance meant 3 kms via roadworks to the nearest supermarket for supplies. Having cadged a lift there, Norma and Sarah tried to covertly steal the wheely basket to transport our breakfast supplies and the odd bottle of veuve and vodka back to our base, and narrowly escaped being arrested by leClerc's security officer who chased them across the car park. Sarah then begged a local gardener to down tools and drive us back with our shopping, telling him we were lost, and amazingly, he agreed. I think you are getting the picture on the kind of trip it was.

The sun shone next morning so as you can see above, we donned wet suits and set off to hire boards. The fact that Hossegor hosts the annual Euro surf championships should have told us that this might not be the best spot for novices who get out into the surf one weekend a year. One minute we were kneedeep, the next we were up to our necks with 8 footers crashing down on us. It was a combination of terror, exhileration and sheer madness that kept us out there for three hours being thrashed to death by bigger waves than I saw in Hawaii and Malibu.

Norma, wishing to avert another Baywatch style rescue alert a la Watergate Bay, sensibly opted to stay on the beach and watch from a safe distance wrapped in 20 pashminas. Given the conditions, it's nothing short of a miracle that we actually managed to catch a few terrifyingly powerful waves and surf into the beach albeit looking like something Jaws spat out, covered in sand, shingle and seaweed from the churning currents.

After a long recovery lunch, the surf shop guy Fred came to warn us that a storm was brewing and it was too dangerous to go back into the water so we had to console ourselves with exploring the shopping opportunities instead. Devastating.

The following week was the Ogilvy & Mather ad party that Sarah organised at the Grand Hotel in Cannes, with high wire artists, wickedly strong vodka cocktails and food stalls including sausage and mash, oysters, fish and chips and chocolate covered strawberries. The slightly more generous than canape-sized portions meant that the handyman felt no shame in eating seven servings of sausage and mash and fish and chips, washed down with his own bodyweight in Guinness. He claimed that this translated to one modest supper portion. On that we beg to differ but historically, he has a habit of over-estimating anything that is measured in inches so maybe this is his way of redressing the balance.

Then to London to do some interviews, and the lovely poeple at Disney booked me into a hotel which rather conveniently had its own state of the art spa and was a mere hop and a skip from Westfield so that was a rather lovely way to spend two days in between assignments.

With the girls breaking up for close to three months of summer holidays, the prospect of them lurching from bed to PC to fridge and back again for weeks on end was too much to endure so they were packed off to London last week for a fortnight of family and friends. Made me laugh when Livvy told me that on the first morning of their stay at my mum's, Nanny Carole was sitting on the end of their bed like the ghost of Christmas Past at 6.45am waiting for them to wake up....that's the kind of behaviour that would get you shot in our house!

On a sliding scale, the situation at home is mess = 0, pressure to cook supper = 0, tranquility = 10 but despite all of that, we are really starting to miss them. Just not the rows, hormonal rages, dirty linen on the floor and booming rap music....

The only downside of summer on the Cote d'Azur (yes, there is one) is the mosquitos. After three years of being bitten alive despite sporting every spray known to man, handyman decided that this was the year we put up mosquito nets over all the beds. They look rather lovely in a colonial/princess kind of way, and confidence was at an all time high as we flung open the bedroom doors and windows on the first night, daring the mossies to come on in and do their worst.

Unfortunately, when he got into bed, he didn't secure the net properly and awoke the next morning to find he was covered in hives and had a dozen swollen critters circulating INSIDE the net, above his head. To add insult to injury, they hadn't touched me. Obviously, there is nothing amusing whatsoever about this story. I just told it to illustrate the fact that the UK, for all its poor weather patterns, miserable economy and traffic jams, occasionally has the upper hand at times like this.

Incommunicado...

