Shirley Bassey rarely does "behind the scenes". In fact, she rarely does interviews of any kind, preferring to let her prodigious voice and that painstakingly cultivated air of glamour do the talking.

Few would recognise this rather slight figure as the vertiginously high-heeled, big-bosomed diva of Big Spender or Diamonds Are Forever, but this may be no bad thing.

She is safe enough here within the portrait-lined walls of Cliveden House in Berkshire, the sort of hotel where the staff remember she is a Dame Commander of the British Empire. But a recent brush with the criminal classes has left her shaken.

"It was all rather nerve-racking," she says. "I was Christmas shopping in Knightsbridge with my daughter Sharon. We'd been into Harvey Nichols to find some presents.

"Somebody must have seen all the money and cards when I opened my bag to pay and followed me. I felt a bump but nothing more than that. And when I opened my bag at the next shop, there was no purse."

"This isn't England any more - at least it is not the country I remember growing up in," she says. "You don't hear English spoken here. You read about terrible things - not just drugs but all the killings. More here:

Oh yeah -- THIS is what we want for America too -- right libs? The Europeans have the right idea about EVERYTHING, right libs? Oh -- they're SOOOO enlightened. If by "enlightened" you mean brain-dead jackasses.