My friend Helen got scared by the length of my blog posts and the fact that they didn’t tell readers what I had for lunch. This, you see, is what Helen equates with top blog posting. So, today’s lunch was chicken pie, veg and a potato-y thing. It was prepared by the good people in the GCap caff and served to me by Dorris, who had an evil glint in her eye as she shovelled a huge pile onto my plate. I think she’s trying to fatten me up.

Anyway, I digress. I had a bit of shock last week as I discovered that I had a ‘celebrity’ neighbour in the form of ex-Bill and ex-Eastender cast-member Billy Murray, or Johnny Allen as he’s more commonly known.  It was a bit of a surprise as I was on the phone to Russ and didn’t notice Johnny was picking up his post at the mailbox in our entrance hall, as the lift arrived and we both got in, I suddenly realised who it was. “Fifth floor!” I said, as he pushed my button. As the doors then opened I gave him a friendly neighbourly nod and hopped out. My housemate Mark, didn’t really share the enthusiasm, and as a Corrie watcher it took me quite a long time to explain who this ‘celebrity’ was, rather defeating the object.

I then had another lift moment with him the other day, as it reached the ground floor the door opened and he was standing directly opposite, with one of those mobile-phone hands-free things in his ear. This did make me jump slightly and I felt like an Albert Square ner’do’well about to get their head kicked in. In fact I just said ‘Hello’, as did he, and we both went on our way.

Apparently the block where we live has suddenly become a paparazzi heaven, it even gets quite a nice write-up in The People.