Bespectacled celebrity cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall may be a campaigner for sustainable fishing, but it sounds as though his sea legs recently deserted him. On Monday the River Cottager ran aground in his 19-foot boat West of Beer Head in Devon, with his 10-year-old son Oscar on board. Lifeboats were scrambled to rescue the stricken pair, and they were finally dragged from the perilous rocks after courageous crew-person Naomi Firth swam to their boat to attach the necessary tow rope and winch it ashore. But – double disaster – Firth did not even recognise the famous man off the telly whom she'd rescued. "Embarrassingly enough, it didn't register," Firth said afterwards. "He's had his hair cut."

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A talented chef who was worried she was going to lose her job killed herself, despite being assured earlier in the day by the celebrity cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall that she was to be kept on.

The practice by European fishermen of throwing away large amounts of the fish they catch must end, the European Commission said yesterday, in outlining radical proposals to shake up Europe's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).

The Government's approach to the trade in fishing quota has been criticised by a committee of MPs.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's campaign against wasting fish went on the road today - starting in Brussels and destined for Germany, France, Spain and Poland later this year.

Government paves way for sale of country's 300,000 allotments as plot-holders revolt over plan to scrap historic right to council land

Battery farming of rabbits is set to return to Britain for the first time in more than a 15 years to satisfying a growing hunger for their meat.

That a south London butcher is selling chickens at £30 apiece will shock, and even appal, many people. The foodie tendency gone mad, they will say. An offence to anyone outside of the super-rich.

It's the great and the good versus the bored and the badly behaved," said Jamie Oliver, giving us the elevator pitch for Jamie's Dream School, another of Channel 4's attempts to turn a social policy paper into primetime entertainment. They've had their successes, most notably Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recent publicising of the folly of fish discards. But after Heston Blumenthal's silly and insulting attempt to tackle the problem of hospital catering last week, you can't help wondering whether the marriage of celebrity and social activism isn't beginning to get a bit out of hand. What next? Dick and Dom challenged to run a rural bus service in order to tackle economic exclusion? Nicky Haslam presenting a four-parter in which he restyles a Midland sink estate to improve community spirit? There is always a faint odour of the quick fix about such affairs, a suspicion that the gleaming new facade will start to crumble and fall apart about 10 seconds after television has declared a victory and headed off back to London. Having said which, Jamie can fairly claim to have made a real difference with the genre before – in his series on school food – so perhaps we should approach with an open mind.

Discarding fish is no longer ethically justifiable and must be banned before the balance of life in the seas is destroyed, the European fisheries commissioner has warned.

Rabbits are cheap to buy, and so plentiful it seems a crime not to eat them. Clare Hargreaves goes out hunting for her supper

Outcry grows at 'ridiculous' waste of fishing catch

A grocery store is committing "wildlife massacre" by selling squirrel meat, campaigners claimed today.