The definitive biography of the controversial and fabulous Fanny Cradock. While Fanny Cradock berated Margaret Thatcher for wearing 'cheap shoes and clothes', wrote off Eamonn Andrews as a 'blundering amateur', and famously was forced to apologise for insulting another TV cook, her cookery programmes - which she presented in evening gown, drop ear-rings, pearls, and thick make-up, booming orders to her partner Johnnie, a gentle, monocled stooge who was portrayed as an amiable drunk, were watched by millions. They were hugely influential: the Queen Mother told Fanny that they were 'mainly responsible' for the improvement in catering standards since the war; Keith Floyd declared that 'she changed the whole nation's cooking attitudes'; for Esther Rantzen 'she created the cult of the TV chef'. Lavishly illustrated, this is a fun, entertaining portrait of this infamous woman. AUTHOR: Clive Ellis is a freelance journalist who writes regularly for the Daily telegraph. His first book, 'C.B. The Life of Charles Burgess Fry', won the Cricket Society's Silver Jubilee Literary Award. He lives in Greenwich. 32 colour, 120 b/w illustrations