In June 2008, not long after Barry Humphries, 74, was warned not to work for six months following an appendix explosion, Humphries's client Dame Edna launched her own cosmetics range and held a soiree at the Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge, where invitees gobbled french fancies decorated with iced spectacles.

Present were Leah Wood (who had interrupted her honeymoon because her father had fallen for a cocktail waitress); Tara Palmer-Tomkinson (on the cover of London papers that day, with a partially rebuilt hooter); and Zandra Rhodes (carrying a purse which resembled a stuffed dog).

Edna reflected: "Back in Melbourne, when I was a young housewife, wrist-deep in grey washing-up water and mutton fat and peas, looking out of the kitchen window through chipped venetian blinds at the broken kiddies' toys in the back garden, I never dreamt that one day I would be at this three-star hotel speaking to a really distinguished group of cutting-edge women... and the occasional man."

Salman Rushdie's son Zafar was present and Edna offered "fatwas of love" to him.

"Look at these cakes!" exclaimed Edna. "Someone's been to a bit of trouble. Not a lot of trouble... But it's a miracle that this has happened. And it will be a miracle when this stops happening, actually."

Thoroughly revitalised later in the year, Edna appeared on US TV show View From The Bay, cooking to perfection her Dadaist dish "the pineapple and sausage surprise" for a live daytime audience.