Question...how can you maintain your reputation as a high flying doyenne of showbiz journalism when you are inhabiting a caveman like scenario where following electric storms last week we had no mobile phones for five days followed by no landline or internet for a further week, rendering us incommunicado for approaching a fortnight?
Answer... be intrepid, drive hundreds of miles in search of a connection, rack up hundreds of euros worth of mobile bills when the signal finally returns and whatever happens, do not lose your sense of humour, which as anyone who knows me will testify never happens (people I live with are exempt from having an opinion on this last point.)
Trying to file features,get copy approved and liaise with A list celebs and magazine editors on tight deadlines is not easy when you are stuck in the communication desert .... even the views of my valley, which is lush and green because of all the rain, cannot make up for this aberration. As you can see from the picture, Oscar has no such worries, oh to be a fat lazy pug whose only concern is sunburn and when the next meal will be served...
After burning the midnight oil til 1am yesterday morning, I thought I'd hit on the solution...to Fayes house first thing to send copy in a laidback fashion before embarking on zen-like calming yoga. Instead it was a wacky races rush from Faye's where the internet was also down as of the moment I arrived to Chateauneuf where the internet cafe secretary was barely capable of boiling a kettle, much less sending urgent copy across to an incredibly important interviewee. This culminated in me in a sweat not caused by yoga and people arriving at my Premier Mardi meeting before I was even home!
All in all, it's been a terrible week what with the internet debacle, my lovely new Armani sunglasses being whipped from my beach bag on Sunday while I swam in the sea (there were a film festival freebie but that's not the point) and falling down the stone garden steps in a storm, badly bruising my shin and making the prospect of surfing in Biarritz this week remote or best case scenario, incredibly painful(cruel bystanders might say this is nothing unusual given my surfing prowess.)
I have had no sympathy from the Handyman, who reckons my fall was precipitated by far too good a time over lunch at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival and the fact that I was wearing my impossibly high Prada wedges at the time. This is purely circumstantial and not the root cause obviously....
Anyway my semaine horribilis was nothing that a coffee and a slice of lemon drizzle couldn't fix..not to mention a glass of rose at lunch as I didn't have to negotiate any steps in the company of a small but amusing bunch of lunch guests including fellow blogger and man about town Chris France. With our collective memories of the music biz and Fleet Street in the 90s (or the last century as the girls love to say) it's safe to say many people in the public eye and monarchy were defamed, ridiculed and shamed in the privacy of my four terrace walls and that is all that can be said on the subject...unless you read Chris's blog which will no doubt shed a more revealing light on the conversation.
This is without even mentioning the MC TV fest..the highlight of which was Prince Albert shimmying on the dance floor with rather enthusiastic Desperate Housewife Felicity Huffman as Kool and the Gang played at the gala dinner at the Sporting. It was surreal, a sight to behold and probably, quite fortuitously, never to be seen again.
Many of my friends ask me a. How I know all this stuff and b. Why I didn't take a picture of whatever was going down. The answer is a. I was there and b. I might have got chucked in Monaco's equivalent of Traitors Gate for showing His Serene Highness letting down what little hair he has. Maybe he was treating the evening as a dry stag run for his forthcoming wedding?
This was all preceded by drinks with lovely Juliet from Hello, where we sat at a bar on Larvotto beach putting the worlds of showbiz and European royalty to rights....again in a most slanderous fashion.
Tomorrow, the merry-go-round of work, chores and dog-walking is stopping for a few precious days as me and my swollen green gammy shin head off to Biarritz to meet fellow surf chicklets Norma and Sarah for four days of extremely competitive watersports, with perhaps a glass of something fairly pink and well chilled making its way into our company.
On our last surfing trip to Cornwall, Norma's unplanned excursion into a rip tide at the far end of Watergate Bay ended with the Baywatch lifeguards steaming up the beach to rescue her and her board. This was 20 minutes into our first surf session. One can only hope this year's trip yields the same levels of adrenaline and excitement...the coastguards from here to Calais have been warned.

Another film star fabulous weekend

I wonder what will happen when I finally stop getting glamorous invites and have only cleaning the windows, washing the car and walking the dogs at weekends to look forward to encore une fois? Now that film fest is done, my mingling with the A list is over (well for a few weeks anyway, until the Monte-Carlo TV Festival starts in June) and I was expecting to come back down to earth with a bump this week.

Fortunately it has been mitigated by a few extra lovely excursions to postpone the inevitable return to drudgery a little longer. A swim at the beach with Bex and Tom followed by cocktails and dinner at the Marco Polo was a rather lovely start to the week. Then it was a girl’s night with Fiona and her Berkshire buddies at Sparkling in Cannes, a great new-ish bar restaurant in rue des Freres Pradignac, where the lovely owner Jean-Pierre plied us with Limoncello and strawberries in hibiscus after a delicious dinner on the terrace and made us promise to come back for a night at the club downstairs once Cannes gets all summer lively....and we will!

After writing gazillions of pieces about Elle Macpherson for Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model from my Miami trip (big raspberry to all those doubters, well, Iain and the girls, who think I just enjoyed myself partying and playing in the surf and didn’t do a stitch of work) it was time for a little R&R, which has been little in evidence lately...so to Saint Tropez with Sylvia on Friday morning for a weekend which started out as work but ended up as, well, a little light shopping, a little less light lunching, a little rose and some serious pitches to boutiques there with her fabulous jewellery.

