My parents were... My mum was a grafter and my dad very imaginative. I hope I've inherited both those qualities.

When Kraft announced it wanted to buy Cadbury, the great-granddaughter of the confectioner's founder said the idea of selling off one of Britain's oldest and most cherished companies to an "American plastic cheese company" was a "horror story".

Descendant of founder of British chocolate maker is to launch her own company to rival US giant

My first week of "secret" filming is over and I'm knackered. I'd forgotten just what an adrenalin rollercoaster the world of the hidden camera could be. A crew of around 20 and I descended upon the "Venice of the Cotswolds" (Bourton-on-the-Water) for three days. The inhabitants of the town were very patient with us, considering that we caused non-stop minor mayhem around them.

Now... Plan a spring city break to the capital of New England. Virgin Holidays has three nights in Boston for £555pp, which includes flights from Heathrow on 14 May and room-only accommodation at the Midtown Hotel. Virginholidays.co.uk

A new war memorial to replace one which was smashed by vandals is being unveiled today.

The return of Mad Men this week should have left White Heat badly exposed, although the scale (if not the ambition) of the two dramas is so unequal as to make comparison almost meaningless. For a start, Mad Men has advanced a mere six years in more than 50 hours of television, a luxurious pace that has been able to absorb social change incrementally, while White Heat has so far encompassed 14 particularly tumultuous years in just four hours – a sort of Reduced Shakespeare Company approach to British post-war history – feminism, race relations, Irish nationalism, gay liberation and the implosion of the left (abridged).

Kate Moss saw the New Year with a party 72-hour party in Jamaica. 

A year ago, those helping him perform a similar service on behalf of his local racecourse included the champion steeplechaser, his stable jockey, and a long-serving right-hand man. Yesterday, when Nigel Twiston-Davies again volunteered his time and facilities to promote the first big meeting of the jumps season, none of these three stalwarts was anywhere to be seen.

According to the late, great gardening writer Fred Whitsey, nothing has had a greater influence on garden design in the 20th century than Hidcote Manor Garden in the Cotswolds.

Pigeons often get a bad press. However, it was these winged pariahs that – back in 1716 – unearthed Cheltenham's fortune. Blithely pecking away one day, they alerted locals to the presence of an underground spring. Suddenly, all manner of aristocrats and hypochondriacs trotted into town, eager to take the medicinal waters of this leafy Cotswolds corner. King George III arrived to treat his infirmities in 1788, rows of Regency houses then appeared – and the town then known as "Cheltenham Spa" was born.