Janet Street-Porter’s latest book, Don’t Let The B*****ds Get You Down, might be rammed full of her spleen-venting, but she’s still got things she wants to get off her chest.

“They set up all these quangos to tell us to take showers not baths and how to recycle, even though most of us do it anyway,” she says of the Government, apropos of nothing.

“The final irony is the Government are the people who leave the lights on and they’re the ones with chauffeur-driven cars. And it’s MPs who have loads of houses, claiming for them on expenses,” she says.

Actually, that’s not exactly what she said, but if you were to include all her profanities, the sentence would have been twice as long.

Janet makes her F Word colleague Gordon Ramsay’s use of expletives seem minor in comparison. Unlike the Michelin-starred chef, who comes over as aggressive and brimming with machismo, Janet is hilarious and hugely likeable.

Since beating Gordon in a cook-off on the first series of The F Word – a panel of judges preferred her baked figs – Janet has appeared on the show as an intrepid reporter.

“Gordon and I get on really well,” she says. “I love that he has an element of fear in his eyes when I get too close. We’re OK as long as we’re not in competition.

“He really got the hump on that first series because I beat him by mashing a load of Fortnum & Mason mincemeat into vanilla ice cream, which is like the slut’s guide to luxury food,” she adds.

“Then I beat him with a fish stew, which he really got the hump about and accused me of colouring it unnaturally, but I’m just very good at making fish stew, then I beat him with a baked apple and he got mad about that too. I don’t think we’ll be cooking against each other again. He doesn’t like losing.”

In the last series of the show, 62-year-old Janet was charged with raising some veal calves from birth to slaughter in a bid to find out more about the controversial meat.

This time around she’s raising the ingredients of a mixed grill near her home in North Yorkshire.

“I’m not doing it by myself, I am being helped by a farmer,” she says. “I’ve got a small holding 10 miles from Pateley Bridge in North Yorkshire. I’ve got these Dexter cattle, which are cute, short-legged animals and the beef is delicious. They are frisky. When I chose them they stamped on my foot, just as the breeder was saying how friendly they were.

“The breeder was very upset about that because she thought it gave them a bad image but I said they were just reacting normally to me! They must have realised I’m not very maternal. I’ve got some Mangalitsa pigs too, a rare breed covered in bright blond curly.

“I got them a football to play with but all they want to do is eat my feet. They had a go at my hiking boots which I wasn’t happy about so I took them some apples and they just wanted to eat my jeans.”

There are also some Lxworth chickens, although Janet thinks they’re deathly boring.

“My partner wants to have more chickens but I think they’re too stupid. Plus I don’t want them pecking at my herb garden,” she says, referring to restaurateur boyfriend Peter Spanton.

Born in London in the 1940s, Janet trained in architecture before dropping out of college to begin a successful career in the media.

Her new book echoes some of her various columns in The Daily Mail and The Independent, of which she’s been editor-at-large since 2002 having previously been in charge of the Independent On Sunday.

She rails against most things; shopping, in particular, but eating out, money, saving on energy bills, breaking up with your partner and wardrobe makeovers to name a few.

Gardening, too, gets a kicking, which is odd considering it’s an activity close to Janet’s heart. She refers to the garden of her North Yorkshire house as a “temple of perfection” and grows her own veg.

“I’m a huge fan of gardening. It’s really enjoyable, but don’t delude yourself that it’s cheaper,” she says. “I’m not growing tomatoes any more. Not only do they cost a fortune, they let you down at the last minute.

“People like Monty Don make it all look easy. I pick on him because he makes it all look so evangelical and gorgeous and fun and easy, always putting his hands in the soil and coming up with amazing carrots.

“If I put my hands in the soil I’ll pull something up that looks like it’s been forked, or a carrot fly will have got at it and it’ll be full of holes.”

Gordon Ramsay’s F Word is on Channel 4 tonight (10.55pm) and tomorrow (10pm).

Don’t Let the B*****ds Get You Down by Janet Street-Porter (Quadrille, £14.99).