My Week In Media: Gloria Hunniford

Last week I read...

I'm following this plastic-bag controversy, which everybody seems to have picked up. There were about eight pages on it in the Daily Mail on Thursday. I find myself really upset looking at the pictures of birds being strangled, or the 27 plastic bags in the stomach of a whale, but I haven't had strong feelings about it before. In France, we manage very well without plastic bags. We have a different routine and keep a couple of eco bags in the car. M&S is now charging 5p for a bag, and everybody is talking or thinking about it. In America, they tackled this ages ago and provide paper bags that can be recycled and biodegrade.

I read a really interesting article in the [London] Evening Standard about Mark Getty, who has recently sold Getty Images for $2.4bn. I didn't know much about him as he is very private. He made his own way in the world, and I was impressed by his ambition to work out his own business career.

Last week I listened to...

I always listen to the Today programme on Radio 4, and occasionally to Nick Ferrari on LBC. I like him as he's very controversial. I've been following the MPs' expenses story this week, and I'm quite bemused by that. I think they're just closing ranks because they're all in the same boat, and I do think that the system is open to abuse.

Last week I watched...

I am a devotee of Grand Designs [presented by Kevin McCloud, left]. I watched a "revisited" show on a place in Italy. For £25,000, this couple had built a phenomenal place. They used all the rubble on their land, and were painstakingly dedicated to their craft. I love to see people's dreams materialise, and the madness of their ambitions.

Last week I surfed...

I'm probably the only person who doesn't "do" online. I'm spoilt as I have researchers who do it for me. My lovely secretary Mary Day lives near my house and helps me to run the Caron Keating Foundation ( www.caronkeating. org). This week, I got her to look up the Flora Check for Change campaign site, ( www.checkforchange.co.uk). I took part in a three-week trial to lower cholesterol, and took it from 6.5 down to 5.2. I tweaked my lifestyle a bit, too, by locking on the goodie cupboard I keep for my grandchildren!

The website shows that a woman after the menopause is nine times more likely to die from heart disease than breast cancer. Ask any woman in the street what women die from, and they say cancer, when heart disease is now the biggest killer of women as well as men.

Gloria Hunniford is appearing on The Alan Titchmarsh Show and Cash in the Attic