And her name, Baroness Gardner of Parkes.

Couldn't be more appropriate, could it?

The Parkes she comes from is in Australia, home of "The Dish"- the giant radio telescope that relayed to us watching billions the first ever pictures of man walking on the Moon. Also the subject of one of the most lovely, feelgood and nostalgic movies - also called "The Dish" starring Sam Neill, no less.

Just a bit of trivia I thought you might like....

Raymond Blanc, superchef extraordinaire, lit up the studio today and made us all feel very hungry with his tales of food and how, when a much younger lad, his natural ebullience caused him to be belted unconscious by a furious Chef. He had dared to question the quality of a sauce - and as a result he felt he could never work in France again. That's what ultimately brought him to England, to a career that catapulted him to the star status he enjoys today.

And what about the new revelation that the French are now crumbling? Nothing to do with the Eurozone economy, thank goodness. But apparently, according to Raymond, we English created many wonderful desserts and puddings, including exclusively the crumble. Now he has taken it to France and accordingly all of the best chefs in France are crumbling away like mad!

He also hinted at a new recipe. You'll have to listen again to get it quite right. But it was something about the very best chocolate, smooth as silk and melt-in-your-mouth like snowflakes, over a bed of crumble.

Sounds fantastic!

Raymonds new programme is on BBC 2 this Thursday.

Well, we in Berkshire came up with quite a list to get him started. It's not as easy as you'd think. As James told me today, the first twenty or so are easy, and perhaps obvious. But after that, it gets quite problematical - because it raises the question; what actually qualifies someone as a great modern Elizabethan?

Do they have to be famous, iconic, or have achieved something really great themslves? We've been playing around all morning with influential and memorable names like Alan Sugar, The Beatles, Simon Cowell, Margaret Thatcher, Bobby Moore, Twiggy, David Attenborough, Richard Branson, Frances Chichester - just keep adding to the list.

But will we still feel strongly about any of those names, say, in twenty years' time? Historians have said that, in their own Tudor day, Elizabethans would probably not have rated William Shakespeare as a true great iconic figure.