Gail Porter shows off new hairdo

Gail Porter has spoken of her pride in her new spiky, bleached blonde hairdo - five years after losing all her hair to alopecia. The 39-year-old Scot, who was in central London to help launch a cycling safety campaign, said the short crop had also got the thumbs-up from the general public. She said: "I'm very proud of it. People come up to me all the time to talk. It's really lovely. "People feel like they know me and they have been amazing. I have had such a good reaction." The former Big Breakfast and Top Of The Pops presenter was a regular in lads' mags at the start of her career and a naked photograph of her was projected on to the Houses of Parliament in 1999. She married Toploader guitarist Dan Hipgrave in 2001 and they had a daughter, Honey, two years later. The couple announced they had split in 2005, the same year Porter was diagnosed with the hair loss disorder.

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.