Throwing pies in the face of gender stereotyping
So, merry crimbo and all that bollocks.
All in all it went ok. I insisted on making mince pies, as I feel Xmas without homemade mince pies just isn't the same, but mum always used to make them and she can't any more, so I have taken on the task myself. Next I could take on my Dad's 9-5 job of designing bridges and viaducts, with probably about the same level of success.
I can't cook. I really can't. It's sad, I know. My best friend keeps poking me over it, asking me "When are you going to learn to cook?!" but she's marrying a chef, the little hypocrit, so lalala, I'm not listening. Every now and then I try to get into it, but every recipe book I read uses words I don't understand so I couldn't really follow one without having to consult a dictionary to translate between English and Pretentious Wanky Cook Lingo.
I miss 90s cooking shows - because they had idiots on them. People like me. People who can not cook. They'd get these morons on telly and show them how to make an omelette, but it was exciting because they had a time limit. Not only did they not have a clue what they were doing, and Gary Rhodes was standing over their shoulder asking them for the seventh time not to try and light a fag on the gas burner, but then you would have the final 60 seconds of running around in an absolute panic. If I'd gone on that show, I'd have been brilliant, because I worked out the trick of the thing, which is to arrive half an hour early. Ainsley Harriott comes on to do the introduction and I'd already be there with an egg whisk going. Whrrrrrrr!! "Don't mind me." Whrrrrrrrr!!
Cooking programmes now are totally different. You get things like 'Come Dine With Me', which doesn't so much tell you how to cook as tell you how to act like a total twat at a dinner party. I don't know about anyone else, but if I have a load of friends round and cook dinner, I don't expect them to go poking about the spare room casting aspersions on my choice of bedside cabinets. "Well, the starter was lovely but I don't think much of your living room curtains." Get out of my house, you prick!
I blame the 'ideal lifestyle' culture we seem to have bred recently. Nobody wants to watch useless cretins like me learning how to cook on telly. We want to see stuck up lawyers in penthouses and mansions entertaining each other and eating stuff you probably can't even pronounce, and are even less likely to find on your weekly grocery run to Netto. These are the people you get on telly now.
Like those property programmes you get where Mr and Mrs Gorgeously Happy Professional Couple and their precious little two year old "He's reading already don't you know?" sproglet are looking for a new family home in the country. And it has to be somewhere lovely and peaceful. And large. And beautiful. What's their budget? Half a million. Oh, now there's a challenge. I can hardly bear to watch, it's so tense! And we're supposed to identify with these people! We're supposed to actually give a flying fuck about whether they wind up in the 17th century ranch with the original stone fireplace and the stained glass windows, or the new build nuveau-riche mansion with the pool and the solarium. As IF I'm really going to be sitting on the edge of my seat thinking, "Well, it's very lovely, but has it got an atrium, I'd be devastated if it didn't have an atrium, because they deserve one, don't they? They're a lovely couple and they deserve one, I would hate to see them without an atrium, but oh LOOK, it has! Oh I'm so relieved! I don't think I could have slept at night if it hadn't."
And the advisors always have to go a little bit off the wall with them. They always throw something in that isn't quite what they wanted, or it goes "a little over budget". I mean come ON! They gave you enough of a budget to buy half of Yorkshire, and yet STILL you searched and scoured the country to find something even MORE expensive. "It's a little over your budget - but LOOK! It has a sauna AND a tennis court. Now I KNOW you said you'd be happy with just the one or the other, but it's ONLY another thirty grand."
It's lovely how they use that phrase 'over budget'. These people know NOTHING! They wouldn't know a budget if it sent bailiffs round to beat them up and rob their TV! You want to know the true meaning of a budget? A budget, a REAL budget, is making sure you can pay your mortgage and be able to eat something other than beans on toast for the next 20 years of your life. I don't think Mr & Mrs Perfect are going to be left sobbing into their organic muesli at the realisation that, due to a slight excess on the mortgage budget, little Jimmy is having to make do with bog-standard cheap rackets and sneakers from JJB Sports when he spends his evenings on the tennis court with the personal trainer.
But what I really want to see is a property programme that deals with REAL property challenges. Stuff that affects the vast majority of real people at some point in their lives. "So, you're looking for a structurally sound vermin-free one bedroom property within the greater London area or within an easily commutable distance thereto, and your budget is... less than a hundred grand. Hmm... Get bent."
Either that, or at least take us back to the gloriously huge property the rich attractive couple bought so we can see the state it's in six months down the line, now little Jimmy is walking and using the stone cladding for solo tennis practice and they've had another baby. I want to see, just for once, some proper real-life family goings on in one of these places! "How are we doing? Well, as you can see the stained glass windows are gone. Jimmy made swift work of those. The baby sicked up on the Axminster carpet, so that's going next, and the solarium was a fantastic idea - I'm booked into the hospital next week to have a melanoma removed, so thanks a bunch you smug bastards!"
