Flicky-clicky! The Art of Intolerance.

The last couple of posts have been very writer-centric. I may have already alienated folks. Now I reckon I'll alienate a couple more. Now, how can I do that?

Television!

It's a love/hate relationship I've had since I was young.  Like most people of my generation, I suppose, but being the introverted antisocial troll that I was, I took it a bit further.  I won't go into just how insular I was, you might cry and I don't want anyone getting their keyboard all soggy on my account.

As I've got older though, I haven't watched quite as much television.  Other diversions have vied for my attention: computer games, writing, reading, going out to (hey look at that, finally!) socialise and, of course, women.  But I always go back, quite often to disappointment and repeats.

My current deep disappointment is aimed at programmes like Jersey Shore and The Only Way is Essex.  These are programmes that I'm put off of the moment I see trailers for them, as they look like the most vapidly lazy programming.  They all centre around the worst that humanity has to offer, which wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the feeling that the characters (because let's all be honest here, that's what they are, there aren't any real people, just actors looking for an easy break) are being held up as role models.  Now, I can't say for certain (and I'm not some big city lawyer), but I'm sure that the original intent was to mock these orange caricatures.  Instead what we have is a world in which Snooki (urg, can't people see the producers are taking the piss?) has a lucrative book deal.  Yes, a woman who is supposed to look and act like she has trouble reciting the alphabet has a book deal, and I can't get la- er, published*.

Yeah.  It annoys me.  They clog up the airwaves with as much mediocrity as soap operas.  We all know the reason for it, smart arse.  I know why I don't like having my toe crushed by a mallet, doesn't change my opinion on it.

Another kind of 'reality' television that I have less intolerance for are cookery programmes (take a look at this for more on my cookery programme fascination).  I can hear you smirking, fucko.  Nothing wrong with enjoying cooking and eating.  It's life enriching.  You should think about that the next time you're choking down a sausage supper with enough cholesterol to clog the London Underground Central Line.

But, in this, dear reader I have my prejudices.  Let us take the sainted (or at least ordained) Nigella Lawson.  I used to quite like Nigella as a programme host, outside of the weird, fetishy sexualisation (and that her father is a Tory and she followed suit, boo!  Hiss!) of food she seemed quite personable.  Then I started noticing something, something that made me blink in slight confusion and now it makes me want to attack the TV with a fucking tenderising mallet: snobbishness.  There's always room for a bit of snobbishness in life, but not if it's presented as THE ONE TRUE PATH.  Ingredients that seem innocuous to the layman become a benighted spectre to Nigella Lawson.  Use the wrong (read: least expensive) kind of capers and pal you better have a good fuckin' excuse.  It's infuriating and quite often it's utterly arbitrary.  Use what you can use and fuck what some rich woman on the TV says.

Speaking of crazy women cooks.  My wife and I have been watching the The Little Paris Kitchen which involves woman-child eternastudent Rachel Khoo proving that she's almost mental enough to start throwing buckets of molten butter over her balcony onto any heathen who deviates a tenth of an iota from TRUE FRENCH PATISSERIE.  Seriously, this woman is bonkers.  She lives in a Paris flat that's barely large enough for an adult and runs a restaurant from her optimistically named front room.  A lot of her cooking looks rather nice, but her style gives an over-romanticised view of France and Paris in particular that doesn't quite match up to the living quarters she has.  Perhaps she's deluded or perhaps she really is happy there; all I know is I'd be gnawing my arms off because of the claustrophobia.

Or maybe I'm deluded and should step away from the remote, verrry slowly...

^*(Yes, yes, I understand that there's a demand for it.  I'm not ignorant of these things.  I'm still allowed to rail and have the opinion that it's peddling mediocrity and general human shittiness.)


Will

The Delia Dream.

I have a dream. Not a recurrent dream just a…persistent one. It involves Delia Smith, the doyen of British cookery and woman with some complicated ideas about cooking Christmas dinner. I imagine if she’d gone down the Keith Floyd route of mixing booze with his presenting.

This is informed by something that happened a few years ago. In which the erstwhile television cook stormed the pitch in the middle of a Norwich City game and proceeded to inform the fans, in a coherent and sober way, what her thoughts were.

Now imagine the scene, our host is standing at her traditional homely kitchen counter, in her traditional homely kitchen (in her very own home we are shown through loving exterior wide shots) the ingredients for the upcoming recipe arrayed all nice and tidy around her with the appropriate utensils. And a glass of wine, with bottle nice and handy.

That last detail is important – watch it carefully.

