[General] a roll-call of London's who's who

[dilermando]

From The night even Liz Hurley got squiffy... and she wasn't the only one | Mail Online

In the text below, what do the words in bold mean?

The uber-glamorous event hosted a roll-call of London's who's who as stars such as sports presenter Kirsty Gallacher, model Elle McPherson and Elizabeth Hurley arrived in a blaze of flashbulbs.

[Anglika]

Gossip column jargon.

"uber-glamorous" = super glamorous

"roll-call of London's who's who" = everyone who is anyone [in the Daily Mail gossip columnist's view] was there

"a blaze of flashbulbs" = there were masses of photographers, all of whose cameras flashed as it was dark. If you think of one flashbulb going off, imagine what the effect is if 25 go off all at the same time - a veritable blaze of light.

[BobK]

An addition about "roll-call of London's who's who":

People who enlist in an army are 'enrolled' - in this case "the roll" is a list of all the relevant people. When a coachful of tourists stops for ten minutes, before they start up again the courier 'calls the roll' - not as formally as in the army.

In the UK (and probably there are lots of spin-offs everywhere else) there is a big book called Who's Who: Who's Who (UK - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) . I imagine this book is the source of the expression "a Who's Who", meaning a list of notable people - (I 'hear' the capital Ws, even when they're not there. )

So the meaning of the whole phrase is, as Anglika said, 'everyone who is anyone [in the Daily Mail gossip columnist's view]'.

b