We had good reason to celebrate after getting her designs commissioned by Trinity, Hippychic and the beach boutique at Club 55, where the A list will soon be clamouring to buy her designs. Only the three most happening stores in the town so flush with success, we went to Salama, a very chic Moroccan restaurant on a backstreet (rue des Tisserands as I recall) serving great food in a beautiful riad-like setting that transports you straight to Marrakech. They had the most amazing playlist which the lovely waiter compiled himself and where they played one of my all-time favourite tracks of the summer, La Ritournelle, try the address below for a taste of divine Sebastien Tellier...if this doesn’t put you in the mood for summer, nothing will...

http://vimeo.com/1516056

Saturday lunch at Club 55 was memorable for the amazing atmosphere, addictive people watching, very sweet maitre d and humungous prices for what was very average food. Really not sure about the panier of raw vegetables that arrives on the table at €25 euros. Ditto my poulet fermier aux herbes which was actually chicken and chips but as I say, it’s not about the food, more about the ambience. It’s packed so they must be doing something right...

Then it was off to the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday with Milly. We are Formula 1 virgins, so this invite was mannah from heaven...come and watch the Grand Prix at a roof terrace party at the port, pictured above, 200 metres from the start line and in full view of the exit from the tunnel and the port stretch of track. Oh yes, and have some vodka cocktails and lush Lebanese fare for lunch and listen to the sounds of the Garden Brothers DJ-ing....We watched Vettel blast his way to victory, and being just above the Red Bull stand, also saw him arrive on a private launch after the race to party with his friends, family and Red Bull team, and spray them with Champagne as they cheered his arrival. Pretty special.

It made the fact that I almost missed the train there almost bearable...having driven inexpicably to Villeneuve-Loubet instead of Cagnes-sur-Mer where I was due to meet Milly on the second last carriage of the 10.35am to Monte-Carlo. I would have been fine if only Iain hadn’t mysteriously removed the sat nav from the car on Saturday for his journey to Barcelona WHICH WAS NOT HAPPENING UNTIL WEDNESDAY ANYWAY.

It should have been like something out of Brief Encounter, it was actually more like Benny Hill as I drove around VL for ages, watching the minutes tick by and driving in and out of private domaines in rising panic looking for the roundabout I recognised until I rang MC veteran Faye to plead for directions. Somehow she navigated me to the station where I abandoned the car, waited for the dork in front of me to try and get his ticket three times from the machine because he was putting his credit card in upside down and then legged it onto the platform just as the train arrived and Milly leant serenely out of the carriage to greet me. My beautiful silk dress was soaked in sweat and I couldn’t speak for the first five minutes. But as reported, all worth it to hear the beautiful drone of those engines in glorious reality rather than through the TV screen.

As I relayed this story to Faye and Fiona this morning just before yoga, they were screeching with laughter and urging me to follow my true calling which is surely as a stand up comedienne. It made me realise that there is a reason why these things always happen to me. It’s to bring joy and laughter to those whose lives operate without the same levels of disaster and drama....

My night with Leonardo DiCaprio

So, the end of the Film Festival and my feet, (crows and otherwise) liver and stamina are all feeling the strain of nine solid days of partying and an average of two to four hours sleep max a night. I know my friends have had enough of me going on about the hardship of yet another glass of Laurent Perrier in yet another VIP area at yet another exclusive party full of A listers, but it really is....okay, stop twisting my arm, a bloody brilliant way to earn a living.

I thought I had peaked already with the Jon Hamm close encounter at the Eden Roc, Will.i.am’s brilliant DJ stint at de Grisogono and Calvin Klein’s stylish party at the Martinez beach but the best was still to come.

My last party night kicked off with champagne at Roberto Cavalli’s new boutique on the Croisette. It was a short skip to the Carlton for the Cinema for Peace dinner hosted by Sean Penn, who was on great form, surrounded by his film stars pals Robert de Niro, Uma Thurman, Harvey Weinstein, Ryan Gosling, Naomi Campbell , Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway. Then, slipping in after the rest, the welcome addition of Leonardo DiCaprio, the newly single man du jour who has been spotted wooing Blake Lively on Steven Spielberg’s yacht.

He was on fine form, interrupting the auction to make a huge pledge of his own for Haiti and press-ganging three of his mates at the dinner to match him. As the dinner ended, I was ready to head home, feet screaming as they were wedged into yet another pair of heels for the umpteenth time. But lovely Juliet from Hello magazine had other ideas. ‘We’re off to Roberto’s yacht for a party, you have to come,’ she told me...so I did, as you can see from the pic of Juliet and me above, taken just before we went on board.

