FILM actress Liz Taylor was not a happy bunny when she arrived an hour late for lunch at Glasgow's swish Rogano restaurant in September, 1979. As she sat down for lunch she turned to the press photographers who followed her in with flash-guns blazing and told them: "Have you no manners?" Fortunately she left on the Shuttle to London that afternoon before she could read the story in that night's Evening Times where my old chum and colleague Marian Pallister acerbically wrote that fans had waited patiently in the rain to see a superstar and instead were confronted by "a dumpy little housewife showing every one of her 46 years-worth of wrinkles and high living."

Methinks Marian was a bit fed up after waiting over an hour outside in the drizzle. Sister paper The Glasgow Herald, as always the paper of record, told us that Liz dined on mussels mariniere followed by Dover sole bonne femme accompanied by vintage Pouilly-Fumé. My mouth is watering just writing that.

Purely for research I strolled into Rogano where I learned that Liz did not sign the restaurant's celebrated visitors' book because of the press pestering her that day. A bouquet of flowrs, sent over by a member of the press, was left behind.