Then at least I would know there was some justice in the world.
All in all it went ok. I insisted on making mince pies, as I feel Xmas without homemade mince pies just isn't the same, but mum always used to make them and she can't any more, so I have taken on the task myself. Next I could take on my Dad's 9-5 job of designing bridges and viaducts, with probably about the same level of success.
I can't cook. I really can't. It's sad, I know. My best friend keeps poking me over it, asking me "When are you going to learn to cook?!" but she's marrying a chef, the little hypocrit, so lalala, I'm not listening. Every now and then I try to get into it, but every recipe book I read uses words I don't understand so I couldn't really follow one without having to consult a dictionary to translate between English and Pretentious Wanky Cook Lingo.
I miss 90s cooking shows - because they had idiots on them. People like me. People who can not cook. They'd get these morons on telly and show them how to make an omelette, but it was exciting because they had a time limit. Not only did they not have a clue what they were doing, and Gary Rhodes was standing over their shoulder asking them for the seventh time not to try and light a fag on the gas burner, but then you would have the final 60 seconds of running around in an absolute panic. If I'd gone on that show, I'd have been brilliant, because I worked out the trick of the thing, which is to arrive half an hour early. Ainsley Harriott comes on to do the introduction and I'd already be there with an egg whisk going. Whrrrrrrr!! "Don't mind me." Whrrrrrrrr!!
Cooking programmes now are totally different. You get things like 'Come Dine With Me', which doesn't so much tell you how to cook as tell you how to act like a total twat at a dinner party. I don't know about anyone else, but if I have a load of friends round and cook dinner, I don't expect them to go poking about the spare room casting aspersions on my choice of bedside cabinets. "Well, the starter was lovely but I don't think much of your living room curtains." Get out of my house, you prick!
I blame the 'ideal lifestyle' culture we seem to have bred recently. Nobody wants to watch useless cretins like me learning how to cook on telly. We want to see stuck up lawyers in penthouses and mansions entertaining each other and eating stuff you probably can't even pronounce, and are even less likely to find on your weekly grocery run to Netto. These are the people you get on telly now.
Like those property programmes you get where Mr and Mrs Gorgeously Happy Professional Couple and their precious little two year old "He's reading already don't you know?" sproglet are looking for a new family home in the country. And it has to be somewhere lovely and peaceful. And large. And beautiful. What's their budget? Half a million. Oh, now there's a challenge. I can hardly bear to watch, it's so tense! And we're supposed to identify with these people! We're supposed to actually give a flying fuck about whether they wind up in the 17th century ranch with the original stone fireplace and the stained glass windows, or the new build nuveau-riche mansion with the pool and the solarium. As IF I'm really going to be sitting on the edge of my seat thinking, "Well, it's very lovely, but has it got an atrium, I'd be devastated if it didn't have an atrium, because they deserve one, don't they? They're a lovely couple and they deserve one, I would hate to see them without an atrium, but oh LOOK, it has! Oh I'm so relieved! I don't think I could have slept at night if it hadn't."
And the advisors always have to go a little bit off the wall with them. They always throw something in that isn't quite what they wanted, or it goes "a little over budget". I mean come ON! They gave you enough of a budget to buy half of Yorkshire, and yet STILL you searched and scoured the country to find something even MORE expensive. "It's a little over your budget - but LOOK! It has a sauna AND a tennis court. Now I KNOW you said you'd be happy with just the one or the other, but it's ONLY another thirty grand."
It's lovely how they use that phrase 'over budget'. These people know NOTHING! They wouldn't know a budget if it sent bailiffs round to beat them up and rob their TV! You want to know the true meaning of a budget? A budget, a REAL budget, is making sure you can pay your mortgage and be able to eat something other than beans on toast for the next 20 years of your life. I don't think Mr & Mrs Perfect are going to be left sobbing into their organic muesli at the realisation that, due to a slight excess on the mortgage budget, little Jimmy is having to make do with bog-standard cheap rackets and sneakers from JJB Sports when he spends his evenings on the tennis court with the personal trainer.
But what I really want to see is a property programme that deals with REAL property challenges. Stuff that affects the vast majority of real people at some point in their lives. "So, you're looking for a structurally sound vermin-free one bedroom property within the greater London area or within an easily commutable distance thereto, and your budget is... less than a hundred grand. Hmm... Get bent."
Either that, or at least take us back to the gloriously huge property the rich attractive couple bought so we can see the state it's in six months down the line, now little Jimmy is walking and using the stone cladding for solo tennis practice and they've had another baby. I want to see, just for once, some proper real-life family goings on in one of these places! "How are we doing? Well, as you can see the stained glass windows are gone. Jimmy made swift work of those. The baby sicked up on the Axminster carpet, so that's going next, and the solarium was a fantastic idea - I'm booked into the hospital next week to have a melanoma removed, so thanks a bunch you smug bastards!"
Then at least I would know there was some justice in the world.