A FEW weeks ago I wrote about showing Alan Carr around some of Leeds' gay pubs - he loved the city's vibe instantly and said he could quite happily move here.
Well, the other night he was back again as a guest of mine at Federation.
My big once-a-month club night, which started out at the Blank Canvas as a temporary event when we were waiting for the licence to come through for Club Mission, now has a new home at the Corn Exchange and is going from strength to strength.
Every night has a theme - this one was pirates - and Alan remembered to bring a three-pointed hat, but left his glasses at home.
Alan Carr without his specs is a bit like Su Pollard without hers. They're his trademark.
"If I wear my glasses when I'm out, people always come up and think they recognise me ... but when they try to remember who I am, they can only think of Olive from On The Buses," he complains.
Alan is so funny, everything he says cracks me up. He's camp as Christmas and larger than life. He loved Federation, despite the lack of eyewear everyone spotted him immediately and he enjoyed the attention, and posed for pictures with the drag queens! He came along with some of his friends from Manchester, where he lives.
When he was having a dance, I was laughing my head off ... till I realised that's just how he dances, and he wasn't trying to be funny. I'd better be careful or I'll make him paranoid!
The next Federation - our fifth birthday bash - at the Corn Exchange is on Easter bank holiday weekend, on Sunday for a change, rather than Saturday.
The dressing up theme is The Sound of Music. People used to dress up for Speed Queen in Leeds but nowadays I think Federation is the only place where people make an effort like that. It's good to uphold a proud Leeds tradition!
It's now my challenge to get Alan into a nun's costume for it - and I don't think he'll take much persuading.
Alan and his stage persona seem to be one and the same, but one comedy star who appeared - to me at least - to be vastly different off-screen was John Inman, who died a few days ago.
In Are You Being Served?, he was the only gay man on TV when I was growing up, apart from Larry Grayson.
That effeminate character, Mr Humphries, was so far away from what I felt I was, it made me want to stay in the closet and never come out.
Still, he was a great comedy actor and I must have been a fan in some way as I remember meeting him at Leeds City Varieties when I was 17 or 18 and he was in town to do a Good Old Days show.
He granted me an interview - very few celebrities refused, how could they say no to a kid waiting patiently with a tape recorder? - but he seemed reserved and unfriendly. I told him I too was gay but he showed no interest at all.
Not a classic one-to-one with a celeb, but maybe I caught him on an off-day. I wonder what he'd have made of Federation?
