Recently in Celebrities Category

When a colleague claimed earlier that they had a picture of Julia Bradbury dressed as a fairy with walking boots on, I was interested. Very interested. For purely professional reasons, you understand.

It turned out not to be a hoax. The TV presenter (she fronted the wonderful Wainwright Walks) was dressed in the fairy costume over the weekend to launch National Dairy Week.

And I couldn't let a picture like this pass without giving you the chance to come up with a witty line or two - so it's also the subject of this month's FW caption competition, which you can enter here.  

It's my (current) dirty secret. I'm addicted to The X Factor.

I'm afraid I'm firmly in the "hate Jedward" camp, though. But I was still interested to see this story (and short vid) on The Sun's website about how they're helping up yields on one farm.

Just heard my Game Fair buddy Bernard Cribbins (there's a particularly unflattering picture of me with him here) is going to be in the Christmas episode of Doctor Who. How exciting...

Remember Mat Follas, the guy who won MasterChef? Well there's a review of his new restaurant in The Guardian.

Victoria Beckham has forked out £1,400 on two nine-inch, 13lb micro-pigs.

The miniature pot-bellied animals - fast becoming the latest must-have celebrity accessory - were a present for hubbie, David.

The pampered pets will be lapping up a life of luxury at the family's "Beckingham Palace" in Herts.

Press reports say Posh wants to name them Elton and David after Sir Elton John and David Furnish, while the football star prefers Pinky and Perky.

Here are some pictures of micro pigs in the Daily Mail.

Farmers Weekly's fame spreads even wider. Not only are we all over the airwaves because of our Britain's Sexiest Farmer competition, but we even popped up on Around The World In 80 Days last night.

The programme, which is part of the 2009 Children in Need campaign, follows six pairs of celebrities as they race against the clock re-enacting the epic odysseys of Phileas Fogg and Michael Palin for a 21st-century audience.

Last night Countryfile presenters Julia Bradbury and Matt Baker took up the baton travelling 3700 miles from Kazakhstan to China in just 14 days.

And what better way to break the boredom of a long train journey than reading a copy of FW?

It certainly worked for Biggins...

Another foodie is in trouble.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall got it in the neck a while back for admitting to having tucked into a giraffe (got it in the neck, geddit!) and now it's Sunday Times columnist AA Gill who's facing criticism after shooting an inedible baboon.

Personally, I never trust anyone who uses initials in that way. Pretentious tosh, if you ask me.

The latest celebrity (OK, sort of celebrity) to endorse food/drink is Donna Air.

Another TV chef in the headlines. After hearing that poor old pickled Keith Floyd has stuffed his last sea bass (he'd have probably done it with lemon, fennel and sweet sea salt) I now read that Clarissa Dickson Wright (she of the full name: Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmeralda Dickson Wright) could soon be the subject of a Hollywood film.

Meet Derek. He's the guy who'll appear in the first episode of the new series of Farmer Wants a Wife.

The show, which is presented by Louise Redknapp and airs at 9pm on FIVE next Wednesday, will follow the 30-year-old's romantic endeavours.

A master cheese grader is set to insure his biggest asset for £5m - his nose.

Nigel Pooley who works at Wyke Farms in Somerset uses his expert sense of smell to select over 12,000 tonnes of cheddar every year.

Good news for Katie Price (aka Jordan).

She may be getting divorced from Peter Andre today, but she will be able to take solace from the fact that she made it into Country Life's 100 Most Powerful People in the Countryside list.

She crept into 100th spot with the mag (which I've mentioned before because of its bizarrely posed ladies) declaring her "an ambassador for the 2012 equestrian sports" and citing the huge queues at her stand at Badminton and Burghley as evidence of her "drawing power".

Alongside the usual suspects, the list has some surprising inclusions, such as Bear Grylls in his role as Chief Scout (24th), explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes for "putting the backbone into Britain" (35th) and Hay Festival founder Peter Florence for showing that "rural Wales can be as intellectually powerful as London or Manhattan" (52nd).

Quite what Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik is doing in there at 46, I can't imagine. Whatever next? Katie Price as a Country Life frontispiece?

Couple of TV programmes to look out for.

The painter Sir James Guthrie, a man who had a strong affinity for the countryside, will be discussed in A Portrait of Scotland next Monday (September 7) at 9pm on BBC Four. The 90-minute programme sees Peter Capaldi explore the story of Scotland's art.

Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is not your typical farmer.

He came to Britain, aged four, from Jamaica in the 1950s with his parents and grew up in inner-city Birmingham.

One of nine siblings living in a two-up-two-down, he found himself retreating to his father's allotment which he called "an oasis away from the misery of my surroundings". And it was there, age 11, that he made a promise to himself that one day he'd own his own farm.

Remember the story about the commanding officer who banned sprouts from his ship? Well the much-maligned veg has found an unlikely ally in the form of none other than Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He recently disclosed he liked them as a child.

"I never had a problem eating my greens and my favourites are probably sprouts," he said, talking about his childhood in a contribution to a new charity cookbook, Haste Ye Back, by Sue Lawrence.

Reminds me of a former PM, John Major, who once mentioned that peas were his favourite food - a comment that Spitting Image never let him forget.

Picture just in of Julia Bradbury at the Game Fair. She obviously heard something she approved of (sadly, it wasn't something I said).

And do you remember this guy, too? He used to present One Man and His Dog.

The TV show, The Farmer Wants a Wife, is to get a new presenter - Louise Redknapp.

The ex-singer, who's married to footballer-turned-pundit Jamie Redknapp, has been recruited to front the show which first aired in 2001.

If Louise is interested in agriculture, maybe I should try to contact her. I tried to contact Liz Hurley, after we reported her comments about the countryside.

I asked Liz if she wanted to be a judge in the Britain's Sexiest Farmer competition which we're going to be running here at Farmers Weekly. She said No, sadly, but I'm trying not to take it personally.

I like Delia Smith. Not for the same reason, necessarily, that I like Nigella - but I quite like her.

But she's dropped a bit of a clanger. No, not because of her Norwich City football antics, but something far, far worse: she's promoting New Zealand lamb.

Seen by many as a champion of British food and farming for more than four decades (and lately awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours), the celebrity chef has been urging shoppers to stock up on overseas lamb. Her website is urging chefs to: Make it New Zealand lamb every time!

The advice has angered farmers. Blogger David Richardson, for example, isn't impressed.

More Hoff news. Whatever next - Piers Morgan at the Royal Show? It might make a change from him buzzing out my farmer friends with their wheelbarrows on Britain's Got Talent...