How much good does a chap need to do before registering as Saving the World ? Having saved telly-bellies from the middle-aged Delia Smith and Keith Floyd, the improving British diet from mere aspiration or pretension (with his ‘metrosexual approach to herbs’ – as they say in Germany) and all the while saving Essex boys from linkage to Essex girls, how could we have ever suspected that this was just the beginning?

When he opened his restaurant Fifteen – which gives work and hope to disadvantaged and problem teenagers – could we have foreseen that, only 3 years later, another one would be opening in Sydney, Australia ? ( And New York to follow) Yes. Because such a good ‘ol boy always had to go global and mainstream (they call it inverted imperialism) – and his assault on our post-Dickensian school dinners, now symbolized by the turkey twizzler, was always going to be just a domestic tiff consigning some Very Bad Things to oblivion : much to the annoyance of many other chefs, it is an wholly-unprocessed Jamie who has been dubbed the liberator of the obese, the hyperactive and the unhealthy youf…

Go to Amazon.co.uk for a piece of Jamie

And little surprise that Sainsbury’s should be next : his Try Something New campaign has been so effective that it is now unclear who is jumping on who’s back : is the Department of Health politicizing Jamie or Sainsbury’s in its drive to promote more family meals eaten together and away from the television ? Why is this government department rumoured to be embarrassed by Jesus’ denial of a political interest ? Could it be because, along with Bob Geldof, some opinion polls name Jamie as the kind of person we would all trust to run the country ..while also saving the dining room table from extinction ? How much can one man do ?

And we mustn’t forget the children : guess who was in charge of the Queen’s 80th Birthday Picnic and the Feeding of the Thousands with a Commonwealth Fruit Salad and a famously posh pudding called the Eton Mess rendered popular by replacing the brandy and double cream with yoghurt ?

And his own children have the touch too : when Poppy and Daisy are seen on TV wearing Kashmir cotton, those shelves in clothes shops all over South Wales are soon empty.

The Australians have it all to look forward to : it has started well with 100 Jamie recipes from his mobile kitchen being ‘broadcast’ to Melbourne’s mobile phones in ‘mobisodes’; these are updated every day at 3.00 and cost 3.30 dollars to download. By the time this mobiltasticity has blended very nicely with the new Fifteen, Down Under will be well on its way to sharing something,or someone, else with the ol’ country.