I hardly know where to start with this week’s auditions. They were mad, bad,  hilarious and…well rather sexy, it has to be said.

When you start with a woman called Edelweiss, who declares her act is ‘doggy singing’ and then proves this fact by howling Phantom of the Opera like a wounded warthog, then you know you’re in for a very weird show. Barking mad is the phrase that springs to mind.

Then there was dear old Leonard, and his tortuously slow Strongman act. He took so long lifting himself up that on the actual day we had to check several times that  he was actually still alive. But how can you not love a 73 year old man whose choice of song is ‘I’m Still Standing', and whose explanation for why he’s doing what he’s doing is: ‘At my age you’ve got to keep it up.’ I can’t do what he does, and I’m 30 years younger.

My favourite act of the night was Sophie the belly dancer. Obviously. There was just something about the way she wiggled that belly that Simon and I found extremely alluring – as you could probably tell by the embarrassing leers on our faces.

Talking of Simon, I was with him in Los Angeles this week promoting America’s Got Talent, and he started laughing so hard about the elderly singer/piano duo Harvey and Kay that I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel. 

It was her utterly indignant expression as the crowd chanted their disapproval that was so entertaining. You could see her thinking to herself: ‘These philistines know nothing about anything. I’m a STAR!’

And thanks to Britain’s Got Talent, she now is. If not, perhaps, for the reasons she hoped for…

On a less savoury note, Amanda’s come in for some quite revoltingly sexist criticism from some papers this week, most notably Jim Shelley in the Mirror.

Now I hired Jim, and think he’s a brilliant writer. But for him to judge anyone on their looks is like Gordon Ramsay berating someone for swearing.

I didn’t know Amanda before doing this show with her, but I can tell you that she’s one of the smartest, funniest and most down-to-earth people I’ve met in TV.

And she’s a terrifically warm judge, too. And those lips are real – take it from me…..I’ve felt them.