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| Nick and Andorian cosplayer at the premiere 'after-party' |
The closest I ever came (via the laws of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) was when Nick and I, 24 year ago, blagged ourselves tickets to the gala celebrity premiere of Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country (probably my favourite of the original Star Trek movies). I can't remember if this was through work or through my old Trekkie friend John Carrigan.
The only celebrities there actually connected with the movie were director Nicholas Meyer and Iman - model-turned-actress and wife of David Bowie - who played Martia the shapeshifter.
So I was in the same room as Bowie's wife, which is the next best thing to having been in the same room as him!
As is often the case when someone famous dies you discover all the fascinating facts about their life that you wish you'd known while they were alive.
For instance, thanks to the Times of Tunbridge Wells news website back in 2016, I learned of Bowie's connection to the town of my birth.
His mum came from Southborough (a 'suburb' of Tunbridge Wells that bridges the gap between that town and Tonbridge, where I now live) and she met her future husband (and David's father-to-be) at the old cinema in Tunbridge Wells.
Like the rest of the right-thinking world I've always been a fan of Bowie's music, but in recent years it took on an added poignancy, as his song Where Are We Now? was the only track I remember the radio playing as Rachel and I sat by my mum's bed in her final days.
After years of silence, he had surprised the world by announcing a new album seemingly out of the blue, and here I was hearing the first release from it (repeatedly), sitting in a night-shrouded room, swathed in grief, saying 'good bye' to my ailing mother.
When I think back to those days, and I often do, the image in my head is almost like a Nativity scene, with Rachel and I sitting in the halo of light from a bedside lamp, holding mum's hand, in an otherwise dark room, with Where Are We Now? providing the soundtrack for the vignette.