Stars in ther own eyes.

We had a fun day out yesterday. We spent the day in Liverpool City Centre partaking in The Matthew Street Festival (more of that in a day or two).

When we were heading back to the car, we went past the fairly recently Hilton Hotel, which is just next to the pedestrian crossing for Liverpool's busiest road as demonstrated below.


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We needed to use the pedestrian crossing to get to the car park, but as we stood there waiting for the little green man as we have never tired of telling the mini me's, there was a bit of a kerfuffle at the drop off point for the hotel.


I had noticed a couple of youngish girls (late teens I would guess) wearing Liverpool Football Club attire standing near to the drop off point. As we had been standing next to the crossing we had also noticed a posh black 4x4 with blacked out rear windows sweeping into the drop off point just as we were about to cross. The girls started screaming and it soon became apparent that one of the occupants of the 4x4 was one of the stars of Liverpool Football Club.

Now, most readers of this here blog will be aware of my football leanings, but for the uninitiated, I am a big Liverpool Fan and even have a separate blog site here to rant and rave about them. Mrs S is a bit of a celebrity spotter and she was keen to see who it was that was stepping out of the car.

The man had performed his Incredible Hulk impression and turned green. We had two tired and hungry children to look after and I have to admit to a small curiosity to see who was in the car, but I decided that it would be better served if we could get the children to an eatery and off to bed. So whilst the man (and two children) were saying we could cross, we trundled to the other side of the road.

Now, Mrs S, didn't agree with my decision and was still keen to see who was at the hotel. She threw lots of perfectly valid arguments at me. It could be one of the stars, Torres, Gerrard, Carragher. I might get to say a few words to them. They may even say a few words back in return.

At the end of the day (I thought it appropriate to throw in a football cliche at this point, especially as it was the end of a fairly busy and tiring day) these footballers are only human, in the same way as other famous people are. They may think they are better than me (and they are better than me at football to be fair) they are still only flesh and blood.

I've had the experience of meeting quite a few celebrities ( a word I hate to use as anyone whose appeared in a YouTube video can claim to be a celebrity these days) including all of Take That (twice) Brian May (the Anita Dobson look-a-like winner 1998) and I even worked with Alvin Stardust (google him, I'm not here to educate all of you) for one summer. I have to say that each and every one of them were very grounded and down to earth, although admittedly I only met Take That as they were breaking through into the big time. They may have changed without my steadying hand to guide them.

We even have a celebrity parent at the school the mini me's go to. He appears regularly on TV and radio, has a national newspaper column and takes his kids to a state school pretty much every morning. I've only spoken to him in a former life when I was working with a local radio station and he was helping us turn on the town's Christmas Lights. Mrs S on the other hand was able to get him to send me a birthday card this year (and he was able to get it signed by his colleagues from his regular TV show).

I don't think Mrs S has her head turned by famous people. To be fair she is able to talk to anyone and doesn't target the well known amongst us. But she certainly doesn't shy away from them either. I like to think I respect their privacy, which I do for most people in life. But when the opportunity comes for a conversation with them I am really interested in what they have to say.

Which famous people have you encountered and how did you feel when you met them? Have you ever gone out of your way to meet someone in the public eye and was it worth the effort? What are your celebrity stories?


Edit :- Seems I have stumbled upon who the owners of the big black car were likely to be. Interesting.