Prize prat, Jamie Oliver, the self-righteous, bumptious celebrity cook, has upset the good burghers of Rotherham:
Jamie Oliver may have bitten off more than he can chew after being accused of making the residents of a Yorkshire town look like “numpties” and “thickos”.
The TV chef is facing a furious backlash over his latest show in which he teaches cookery to eight families in Rotherham.
That, of course, is his trademark. His school dinners campaign was waged on the assumption that parents and catering providers were too stupid to feed children properly.
His idea is to teach “pyramid cooking” where each of the eight people he trains will teach two of their friends, and they will do the same until 250,000 have been taught to cook.
But John Gilding, leader of Rotherham Council’s Tory group, said the programme, which was broadcast on Tuesday night and was the first in a four part series, gave the wrong impression.
Giving the wrong impression is the riason d’etre of such programming. A series based on people who can manage themselves thankyou very much, is going to be somewhat short and lacking in entertainment value. The whole point of these things is to humiliate and ridicule people for the benefit of the watching millions who can then sit back and bask in their own sense of superiority. It’s the amphitheatre without the lions, blood and gore.
Channel Four has defended the programme, saying that the first episode deliberately focused on poorer people because poverty affected what people cooked and ate.
Well, yes…
But she promised future episodes of the four-part series would focus on getting men to cook and encouraging businesses to help staff lead a healthier lifestyles.
Oh, for crying out loud! Businesses have no business interfering in their employees’ lifestyles. Any employer of mine (fortunately, I don’t have one) would get short shrift if they tried that one on.
Ultimately, though, while I agree with Gilding’s sentiment – Oliver is an obnoxious, patronising little jerk whose attitudes are, indeed, deeply offensive; no one – not even the town of Rotherham – has the right not to be offended. The answer, surely, is not to watch this garbage. I manage it and am not remotely offended. Works every time.
“His school dinners campaign was waged on the assumption that parents and catering providers were too stupid to feed children properly.”
Well, the catering providers are just paring their costs to the bone, rather than stupid. But as far as the parents in the first episode, well…
The mother who whined that she ‘couldn’t afford’ to feed her child decent food (while puffing away on cigarettes, and opening her fridge to show the cans of Boddingtons) was a classic case in point.
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Oh, I don’t doubt that some of them were, indeed, stupid. It’s the blanket assumption that annoys me.
Did you see the programme then Longrider? Or have you just swallowed this guff H, L and S?
I didn’t see anybody who was portrayed as stupid. Likewise I didn’t see anyone who resembled a “prize prat” or “self-righteous, bumptious celebrity cook”. What I did see where quite a few people in trouble, who knew they were in trouble and wanted to do something about it.
I haven’t seen the latest programme, no. But then, having had the unfortunate experience of seeing Oliver in action in earlier efforts, I’ll be more than happy never to witness his pseudo mockny laddish act ever again – and that would be too damned soon. If he was a bumptious, self-righteous prat then, it is a fair bet that nothing much has changed. This is the man who used his celebrity status to influence government policy to the point of taking cameras into meetings. Nothing I have seen of him endears him to me – I despise him, frankly.
If people need help, then appearing on a “reality” programme is not the way to do it. They could try something as outrageous as borrowing some books from a library and teaching themselves. Or is that just too radical? And, of course, it doesn’t give the watching viewers cheap entertainment. This type of programming (indeed all reality type programming) is the lowest and most abhorrent type of “entertainment” imaginable – hence my reference to Rome. I don’t need to watch them all to detest the concept or despise the presenter.
Although, of course, that wasn’t the point of the post…
“….making the residents of a Yorkshire town look like “numpties†and “thickosâ€. “
Poor Rotherham. Perhaps a festival would help..? 😉
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Ah, but Rotherham was chosen because it has the greatest number of obese individuals (adults and children) in England. Obesity is associated with eating foods that are pretty much unhealthy and often in vast amounts. So there is method in the madness. But I agree, he can be very annoying. He doesn’t even shop at Sainsbury’s.
If he was genuine, there wouldn’t be any television cameras. He’d do it out of the goodness of his heart and no self-publicity involved.
the ministry of food has been absolutely brilliant, the people on it haven’t shown rotherham up but themselves. i’d be ashamed to think i’d never cooked in my life and the programme highlights the ignorance people have towards food! in reguards to the comment about having cammeras and making the programme, he’s using the media to his advantage and making more than rotherham aware of the importance of cooking! All those that have taken part in the pass it on and done something to change their bad habbits WELL DONE!
It’s a freak show, no different in concept to Big Brother. It preys on the vanity and stupidity of those prepared to take part and relies on the voyeuristic tendencies of the viewers for success. It’s sickening.
Oliver is abusing this weakness for his own purposes. If he was genuine – and the evidence suggests otherwise – there would be no cameras present. He would do it from the goodness of his heart and with no publicity.
Want to learn to cook? Go to the library and get some books out. It isn’t difficult – and neither is cooking.