You can never predict the future. We’re always told “Expect the unexpected” and last night was testament to that.

I was sitting at my desk in Los Angeles just a couple of miles from the Beverly Hilton when I received a text message from a friend telling me that Whitney Houston was dead.

I was absolutely stunned and immediately went on-line to check the veracity of the claim. There in black and white was confimation. Dead at the age of 48 . Found in her hotel room.

I never met Whitney Houston but for some reason I was really shocked and extremely saddened by the news. I’ve always admired her extraordinary talent. Just six years older than me, her music has defined my adult life. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say she was unbelivably gifted with an extraordinary vocal range. And she proved it by becoming one of the world’s best-selling artists.

Lots has been written about her; how she rose to fame and fortune and then crashed to Earth spiralling out of control in a cocktail of drink and drugs.

And yet recently it seemed that she had pulled herself through her darkest hours. Her first album in 7 years was critically acclaimed and went platinum, she was making a movie and had been rumoured to be a new judge on the X factor.

Last night that recovery ended.

The post-mortem has not revealed any suspicious cause but it will take six to eight weeks for the toxicology results to come through. Until then, her cause of death is pure speculation.

Her death has been playing on my mind all day. I keep wondering if she knew quite how much she had achieved and how fortunate she’d been. I also mused about whether she had enjoyed the journey to the top.

Fame brings with it incredible pressure. And many stars find it hard to cope turning to drugs and alcohol. She herself said that she was her own worst enemy.

Life is incredibly short and having had two near-death experiences myself, I can honestly say it changes your outlook forever. I am so grateful to still be alive and to be doing everything I love.

Every day is a blessing. We really do need to be grateful for everything we have – our families, friends, laughter and above all our good health.

And that’s the conclusion that I have come to about this tragic turn of events. Today shows once again that  despite amassing fame, fortune and fans – without your health you have nothing.

There is something extraordinary about the British psyche. We are a fairly placid race and reasonably polite but when push comes to shove we are quietly determined, stoic, pig-headed and well.. .just get on with things.

And you don’t have to look far to see how much influence the Brits have had in world history. Even though our Empire is long gone, there remains a most extraordinary collection of 54 territories that are part of the British Commonwealth. It counts Queen Elizabeth II as its head and even though they may be thousands of miles away from blighty, many ooze Britishness. Take Barbados for example with its Parliamentary democracy and love of cricket!, India with its traditional British architecture and railways (hope they’re better than ours), and the Regency style architecture and the red telephone boxes in Malta and of course the fact that English is a national language. And a lot of people live in the Commonwealth. A lot…… more than 2 BILLION on six continents.

The British Commonwealth

Now the elephant in the room is the dear old USA.

The British did of course settle in the US early in the 1600s in Jamestown. Millions of British people emigrated after 1776. In the original 13 colonies, the law was founded on English Common law and most of the Founding Fathers were English including Samuel Adams. And most US presidents have had English ancestry.

Anyway, as you will no doubt recall from your history lessons, there was an almighty rumpus where tea was thrown from the tea clippers into the harbour as direct action against the British Government and the Tea Act which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. This outraged the colonists as they felt taxes should only be raised by their own representatives. This became known as the Boston Tea Party and was a key part of the American Revolution which escalated into War and in turn lead to the Declaration of Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain on July 4th 1776.

So the US is not in the British Commonwealth but there are millions of people in the US with British Ancestry and there are over half a million British expats living in the US.

Now here in LA, Tuesdays are very important.

The reason? We, the Brits, congregate for breakfast in a British Restaurant and share stories, tales, advice and gossip over a full English Breakfast washed down with lashings of English Tea. (which actually comes from India but don’t say anything!)

It really is the most extraordinary sight!  A whole restaurant of Brits, their haughty vowels clearly audible bemoaning the shocking state of the US, how you can never find proper baked beans or marmite, how the Americans can’t drive and certainly don’t know how to use a knife and fork. And then of course comes the subject of the language they speak and how we do not share a common language and how many mistakes can be made by thinking so.

After an hour and a half of this “therapy”, having shared stories about how fantastic the UK is and how much we miss certain things and how America will never be Britain, we air-kiss, stride out into the Californian sunshine, don sunglasses and roar off into the distance in our convertibles.

Laughable?  Of course.  Inevitable? Absolutely. Would we change any of it?  NO!

You see the thing is that we actually love being in the US, we just can’t admit it!

And for the record you don’t have to be British to come to breakfast… you just have to like us!!  But remember, (as the recent song states so eloquently)……we no speak Americano!

It’s panto season!  A peculiarly British institution. A time for grown ups to wear elf hats, heckle the performers and generally behave in an all together boisterous fashion.

And last night was no exception. Well apart from one big one!  This was was not the UK, this was LA!

You have to understand that the Americans have absolutely no idea what panto is all about. Half the fun of last night was watching people’s bemused faces when the audience chorused back “Hello Muddles” whenever the tongue tied narator-cum-jester appeared on stage. However, they soon got the hang of it and by the second half were heckling with aplomb!

This was the second year that the Lythgoe Family (as in Nasty Nigel – actually I don’t think he’s very nasty at all, but don’t tell anyone) have put on their quintessential British showcase and I have to say Kris and the team did a great job!  It was almost like being back at home.

I was trying to explain to my American friends what I wanted to drag them to. And in so doing, I realised that Pantomime is an extraordinarily difficult concept to explain.

Ok here we go….They are musical shows largely based on Fairytale stories which have been completely re-written so they bear almost no resemblence to the original. Often fairytales combine and characters appear from completely unrelated shows for no reason. The music tends to be comprised of current “chart” hits ie ones that the kids would know – so last night we had tributes to Lady Gaga, Huey Lewis, Britney Spears and so on. Then there’s the whole cross-dressing thing of men dressing up as ugly women (again for no apparent reason) and the lead boy often being played by a girl . What would normally raise eyebrows in the street seems perfectly normal in a panto. A complicated affair to say the least!

The funniest bit for me was that in the programme (or program if you’re American) they had to try to explain what on earth this fiasco was all about… There were even written instructions explaining to the audience that it is normal practice to shout and heckle and boo and hiss! It also explained that there was also an obligatory sing-a-long.

Instructions aside, it really was a great and talented cast. Neil Patrick Harris (he of “How I met your mother”) played a mirror (!),  Marina Sirtis (she of Star Trek) played the wicked Queen, Lindsay Pearce (Glee) was Snow White and Erich Bergen (Jersey Boys) was Prince Harry (see what they did there!) and Jonathan Meza was an outstanding Muddles.

It really was a family affair. Nigel Lythgoe’s son Kris wrote and produced it. Nigel’s former wife Bonnie directed it and Nigel even had a cameo!

The US audience loved it and the handful of Brits that were present lapped it all up proclaiming it to be a most excellent British export!

I really haven’t had such fun for ages. Oh no you didn’t!  Oh yes I did!!