Newspaper editor, TV personality, smallholder – as she approaches her 68th birthday next month, Janet Street-Porter can say she’s ticked a fair few things off her wish list for life. But there’s one achievement that has so far eluded her.

“What I really want to do is grow purple sprouting broccoli properly so it doesn't go all stringy! And grow a cauliflower that’s decent and why are runner beans always too big by the time you pick them? I have lots of challenges in the garden,” she concedes, with a wry smile.

Runner beans might be annoying, but they’re nothing compared to what's on Street-Porter’s list of biggest bugbears. She’s made her reputation as a professional antagonist, so it’s hardly surprising that, when prompted, the flame-haired chatterbox can rant for England.

Of men for example (and she should know, she’s had four husbands), she says: “They don't change after 40, it’s hopeless. We always think men will do what we want, and we can mould them in some way, and that’s a total myth.

Her partner of 13 years has a penchant for Radio 4 Extra and has “clogged up” her Sky+ with repeats of Dad's Army and Robson Green's Extreme Fishing: "This man is getting orgasmically excited over a fish. I mean, I like fishing but I can’t cope with that programme!”

Also in her sights are people talking in quiet carriages in trains, people who smoke outside her front door and people who shout on their mobile phones on the street. But what’s making her blood boil most at the moment is nuisance phone calls to her landline – so much so that she’s supporting BT’s new phone, which promises to block 100% of nuisance calls.

Luckily for her, high blood pressure is not a serious health problem, but, as it’s hereditary in her case, she keeps her health in check with regular exercise and healthy eating when she’s at one of her three homes in London, Kent and Yorkshire.

During the week, she has hot water and lemon, with berries and tomatoes and anchovies on wholemeal bread for breakfast, and then treats herself to a fry-up on Saturday and Sunday.

“I love my age now,” she says. “OK, I can’t get into the clothes I wore in my 20s and I don’t really care because I wouldn’t want to wear them now, as they would be too short.”

She also swims in the sea at the weekends – without a wet suit – in Kent. “I don't see anyone else there because they are a bunch of wimps!” she says, with a laugh.

“I’m in pretty good shape, but I don’t go to the gym any more. I had a lot of equipment in my house and I sold it all. I still have a punchbag though. It’s useful when things go wrong at work..."