Arise Sir Tom...

The last time he was invited to Buckingham Palace, he celebrated his OBE with a 13-hour 'love-in' with a 21-year-old lapdancer from Blackpool.

'It was encore after encore,' Stringfellows regular Christina James later kissed-and-told.

Yesterday, seven years on, Tom Jones was back to be knighted for his services to the music industry - this time with a trio of blondes in tow.

Unfortunately for the legendary crooner, their combined age was 222. Not that their advancing years deterred the Beverley Sisters - Joy, 76, and 73-year-old twins Babs and Teddie - who were there to pick up MBEs.

In fact, it all too quickly became clear that the identically-dressed singing siblings - who last had a chart hit decades ago - had no intention of allowing the newly-knighted 65-year-old sex bomb to hog their limelight.

Spotting the strangely orange-hued singer being interviewed about his honour live on ITV, they nipped past their team of Buckingham Palace minders and literally threw themselves on him, much to his chagrin.

'Oh we love you Tom, you're so wonderful,' the women trilled coquettishly - to the camera - before bursting into a rendition of their 1950s hit Sisters.

Sir Tom, his manager son Mark and the rest of the waiting award winners could only look on in astonishment as the bubbly threesome - in matching cream trouser suits and pink straw boaters - hoofed as if their lives depended on it, before plastering the singer with kisses.

For a man used to being pelted with knickers by over-excited lady admirers, Sir Tom did not look best pleased.

Although he gamely tried to play along, the grimace on his face told a very different story. 'They were like this back in the Sixties,' muttered his equally bemused son Mark, raising his eyebrows to the heavens.

After 30 excruciating seconds, a handful of younger members of the Beverley clan managed to coax the women away, still blowing kisses.

'Goodbye ladies,' Sir Tom muttered gallantly, shooting daggers from his slightly rheumy blue eyes.

At long last the man who sang such hits as It's Not Unusual, Delilah and What's New Pussycat was left to pay tribute to the Queen - and plug his new single with hip dance act Chicane.