Brooker on Jamie Oliver

[Cunny]

Jamie Oliver, a grade A c*** and an easy target but one of Brooker's best articles for a while

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columni...2140240,00.html

 

Charlie Brooker's screen burn

 

Charlie Brooker

Saturday August 4, 2007

The Guardian

 

Jamie Oliver. Now there's a man who provokes a reaction. On the one hand, he's a cheeky, knockabout TV chef. And on the other, there's Jamie Oliver's Cookin': Music to Cook By.

 

In case you'd repressed this particular abuse memory, Jamie Oliver's Cookin' was a compilation CD released (and heavily advertised) in the year 2000. "A good blast of these tunes, a nice bit of tukka and some good company is the recipe for a nice time. Happy days!" said Jamie in the accompanying blurb. Yet track one is Dancing In The Moonlight by Toploader: the sort of song that comes on the car radio while you're gassing yourself with a hose, and merely serves to reinforce your decision.

 

The TV ad featured Jamie on drums, bashing out a pukka rhythm and wearing a gummy open-mouthed grin, like a drunk who's just kicked his own teeth out and thinks it's hilarious. It caused many to regard Mr Oliver with a level of contempt normally reserved for war criminals.

 

I didn't make up my mind until I caught wind of the outpouring of middle-class smug-o-w*** surrounding his School Dinners series, which gave despicable 4x4-driving parents something to feel all superior about: they could tut at the McNugget-wolfing pauper kids while simultaneously shovelling chargrilled asparagus and parmesan shavings down their own spoilt s***bag childrens' throats.

 

It was then I decided Jamie Oliver was worse than Satan - which wasn't really fair, since all he'd done was spruce up a school menu or two. He didn't hypnotise the audience into nodding along in unison. Now he's back with a pared-down series called Jamie At Home (Tue, 8pm, C4), in which he simply enthuses about food each week for half an hour. It's endearing. It is. Shut up. It is.

 

This week: tomatoes. Jamie walks around his massive garden showing us some tomatoes he's grown. Try not to notice how massive and posh his garden is, because you'll want to hit him, and instead focus on the tomatoes. Look! He's slicing them up into a salad! And it looks bloody delicious. A plateful of juicy homegrown tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and herbs and tiny shards of chilli, with a few blobs of mozzarella beside it, glistening in the sun and ...

 

Hang on. The credits list no fewer than four "food stylists". One "senior food stylist", three regular "food stylists", and one "assistant food stylist". Which presumably explains why those tomatoes looked so nice. Four people stood around doing that salad's hair. Somehow, I feel cheated. But mainly bewildered. And a bit scared. I mean "food stylist"? What kind of modern hell are we living in here? How do you get into it? Where do you train? Can you get a food styling degree? Do food stylists have their own trade magazine? "Strawberry Hat - the Food Stylist's bible". As ridiculous career choices go, it's up there with 'bee dentist'. This world is doomed.

 

Straight after Jamie At Home comes Cook Yourself Thin (Tue, 8.30pm, C4). Each week "four cool cooks" take a flabby prole and teach her to cook slimline versions of her favourite recipes. That's the idea. It's flawed. For one thing, the moment the voiceover calls them "cool cooks", you want everyone involved to pack up and go home. What's more, they're plainly too plump to be hosting a show called Cook Yourself Thin. One's got arms like a fat scout's thighs, for Christ's sake.

 

Worst of all, the cookery's a swizz. This week, a woman who likes roast beef dinners is told to drop Yorkshire pudding, use chicken not beef, and swap the big, golden, crispy roast spuds for weasely new potatoes in their skins. That's s***! It's not the same.

 

At the end, having eaten their recipes for six weeks, she's dropped two dress sizes! Amazing! Unless you pay attention to the large onscreen caption which explains she's also been "encouraged to exercise", that is. Perhaps, in the new TV spirit of truth and honesty, it should be renamed "Cook Completely Different Things and Jog Yourself Thin" instead. Or maybe just "Bulls***".

 

Pfff. This country.

[pipnasty]

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[John am Rhein]

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[JohnnyH]

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[pipnasty]

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Edited August 5, 2007 by Pipnasty

[JohnnyH]

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