My Week In Media: Hairy Biker Simon King

Last week I read...

A lot about Georgia. It's an awful situation but what really brought it home to me was a photograph I saw, which ran in The Guardian and the Daily Mail, of a woman old enough to be somebody's grandmother, sitting totally distraught in the rubble of what I assume used to be her home. It just looked like her whole life had disappeared. In terms of the skill of the photography it was just remarkable. It really struck Dave (the other Hairy Biker) and I by capturing the reality and humanity of the violence. I was pleased to see that the quality papers took notice of the collateral damage and the human misery which that level of conflict causes.

Last week I watched...

Dragons' Den. I don't normally follow it, its cringe factor is enormous, but I stumbled upon it when a poor fellow, who came up with an alternative to cable ties, had to go out in front of James Caan, pictured, and the rest of the dragons. What struck me about it first of all was that he had to give away 50 per cent of his equity, which is a bit of a bummer. And the second thing was that it is these smug businessmen who bring out the worst in everybody's character. But it's totally compelling television. Other than that, Dave and I are on the road at lot at the moment so have been trying to keep up to date via the BBC World Service.

L ast week I listened to...

The World This Weekend on Radio 4. I was driving home and there was a really good debate about the UK's policy of building more coal-fired power stations. It was a great debate between the environmental campaigner George Monbiot and Bob Taylor from Eon Generation. It is so depressing that we've actually put in place no meaningful infrastructure to help us stop climate change. And the bottom line of that is if we don't stop climate change we'll have no legacy to leave our children. We'll have wasteland but that's fundamentally it. Radio 4 is one of the few places you can hear a proper debate like that anymore.

Last week I surfed...

For years I've had Reuters news delivered to my mailbox so I checked that out most days last week. Also I watched the Chubby Bunny clips on YouTube. It's sweeping across America and involves stuffing marshmallows in your mouth while saying chubby bunny. The result is unsurprisingly pretty ugly.

Simon King is one half of the Hairy Bikers alongside Dave Myers. Their new show, 'The Hairy Bakers', is on Monday nights at 8.30pm on BBC2