As I listen to the menthol-cool vocal stylings of James Biddlecombe, I cannot help but marvel at the paradoxes which enrobe the persona of this truly mysterious performer. A question forms in my mind:  How can someone who sounds so innocent and so pure be so horribly guilty of so horribly much?

Guilty? Yes, guilty, I say,  beyond a shadow of a doubt!

The list of James Biddlecombe’s heinous crimes is a long one:

He is guilty of having entertained large groups of people in locations as diverse as sunny Ibiza and rainy Chipping Norton.

He is guilty of having made people chuckle until their foundation garments popped. (And, that was just the men!)

He is guilty of having sat on people’s laps – uninvited, no less! -  while he sang to them.

He is guilty of having used his voice – that ethereal God-given instrument of his – to titillate and to mesmerize.

He is guilty of having upstaged both Blossom Dearie and Eartha Kitt, even though both chanteuses were thousands of miles away at the time.

His is guilty of having an award-winning voice which has never actually won any awards, but should have.

He is guilty of having attired himself in tantalizingly suave suits in shockingly bright colors.

He is guilty of having allowed his audience to forget the trials and tribulations of their unspeakably dreary lives.

He is guilty of having replied, “Madame, I’d love to!” when once asked by a drunken toothless crone to sing ‘Fly me to the Moon.’

In short, James Biddlecombe is guilty of criminal vocal fabulosity!

I rest my case.

Simon Doonan – author of Beautiful People