Earlier I’d attended lunch at Private Eye where I begged Ian Hislop to let Craig Brown immortalise my jungle stint in the magazine; unattractive though my tropical uniform might be, I still look a lot better in it than Boris Johnson in his frightful jogging shorts and bandanna. It seems she plans to make knickers out of leaves – in my case that might require a whole branch-full.
Anyway, I don’t feel threatened by Nancy, gorgeous though she may be – I am on a determined mission to snatch the crown John Lydon spurned earlier this year and be crowned “JSP: Queen of the Jungle” in two weeks’ time. I’m out to prove you don’t have to be blonde, pneumatic or washed-up to succeed in the grisly world of reality TV. Luckily my major faux pas was ironed out when Vic pointed out his new bride before she noticed. Nancy is so glamorous it’s amazing – and totally frank about her sex life, telling the tabloids that she’s going to miss “nooky” really badly during her spell on I’m a Celeb… and revealing that she’s designing a new range of underwear while she’s in the jungle.

Luckily, I know one of my fellow detainees, the glamorous Nancy Sorrell, whose wedding to my pal Vic Reeves I attended earlier this year. I’d only seen Nancy, (now the face of Ann Summers lingerie, but a pole dancer in an earlier existence) clad in a skimpy skirt, bra top and jewelled mules – and that was for a windy beach lunch in Whitstable – and so I walked straight past a gorgeous Grace Kelly lookalike wearing an elegant chignon and a floor-length silk gown at the wedding reception a few months later. and revealing tha

By the time you read this, I shall be spending my first night under the glorious starry sky of the southern hemisphere imprisoned with a group of people I honestly wouldn’t have marked down as ideal camp companions. I’m coming over all faint at the prospect, but I have to say three cheers this weekend for a government that intervenes to protect its citizens and wild animals
More from Joan Smith. By the time you read this, I shall be spending my first night under the glorious starry sky of the southern hemisphere imprisoned with a group of people I honestly wouldn’t have marked down as ideal camp companions. Yet what is the alternative? There is no doubt that smoking kills or that overweight people die early, usually after needing costly treatment for diabetes, heart disease or cancer.Even if you take an extreme libertarian position and argue that’s their business, the cost of treating them isn’t. The secretary of state said last week that the proposals in his White Paper would save £30bn in preventable ill health over the next few years; it should also reduce the amount lost to employers by sick leave, which currently costs £11bn a year.

But it is at least a start, and the ban on smoking will be welcomed even by some smokers who find that social pressure makes it hard to give up.So let’s hear no more cheap jibes from the Opposition, which in any case merely expose the layers of class prejudice and unthinking misogyny that inform the views of right-wing politicians. If the Conservatives’ collective unconscious is still haunted by the terrifying figure of nanny, that is their problem, not Labour’s. These sums are so large that it would be criminally negligent for the Government not to act, and it could be argued that Reid’s voluntary codes on advertising and reducing levels of sugar and fat in processed food do not go far enough. But when a Labour government recognises that millions of people are unable to resist the lures of advertisers, or the fast food joints that disfigure every high street, suddenly that’s unwarranted interference.