One of the many highlights of the festive season here in Norwich is the eagerly anticipated return of the EDF Energy Ice Rink. With its canopy of sparkling lights and warm atmosphere, the temporary rink turns what might otherwise be a gloomy and windswept expanse of paving into a wonderful wintertime attraction.

One of the many highlights of the festive season here in Norwich is the eagerly anticipated return of the EDF Energy Ice Rink.

With its canopy of sparkling lights and warm atmosphere, the temporary rink turns what might otherwise be a gloomy and windswept expanse of paving into a wonderful wintertime attraction. Indeed, it's always a shame in January when the structure has to be dismantled and, together with all our Christmas decorations, put away for another long year.

In this very column, early in 2005, I suggested a lucrative business opportunity that sounded like a really cool idea. So cool, in fact, it was freezing. Why not set up a permanent ice rink here in Norfolk?

It seemed absurd to me that although thousands of local citizens had discovered a talent and appetite for ice-skating, Norwich had no all-year-round rink.

My suggested location was on those sorely under-used playing fields around the Hewett School, which appear to be deserted almost every time I drive past.

Two years on, I'm delighted to say that Norwich now has the Ice Experience, a permanent rink built on part of the former Sport Village site. It sounds an excellent facility, and good value too, so young Gregory and I hope to get our skates on and pay a visit very soon.

We've already had a thoroughly enjoyable (if soggy) evening at the EDF Energy rink where two brave skaters from Holiday On Ice gave a brief performance amid freezing showers while dressed in skimpy Red Indian outfits. They were certainly 'heap big wet' after their impressive rain dance and we applauded with gusto.

Back in the winter of 2003, Gregory and I stepped on to the ice for the first time and clung anxiously to the edges, our feet slip-sliding away from under us as dozens of more confident folk whooshed past with apparent ease.

In the intervening years, however, we blundering Bullocks have gradually become more proficient. I still slip over occasionally - often when someone I know is among the many amused spectators. I've even fallen over on the rubber mats in the changing room.

And on our last visit I humiliated myself further by sitting on the end of an empty bench, which suddenly see-sawed into the air under my weight and sent me crashing on to the damp floor. As if skating isn't hard enough on the actual rink!

Speaking of elegance on ice, I must congratulate Marks & Spencer on its spectacular new television advert featuring British music icon Dame Shirley Bassey singing in a giant ice hotel.

In what must be the most stylish and slickly produced TV advert for years, Dame Shirley teams up with the 'famous five' team of M&S models, including Twiggy and the ever-so-slightly bizarre Erin O'Connor.

M&S describes the ad as “filmed in the spy-movie genre” but it is clearly a well-timed and executed homage to James Bond, and is particularly reminiscent of Pierce Brosnan's ice palace scenes from Die Another Day.

The classy Miss Bassey, of course, has sung three Bond film themes and is therefore inextricably linked with 007.

Amid the snowmobiles, reindeer, sleighs, fireworks and faux espionage, I find one thing very hard to believe: that the impossibly gorgeous Noemie Lenoir lounges around on a bed, reading spy novels while dressed only in stunning lingerie and sexy specs. If it's true, does anyone happen to have her phone number?

Looking at reaction to the ad on various internet sites, I detect that M&S might have shot slightly off target and alienated younger consumers by using Dame Shirley in the latest campaign. Some viewers apparently haven't a blooming clue who the booming diva is, and there's a suggestion that you have to be either over 25 or gay - or both - to appreciate her star status.

Other viewers, it seems, have been under the misapprehension that the scarlet-gowned singer in the advert is nothing like a dame but “that impersonator woman off Stars in Their Eyes” instead. Oh dear.

I've yet to see Daniel Craig's debut as 007 but even this Christmas commercial will be a tough act to follow for the new big-screen Bond.

Having been licensed to thrill in the superb M&S advert, maybe Dame Shirley could have added her usual dash of dramatic glamour by being given a role in Casino Royale. She would doubtless have left us all shaken AND stirred.

ianb@ianbcommunications.com