PITY poor Laura Bermingham and Maire Staunton. They are our busiest, most glamorous models but last Monday at the launch of the National Lottery's new -Fame & Fortune TV game show they were virtually ignored by the assembled men - despite the fact that Maire was wearing a rather small, very off the shoulder dress.
And there were rather a lot of men - the PR company organising the event never had such a prompt response from so many males to any luncheon invite.
The guest of honour, Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley was the reason for the palpable sense of flushed anticipation and her arrival caused the packed room to fall completely silent. One greying executive suit who really should have a better grasp of basic grammar pulled himself together for long enough to say to his mates "Do you like that?" which rather alarmingly resulted in an outbreak of nervous Beavis and Butthead type sniggering.
Joanna proved herself to be the most gracious, professional, amusing and quite genuinely fabulous guest - and she did look stunning.
While she doesn't think that there will another series of Ab Fab, she has already started to film an hour long Christmas special and she revealed that such is the cult status of the series that mega stars like Cher are already lobbying hard for even the teeniest part.
Joanna does a lot of promotional work like the lottery gig, but the other Ab Fab star and its creator, the very principled Jennifer Saunders, has banned the famous duo from advertising programme related things so you won't see Joanna in TV ads for Harvey Nicks or giving testimonials for magnums of bolly.
"It's such a pity, darling," said Joanna grinning wickedly. "Just think, I could retire and be rich for life."