She launches into her opening salvo; a lovely little starter that involves pancetta and cheese. She stutters and stammers a bit, but let’s be honest, that’s just her style. Saint Delia can be forgiven any kind of inarticulate garbling because she has our best interests at heart, she wants us to learn to cook and enjoy it. Bless her heart.

Try not to be distracted by her earrings, as mesmeric these adornments are – looking like those head phones that people really serious about music wear – you do not want to miss any of this wonderful, tasty recipe. The food is the important thing, not the preposterous jewellery.

Seriously.

During this segment she sips daintily at this wine. Stuff that is probably quite expensive, but that she has a cellar the size of your entire house full of. After all Delia’s a very wealthy woman and rightfully so. She’s worked hard over the decades to bring good cooking and awareness of fresh ingredients.

Y’know until this controversial tome came along, but we won’t worry about that either. Oh no.

At the end of her guide to creating this culinary treasure she looks pretty relaxed and the wine bottle is looking a little over half empty.

It’s all good for Delia.

She now guides us over to another worktop. Homely as the first, forgetting the fact that you’re now being guided through a kitchen that a family of three could live in with room to spare for garage. It doesn’t matter, it’s the illusion that she’s just like you and I, and she happens to know all these wonderful things about cooking.

Our loosened hostess carries the glass and bottle of wine with her to this second counter. There’s already two bottles of wine waiting there, open, for her, but this is neither here nor there.

Her next dish is a, let’s say, stew, full of fresh vegetables, spices, herbs and whatever meat might be in your brain at the moment. A game stew. How’s that? A mix of venison and partridge perhaps. Yum.

The wine takes something of a bashing in this section, as this dish requires a lot of cooking so poor Delia is becoming rather thirsty. And giggly. Really it’s infectious, how much fun she’s having chopping and browning meat and cooking vegetables. She even makes some potatoes to accompany the dish, as well as a nice red currant jelly.

It’s all a lot of work and she babbles with increasing ebullience. Sometimes meandering away from the task at hand, pointing at the camera man and laughing at that oh-so funny birthmark that looks like an ejaculating penis on his face or becoming quiet and contemplative as she ruminates about how much she loves her husband, he’s a pain in the arse, but that doesn’t matter, because we’ve been through so much…

Now watch as an empty wine bottle is discreetly taken from the counter. Delia isn’t even aware as she sloshes some more wine into her glass, gets confused, asks if that was supposed to go into the stew and is told that’s the bottle of red on her right.

She quaffs her drinking wine, while pouring her cooking wine into the pot. A few finishing touches and a few more slugs of wine and we can leave the pot to simmer while Delia brings us to dessert.

“Don’t you take that camera off me, ya basserds!” she shouts when the poor, penis-faced camera man moves a little too fast as she moves back to the original counter.

This counter, by the magic of television and a put-upon and unsung home economist, has been cleaned and the ingredients for the meal’s finale are placed out.

A tiramisu. Oh dear.

She goes through creaming the mascarpone and cream together, swaying and making obscene suggestions to the camera man, “Is that to scale?” she asks the poor man, pointing the mark that he’s becoming ever more conscious of. She manages this, just.

Soaking of the sponges proves too much and things take a turn for the disturbing. The coffee liqueur bottle is to her lips in a flash and its contents are guzzled with disconcerting speed. It’s quite amazing that she doesn’t spill any as she’s swaying like a sapling in a hurricane.

“Thissis boring! Less fuckin’ party!” she cries and clambers up onto the counter and starts to dance, gripping the coffee liqueur bottle, with wild abandon.

The crew look on, being showered by Tia Maria, unsure of what they should do. With grim professionalism, and perhaps a little bit of vengeful glee, the cameraman keeps his lens firmly on the action.

Delia’s warmed to this party idea and is now calling for some “fuckin’ music”. Her blouse has fallen off one shoulder, revealing densely freckled skin, much to the horror of every member of the crew. Except maybe that producer who’s had a thing for her since the early days.

“C’mon! Get yer fuckin’ clothes off! Don’t be such a buncha prudes!” she slurs, undoing more buttons on her blouse. “Get em off!”

Some production assistant has scurried out of the room to retrieve Delia’s husband, who has that ‘oh, fuck, not again’ look about him and grabs her off the counter.

Our last view of Delia as the credits roll is her being dragged out of the kitchen, stripped to her bra and screaming, “Yer alla buncha fuggin’ borin’ cunts! Aaaargh!”

Join us next week when she makes coq au vin.

That is a dream. Isn’t it beautiful?


Will