I'm wishing on a star . . . and I want to meet the best of them

And although (as a reader quite rightly pointed out last weekend) I'm a 'no one', I feel like I've interviewed enough people over the last year to see what really separates the stars from the other, normal rocks.

For me, a star transcends the normal realm of functioning. If someone is 'just like a guy you'd meet down the pub' or is 'so down to Earth' then to me, they're not a star.

A star is the kind of person that can pick up the phone to their agent at three in the morning and tell them that they want pancakes shipping in from the Back End of Nowhere, USA, in time for breakfast and will get it.

I want Prince demanding we now address him as a symbol, or Mariah Carey asking that her hotel be filled with only white liquids, flowers and furnishings. I want stars in baths filled with Cristal Champagne.

Why is it so hard to find a real star these days?

Hate him all you like, but Kanye West is a superstar. He lives somewhere in the sky on a cloud of his own making, I'm sure. There are hundreds and hundreds of great rappers out there in the world, but there's a reason that Kanye is as successful as he is, and it's not just to do with his rhymes. He is bonkers and lavish and strange and unusual, and to me, that's it. The real X Factor.

I've interviewed singers that've been through Simon Cowell's talent show wringer. Chatting to them is a strange experience that isn't unpleasant but is devoid of something I can't quite put my finger on. One spoke to me about how much they just loved going out for a Sunday roast dinner. Maybe it's the journalist in me that wants huge, bonkers stories about running through the secret entrances of strip clubs clutching the hand of some 80s movie star, but I don't think it is. Even as a reader I want to hear tales of complete and utter super-human madness, the likes of which I'll never see or experience myself.

And it's not just the music world that has its stars. I have a fascination with footballer Mario Balotelli which has nothing to do with his skills on the pitch. I don't know what position he plays in, what his season was like last year or what his stats are like.

But what I have heard is he once set off fireworks in his bathroom. I've heard rumours that once, at a petrol station, he picked up the bill for everyone's fuel. And I've also heard he once went into a library and settled everyone's late book fees.

I'm not saying he's an angel (I also read he once did a wee on someone as a joke), but I do believe his strange behaviour make him one of the most fascinating people in footie. Sure, he could give half of his salary to donkey sanctuaries or do something incredible for one of the millions of worthy charities in the world, but what can you do? To some that would inevitably make him a legend. But to me, that'd just make him a really generous guy, no more.

It's the stories that people will tell for years that earn you that title, like the time he was reportedly sent by his mum to pick up a few household items before returning with a giant trampoline, two Vespa scooters and a Scalextric set.

I interviewed Leo Sayer this week. I've never really been particularly captivated by his work (though Thunder in my Heart is a JAM). Remembering back to Celebrity Big Brother series five, Leo took a vow of silence and escaped the house by breaking open a door with a broom after hitting a two-way mirror. So it's fair to say that he's not a run-of-the-mill kind of a character, but when I spoke to him, he was nothing like I'd expected.

In many ways, he truly believed himself to be one of the greats. He mentioned words like celebrity, star and personality much more than I did (him at least five, me at most one, mirroring him). However, for all of this, he was an incredibly likeable man.

His self-belief was so strong it should've made me vomit all over myself, but instead it had quite the opposite effect. I was buoyed by his positivity and spirit. Where I expected he might tell me about his glory days, he talked as though he was still in them, or that they were yet to come. I love that attitude. He was not unkind or impolite in any way, just admittedly self-centred enough to stay afloat in an industry that has threatened to tear him asunder for decades.

Is he a star? I think so. He certainly considers himself one, in an empowering kind of a way, and that's much of the battle really, isn't it?

What I've noticed is how much more star quality the older celebrities have compared with the newer ones.

My friend Louis wrote a book on the rise and fall of the record industry, and told me modern stars are trained not to say anything odd or controversial these days. Maybe that's why I'm told tales of loving roast dinners, instead of madcap stories of snorting unmentionables off strippers'...well... unmentionables. Perhaps the big moneymakers are sterilising them not to say anything they shouldn't, just in case it makes for a hole in the already ever-depleting money pot?

What does this mean for the next chapter though? Can we get more Kanyes? Or would that be awful?

I feel like I'm not going to be able to settle until I interview someone who demands I arrive in a black taxi dressed in only black and do not look them directly in the eyes. I lust for that moment when Prince tells me I can interview him but only by carrier pigeon on paper crafted from trees from secret, Norwegian forests with a green ink fountain pen. I want Yoko Ono to tell me the wind is going to whisper the answers to all of my questions if I listen in at midnight.

Shh, I'm listening.