Piers Morgan: Mixing with the international stars:

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6

‘A feud should live a full and colourful life,’ said movie icon Paul Newman, ‘and then it should die a natural death and be forgotten.’

I’ve spent the past 18 months engaged in a bitter war of words with ex-Wham! star Andrew Ridgeley after he appeared on Good Morning Britain and behaved in a weirdly petulant manner when I asked him about George Michael.

Today, I was at a star-studded Christmas lunch party at the Savoy Hotel when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

It was Mr Ridgeley.

‘I’m sorry about what happened,’ he said. ‘It was unnecessary.’

I stood up, offered my own apology for over-reacting, we shook hands, and our feud died a natural death.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7

I was due to interview my old friend President Trump during the Nato summit in London earlier this week, for what would have been our fourth chat since he won the White House.

But our meeting at the US ambassador’s residence on Tuesday afternoon was mysteriously postponed at the last moment due to ‘schedule issues’.

This seemed an implausible excuse to me, and today I got the real reason.

‘Boris Johnson got it canned,’ revealed an impeccable source. ‘He begged Trump not to do it in case he said anything to you that might cost him the election.’

Wow.

The snivelling little toad.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11

Not content with wrecking my presidential interviews, Boris has also reneged on multiple solemn promises to appear on GMB during the election campaign.

So today, the last chance he would have to honour his word, we sent our intrepid newsman Jonathan Swain down to harangue him during a dawn visit at a dairy business in Yorkshire. Swain brilliantly got right up in Boris’s face and declared: ‘Deliver on your promise to talk to Piers and Susanna, Prime Minister, we’re live on ITV right now...’

‘I’ll be with you in a second,’ Boris lied, again.

‘Oh for f***’s sake!’ spat Johnson’s press secretary Rob Oxley, as he furiously jostled Swain away. Boris then fled inside a large fridge, stacked with milk bottles.

The perfect hiding place for a bottle job.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12

‘Always vote for principle,’ said former US President John Quincy Adams. It was with this in mind today that I trudged down to my local constituency polling booth in Kensington, west London, and put an X in the box for the man who’d just bombed my Trump scoop and hid in a fridge to avoid me.

I didn’t do so out of any great love for Boris’s grand vision of where to take Britain – his Tory manifesto seems largely designed to repair a lot the damage done by the last two Conservative governments with things like disastrous cuts to police numbers.

But in the end, I value the principle of democracy over anything else.

And as someone who voted Remain in the EU Referendum, I’ve been outraged by the systematic efforts from those who lost to try to defy the majority will of the British people that voted to Leave.

Boris, for all his faults, was the only main party candidate at this election who vowed to honour the result.

So even though I voted against Brexit, and still don’t think it’s a good idea, he got my support this time.

I’ve known Boris a long time and like Trump, his inflammatory bark is a lot worse than his bite. Twelve years ago, I interviewed him for British GQ and he gave an intriguing answer when I asked if he’d changed as a person since becoming a politician.

‘No, I think you become who you’re going to be at 12,’ he replied.

‘Who are you then?’

‘Erm… mainly harmless.’

‘Not completely?’

‘Nobody’s completely harmless. I’m largely harmless, overwhelmingly harmless. Well-meaning perhaps.’

I suspect that’s true.

Like me, he valued the advice of his grand-mother. ‘She always said to me, “It’s not how you’re doing darling, it’s what you’re doing.”’ And he compared himself to his hero Winston Churchill’s memorable self-analysis: ‘We’re all worms, but I do believe I’m a glow-worm.’

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13

Boris has confounded the sceptics again and won a massive election victory.

The very first person I saw when I arrived at GMB studios at 5am was his dad Stanley, who was bouncing off the walls with joy.

‘My boy’s done it!’ he cried, hugging me jubilantly.

Stanley, like his son, bubbles with spectacular levels of cheery, unabashed testosterone. When Boris first became London mayor back in 2008, I asked his sister Rachel to explain the secret of the male Johnsons’ supreme assurance. ‘Well,’ she giggled, ‘all the men are incredibly wellhung. I know because we all used to go skinny-dipping together. I think it’s that which gives them so much confidence.’

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14

I’ve had a lot of career highs – and lows! – but few to match the invitation I got recently to be a judge at this year’s Miss World, and to interview the final five contestants live on stage as the show beamed around the world.

My brief interrogations were notable for the fact that two of the ladies – Miss France and Miss India – appeared to have no idea what I was talking about, so answered completely different questions to the ones I posed.

But that minor awkwardness mattered not when I was invited back on stage at the end to re-interview the winner, Miss Jamaica, Toni-Ann Singh, a young woman whose rare beauty is only matched by her astoundingly good singing voice. ‘I’m a big fan of yours Piers!’ she exclaimed as we embraced in front of millions of viewers.

‘Doesn’t get better than that old son,’ chortled Bradley Walsh, whose wife was part of the TV production team.

He’s right. My work on this planet is done.

Merry Christmas.