the rix mix

At Elton & David's wedding party:

Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, Elizabeth Hurley, Bryan Adams, Gary Barlow and Kid Rock were among those who streamed into the gala event Monday night in London's Soho neighborhood. John and Furnish slipped into the Too2Much venue just minutes before the show started.

Shirtless waiters wearing black ties and riding boots [were they armed with riding crops?] served guests flutes of champagne. The nightclub, once a strip club known as Raymond's Revue Bar, features an auditorium with red leather and banquette seating, a bar decorated with Swarovski crystals, chairs dipped in rubber and sculptured glass walls.

Deliveries of sushi and presents arrived at the main entrance as the celebrities partied on. Though the couple had asked revelers to give donations to AIDS charities in lieu of gifts, Cilla Black playfully promised to ignore the instructions.

"I'm going to get them the tackiest toaster I can find," the singer told reporters.

I've always liked Cilla, a Liverpudlian coat check girl who performed at The Cavern Club over 40 years ago (urged on stage by friends, the story went at the time), had hit records, & wisely shifted from wobbly ballad-belter to British TV variety show star & then aged as an all-purpose celebrity always on the verge of a "comeback." You can take the girl out of Liverpool, but you can't take the liver & onions out of the girl.