The other day I went to my doctor and said I felt giddy for the first hour after I got up in the morning.

His response was “get up an hour later”. I then said I had a wart that was annoying me and he just said “never mind, it will grow on you”.

What has become of the NHS? I was reflecting this week on how in the 1960s I would run through cornfields for a hundred yards with a young lady and then we would collapse and whisper sweet nothings to each other.

Now I can only run ten yards downhill if wind assisted and if I dropped to the ground the only thing I would whisper is “call an ambulance” but such is life.

I was sorry to hear that veteran cinematographer Gil Taylor has died just one year short of his 100th birthday. Gil started his career at MGM in Borehamwood in 1948, filming The Guinea Pig with Richard Attenborough, who has incidentally just celebrated his 90th birthday in a retirement home.

Gil went on to film Ice Cold In Alex and TV series such as The Avengers and The Baron at Elstree but is best remembered for his work on Star Wars in 1976. Gil was born in Bushey Heath and was still signing Star Wars memorabilia until the year he died, such is the fan base for that movie.

I must quash a rumour that is circulating and I have been asked about it several times in the past few weeks. The rumour goes that Tesco in Borehamwood is closing as the land is leased from the council and they want it back.

How do these ‘urban myths’ get started? The council has never owned the land Tesco stands on as the 12 acres were sold by Brent Walker to the supermarket chain in about 1989 for £19million.

Several years later the council bought the remaining 15 acres of Elstree Studios from Brent Walker for just under £2million.

I must admit I once started a rumour that even got picked up by the national media. In the late 1990s superstar Tom Cruise was staying at High Canons mansion near Shenley.

I decided to test out the power of rumours by spreading the story he had been spotted shopping in Borehamwood's Tesco wheeling a trolley around with Nicole Kidman. It proved my point of this silly celebrity new stories world we live in today.

I watched the opening evening of Celebrity Big Brother, which is filmed at Elstree Studios, but almost felt like reporting the programme for a breach of the trade descriptions act.

Where were the ‘celebrities’? I know of one actress who was offered £300,000 to appear in the show but declined. I have read that Jim Davidson turned down the show but I guess for any fading celebrity or so called TV reality show star, it must be hard to resist the money. Still, it makes money for Elstree so that's a good thing.

I was surprised to hear that both Elstree Studios and the BBC Elstree Centre have noise abatement orders on them because of complaints from residents who live close by.

Personally my attitude is if you choose to move near any particular place, live with it as they were there for many decades. It was recently on the radio about newcomers to a village complaining about the church bells ringing, despite the fact they have done it for 400 years.

I was amazed last week when a young lady stopped me in the car park of the Toby Carvery and she said she loves those old black and white film noir movies of the 1940s and mentioned such names as Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews.

Some of my younger friends would not sit through a black and white film if I paid them but I think they are missing out.

Nowadays I like to finish each day with a viewing of an old British B movie DVD of a picture made in the 1950s and 1960s.

I find them very nostalgic, often full of familar character actors and a great deal of drinking and smoking.

I suspect the audiences of the day were not much different as cinema screens used to have to be changed every couple of years due to the nicotine staining.

Finally I leave you with a quiz question. What old advert was this the slogan of and what was the product? The slogan was ‘It's so big you have to grin to get it in’. No rude answers please.