The joy of kicking off those masochistic Stuart Weitzman snakeskin babies that I so love to walk barefoot on Cavalli's teak decks (and I'm not talking about the great designer's chest) was almost as good as being served Champagne on his amazing yacht which is decorated in animal print galore plus his own range of homes furnishings.

The DJ was rocking the guests, which had included Janet Jackson earlier that evening, and everyone was en forme. Then Juliet had another suggestion....what about the Jamiroquai private gig at the Replay party? This was the hottest ticket of the night, everyone wanted to go, but the list was tight. I was erring towards home at this point but J was insistent, telling me the PR had been badgering her to come along and it would all be fine.

We arrived to see thongs of people fighting to get past security, who were having none of it. But one quick call from Juliet and the PR was whisking us past the hoi polloi, ushering us into the VIP area with a glass of champagne each and suddenly we were a few feet from Jay Kay blasting out some of my favourite songs of the last 15 years.

There’s no way to top this, I thought, until we scored an invite to Leonardo’s private party at his villa above the Croisette, which we walked straight into with no silly red velvet ropes, security goons or other annoyances. Leo looked pleased to see us (!) and stood right next to me chatting with his entourage, fighting off female attention from a gaggle of gorgeous models and looking very relaxed. I did wonder if he had Blake hidden in a cupboard upstairs but he was happy to mingle and chose a large cigar as we all admired the view of the bay of Cannes, which was truly spectacular.

We left at 4.30am, with the party still going strong, the DJ playing a great disco mix and the chef cooking sausages on the barbecue for the 100 odd guests.

A truly fantastic finish to a really brilliant two weeks. It was a bit like being up for an Oscar – I was ‘gifted’ as they say in the good old USA, a pair of Armani rimless sunglasses and a bottle of Mont Blanc perfume to make my festival even more enjoyable. This one is going to take a lot of beating.

Was planning a nice quiet week of writing and working diligently at my PC, with no more namedropping now that I am back on school run/Carrefour/dog walking duties once again, but alas, it is not to be. St Tropez on Friday and Saturday, where Sylvia and I will no doubt be tripping over celebrities as they clamour to get near us and checking out the fab looking Hotel Sezz. Then it’s the Formula 1 terrace party at the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday with Milly, where we will be watching our first ever GP in true style. Normal life will just have to be resumed next week instead.

Night Fever

Who knew I could be this hardcore? Eight days into the Cannes Film Festival and I have been out every night partying...or should I say watching celebrities partying. Ok, partying a little alongside them. Everyone knows I love a party but this is ridiculous....on Monday night I went to four and Sunday’s party started at midnight and ended at 6am!

I've watched Duran Duran and Jessie J in concert, mingled with SJP, Uma Thurman, Lara Stone, Naomi Campbell, Jude Law, Bradley Cooper, Jamie Foxx, watched Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody try and out party each other, drank champagne on a yacht, eaten sushi and drank lavender vodka cocktails at the Nobu pop up on the roof of 3.14 and still have cocktails with Roberto Cavalli and dinner at the Carlton with Robert de Niro, Leo diCaprio, Sean Penn and Ryan Gosling to come. As you can see, namedropping doesn't come easily to me.

So far, the best party has to be Art of Elysium purely because I was in the presence of long time crush and Mad Men star Jon Hamm. We had a little chat, he touched my arm and it was just magical although I'm sure his girlfriend didn't see it that way.

For atmosphere, it had to be the Calvin Klein party which was on the Martinez Z plage and full to bursting with A list celebs dancing their socks off and drinking the bar dry. Watching the Duran Duran boys jump around like teenagers at VIP room was a laugh too.

But for good old fashioned fun, and not a celeb in sight, it was the Bollywood party on the beach opposite the Carlton, complete with Sikh DJ, fantastic Indian buffet, champagne and a lot of people who knew how to enjoy themselves and dance the night away. Had a lovely chat with Greg Dyke, head of the British Film Institute, former tv-am boss and the man who famously invented Roland Rat.

Last night it was de Grisogono, always a glittering bash, at the Eden Roc, as you can see from the picture above it was black rather than red carpet but nonetheless filled with stars galore and Will.i.am on the DJ decks by the pool. There were fireworks and balls of flames shooting into the night sky in time to the music…just utterly, utterly fabulous.

So I've been on the red carpet, interviewing the stars, partying and writing fab reports for Life and Style in the US and Look in the UK. But I haven't been invited to have supper with Johnny Depp. That is Issy’s invitation from her friend whose dad is a film director and fair to say that mama and big sis are green with envy and planning to turn up and deliver her `”forgotten” overnight bag just after he arrives! I've been topped by my 11yo, which is actually quite cool.