ANSWERS

1) B. In fact, Sir elton specified that chrysanthemums, lilies, carnations and daisies must not be included among the demanded ‘large arrangement of coloured flowers’. His tour rider detailed that the Diet Cokes ‘must be in cans’.

2) B. The musician was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, but legally changed his name to elton Hercules John. He took inspiration for his middle name not from the Greek hero, but from the name of the horse in the TV sitcom Steptoe And Son.

3) False. This was actually a letter — written at the suggestion of his therapists — to cocaine, which, at the peak of his drug addiction in the Seventies and early eighties, he was taking every four minutes.

Sir elton did, though, have a long‑running feud with Madonna, whom he once called ‘a fairground stripper’.

They eventually made up after arriving by chance at the same restaurant, where Sir elton apologised and offered to buy her dinner.

4) D. The pair have penned more than 30 albums together since 1967 — but they started out exchanging their music and lyrics by post and have never written a song together while in the same room.

5) B. elton’s Louis XIV costume for his 50th birthday party — which included a 3ft‑high silver wig topped by a Spanish galleon emitting smoke from its cannons — was so lavish that the singer had to be transported to the bash in a furniture removal van.

He was hoisted on to the vehicle on a hydraulic platform, with two attendants carrying his 35ft ostrich‑feather train.

He had previously dressed up as Donald Duck and the eiffel Tower.