Hilary, the most beautiful woman in the world, flew off to Las Vegas yesterday, Sunday, to attend her daughter, Victoria’s, wedding.

I travelled up on Saturday night so that I could see her off at Manchester airport, which is much bigger than I remember, and a place I thought would be crawling with armed policeman. But not a copper in sight, not inside or out, although there was an eerie feeling of being under surveillance - you know, one false move and the SAS have you pinned to the floor with a gun to your head for openly carrying a copy of Jeremy Clarkson’s latest best seller, which is fair enough I suppose.

Anyway, the most beautiful woman in the world was travelling with her best friend Pat (Mrs Robinson to you), who’s a bit of a stunner herself, and I was beginning to wish that Victoria had chosen Blackpool to get married, or the end of Wigan Pier, anywhere other than an air-conditioned amusement arcade in the middle of a desert six thousand miles away, because I was already missing TMBWITW dreadfully, and she was only half way through checking-in her luggage!

In fact when we met up again for a coffee - before she disappeared into the crowded hell hole of the departure lounge - I could see she was a bit upset herself. Obviously she was already missing me too. Well, not exactly. Apparently a man in a dark suit, with a bulge under his left armpit, had confiscated her lip-gloss, which is a bit like telling a drowning man the lifeboat service is on strike.

I then spent an hour (a bit too close to a bunch of very weird Luzozade drinking plane spotters) watching a lot of aircraft taking-off and landing, in the hope of spotting the Continental Airlines Jumbo (not sure I did though), before heading for the railway station in the airport. It was shut for vital engineering work.

The replacement bus service to Manchester Piccadilly was slow, very slow. The driver was also listening to Radio One, which is strangely alienating in the sense that by the end of the journey I felt I wanted to kill someone - anyone, but most of all the bus driver.

And the last direct train to Birmingham had gone as well. But don’t panic as Corporal Jones would say, seek advice and then catch the last direct train to anywhere, in this case Euston, changing at Stoke-on-Trent, then Leamington Spa, where I had to wait for an hour and a half (avoiding the bruised gaze of a drunk, and believe me reading Jeremy Clarkson on a station platform can keep anyone, or anything, at arms length, he’s the literary equivalent to Flit) for the Stratford train.

I finally reached home around six (Henley Street was strangely deserted due, I learned later, to there having been an exhibition showing plans for a new and controversial footbridge across the Avon - wow!) by which time TMBWITW was two thirds of the way across the Atlantic and probably fast asleep no doubt with a lunch and a couple of glasses of wine under her belt.

So, what’s all this got to do with Al Pacino I hear you whimper? Well, a couple of weeks ago on the shores of Lake Windemere TMBWITW and I were talking about the wedding and I told her a story I’d heard about a Las Vegas hotel/casino owner who, when asked what happened when his much publicised $1,000,000 fruit machine jackpot was won, replied…

” I invite the winner to invest in the business.”

Which got me talking about Al Pacino and The Godfather (not difficult to do as he’s a favourite actor of mine, as is that hugely influential film) and how, in the 1990s, Pacino had made a wonderful documentary called Looking For Richard (it took him several years to make between major movies) which was all about Shakespeare’s Richard III and how he, Pacino, wanted the play to become much more accessible to a much wider audience, especially an American audience. It really is a great film, and part of it was filmed here in Stratford when I was lucky enough to be a part of Sir Peter Hall’s RSC production of Julius Caesar. I can clearly remember, one evening before the show, a rather excited assistant director telling us that Pacino would be in the audience that night. Whether he was or not I don’t know, but we put on a spectacularly over-the-top performance which we knew would blow Michael Corleoni’s socks off.

I’m still waiting for the call from Hollywood.

And why doesn’t the RSC give Pacino a call to come over and play King Richard III here in Stratford?

Finally, I just want to tell Hilary, if you’re reading this, darling, that I love you and miss you.

Oh, and if my reader in Las Vegas comes across her trying to win that $1,000,000, please be nice to her.