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The Jilly Cooper interview, a ground-breaking cure for cancer and the Rock n' Rose hair scarf

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"Fame I'm gonna live forever..."

Good afternoon and welcome back to a special, roadshow edition of Fame, the celebrity spotlight televisual programme presented by none other than yours truly, This Reporter.

Here we are squirreled away in a delightful cattle shed somewhere deep in the British countryside waiting for this afternoon's guest to arrive. She is a journalist and prolific best-selling author. With novels including "Rider", "Jump" and "Mount" she is undeniably the queen of the "posh bonkbuster". Here to talk about modern men, starting out and Germaine Greer's latest contentious comments on rape, ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Jilly Cooper OBE.

Press play on the ghetto blaster Gary.

"Keep rollin', rollin', rollin. Though the streams are swollen. Keep them dogies rollin', rawhide..."

This Reporter: Jilly Cooper. Welcome. Pull up a hay bale.

Jilly Cooper: Why thank-you. (Looks around uncertainly, eyeing a cow pat on the floor nearby). What a lovely location you have here.

This Reporter: (oblivious) Thanks very much. Now Jilly, down to business as they say and I wanted to first ask your opinion on the modern man.

Jilly Cooper: (laughs) Men cry all the time now. The whole time, always crying. And they have beards. I have an adorable gay friend who has lost his partner. He's just started going on the internet now and said it is extraordinary - it is all married men waiting to have gay affairs. Do you think they are so terrified of women now it is safer to go with their own sex?

TR: (hoping it's a rhetorical question, moves on) You started out on your writing career as a journalist. Can you recall how you got your first big break?

JC: Oh yes, I joined the Sunday Times Magazine as a columnist in 1969 and I remember having lunch with the editor Godfrey Smith. I said "Oh, it is so difficult being a young wife. One gets up in the morning, one goes to work, one comes home, one cleans one's flat, one cooks dinner, one washes one's husband's clothes, one goes to bed and has sex all night. And it starts all over again. After six months you die of exhaustion". He roared with laughter and said: "Write about that".

TR: Germaine Greer has caused controversy recently by saying the punishment for rape should be reduced and it should not be seen as a violent crime but mostly lazy, careless and insensitive. What is your opinion on that?

JC: I think she's terribly clever. I think she's brilliant, but is there a word for applause junkie? Is that terribly rude? I don't want to be rude. I think she's wonderful, but I think she will say something outrageous just to get everybody going.

TR: (nods in agreement) Well, Jilly. It has been a pleasure. Everyone please put your hands together once again for Jilly Cooper.

Jilly gets up and almost immediately skids on the cow pat and takes a tumble into a nearby haystack.

This reporter shakes her head sadly before bellowing "tractor for Jilly". That's another one that won't be back.

"...people will see me and cry".

Thankfully the fashion world can be relied upon for a solution. Fashionistas declare your ponytail is starkly under dressed without this summer's must-have accessory, the hair scarf. Tie it around your ponytail or knot it around a high bun to guarantee the most stylish tresses in town - or country. Try this one from Rock n' Rose for size.

It's time for the news and MPs have been granted an emergency debate on Northern Ireland's abortion ban. This comes after Prime Minister Theresa May refused to get involved with the issue following a landslide referendum in the Republic of Ireland voting in favour of scraping its own ban on abortion. House of Commons Speaker John Bercow approved Labour MP Stella Creasy's request for the debate, which will take place next Tuesday.

A woman has been completely cured of breast cancer after doctors tweaked her immune system, enabling it to destroy the tumours that had spread through her body. Judy Perkins from Florida is the first patient to have successfully received an application of T-cell immunotherapy for late-stage breast cancer and has now been cancer free for two years. While the technique is still in its early days, scientist have welcomed its potential as a future treatment for cancer.

Somewhere back in the depths of the countryside...
"You'll be hearing from my lawyer", a slightly harassed looking Jilly shrieks as she's carted off in a wheelbarrow.

Hmmm, we'll be needing more scarfs.

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