Burying yourself in the countryside to wait out the odd pandemic is all well and good – and we’re grateful for our lot, believe me – but every now and then, you feel the need for a bit of a break. You know: crisp white tablecloths, polished silverware, a glass or two of champers, and someone else to do the cooking and washing up.

So when we found the early symptoms of cabin fever setting in, we decided to sally forth to the nation’s capital, book a cut-price room in a hotel, and have dinner. A spot of judicious shopping might be in order too.

Eating out has always had a special significance for us: Daniela’s father was a chef and her mother managed restaurants, including the one we patronised yesterday; my parents started taking their kids out to dinner when we were very young. I’m not sure why, and I think they had cause to regret it often, but I’ve never lost the sense of occasion – that feeling that this is a bit of a treat – that comes with getting gussied up and heading out to a smart place.

So last night we scrubbed up with more excitement than usual and made our way to the hotel restaurant. Aperitifs ordered, the menu pored over, we were waiting for our starters when Daniela hissed that a celebrity had just walked in. We did not behave with dignity – I snapped a sneaky phone shot which Daniela posted on Facebook with a lot of emojis and we speculated about going over to declare our fandom.

The best celeb encounter I had was in 1999, when I worked at the London Stock Exchange, taking care of that august institution’s media relations programme. One day I took a call from a film producer’s assistant, who was interested in scoping out our building for use in a movie. I can’t remember why we said yes to this request, as it wouldn’t really do much to enhance our reputation for orderly markets and deep liquidity, but we hosted the crew’s recce, briefed our security staff, and thought nothing more of it.

Until, that is, the Saturday morning in question, when I was woken before dawn by a call from an anxious location manager, who hadn’t been able to gain access to the building. By the time I was on site, the problem had been resolved and the side door of the Exchange Tower on Throgmorton Street was surrounded by lighting rigs, camera doohickeys, caravans and people milling about.

There was also a Christmas tree with a bunch of faux presents around its base – the film, to be called Entrapment, portrayed a heist timed to occur during the Y2K computer meltdown on New Year’s Eve 1999. ‘Our’ scene was the culmination of a car chase through the Christmassy streets of London.

Our head of security, Abdul, told me with barely-contained excitement that the stars of this film were Sean Connery & Catherine Zeta Jones – and they would soon make an appearance. I met up with the location manager and props crew and we hung out on the sidelines as Sean and Cath pulled up in a battered Jaguar XKR and scuttled into the Exchange’s back entrance, shouting the same few lines of dialogue, again and again. It was not riveting to watch.

But then we were invited to meet the stars! Abdul was first in line and had no compunction about draping an arm around Sean for a photo; I satisfied myself with a firm handshake and a mumbled greeting. What do you say at a moment like that anyway? He was taller than expected; Cath was shorter but extraordinarily pretty.

I had no photo or autograph to commemorate the moment, but I hung with the crew for the next scene, shot on the roof of the old International Press Centre in Shoe Lane with a view of St. Paul’s. Cath was there, smoking and commenting on the beauty of the cityscape; the crew ignored her and I left before the boredom overcame me entirely.

Anyway, our Canberra celeb was of a different ilk to these big-screen icons; quite a bit shorter than Sean and a better singer: none other than ‘70s singer-songwriter Leo Sayer! Having established that it was indeed he, we speculated about what to say if we were to approach him. Again, nothing seemed quite right: “love your work” has been done to death; “your music was really important to me” a little insincere. I thought my suggestion, “you make me feel like dancing,” was witty but possibly a bit facetious.

Anyway, we lost the moment and our brush with stardom was over as the great man made his exit unseen while we sank a few nightcaps in the bar (out of long tall glasses, naturally). Wikipedia reveals that he moved to Australia after being ripped off by his UK record company and that he lives somewhere around here – I guess he’s earned a bit of privacy.

The thing is, I have learnt from rubbing shoulders with celebrities and stars that ultimately their larger-than-life status is illusory – in the flesh, they can’t live up to the myth. Sean, the greatest Bond of all, was a tallish Scots chap; Leo, an anonymous diner. I once stood on Eastenders actress Tamsin Outhwaite’s toe (coincidentally in a hotel bar) and she appeared mostly to be an angry blonde woman.

Maybe it’s a cliché, but ‘never meet your heroes’ is probably good advice; it doesn’t take a 70s singer with a Grammy and several gold records to make a post-isolation dinner special – although to be fair, he made for some good Facebook material, to be forgotten in a day or two.