You won’t BELIEVE what they tell me!

My family used to be landowners in Devon. I mentioned this to Lord Devon when I was showing off, and he replied, “You can’t have, because our family has always owned at least three-quarters!”

Camilla Kerslake tells me at the Collars & Coats gala ball that she got quite a dressing-down when she met the peer.

One of the unforeseen consequences of my damehood is I get called Dame Edna. I just say, “G’day, mate” in an Australian accent.

Dame Esther Rantzen reveals at the Hearing Dogs Awards that she gets mistaken for Dame Edna Everage.

I can’t watch myself in X Files, Hannibal or The Fall – I’m too scared! I did see bits of Hannibal but I had to fastforward the minute it started getting gory. When I was learning lines for X Files I could only read the scripts in daylight.

Gillian Anderson, right, tells me, at the Park Theatre’s charity gala dinner, that we’ll never catch her watching a horror movie.

Everyone thinks my daughter Anais is named after a perfume, but she’s named after author Anais Nin. Cacharel sent me a lifetime supply of the perfume Anais but I didn’t have the heart to tell them.

Who knew that Meg Mathews, who was also at the Hearing Dog Awards, had such artistic tastes?

We designers can’t tell people what to wear. I can think of one woman who has counted in and counted out a great many designers, but her look has never changed much – the Queen.

Jasper Conran tells me at the launch party of Tania Compton’s book, The Private Gardens Of England, how much he admires Her Majesty.