Fook the cook

..
months older than I am. I’ll have to do some work on my avuncularity.
Nigella Lawson is slightly more problematic. I find her simpering to the camera
lens a little disconcerting, but if I’m so dog-tired I can’t even
manipulate the remote, I’ll hang in to Nigella’s show till the family
arrives with the credits and starts tasting her chocolate spaghetti or whatever.
Jaimie Oliver makes me a little suspicious. It’s not just his enthusiasm
or even his girly lisp, gawd bless ‘im. He’s ravingly evangelical
about his quick recipes and I’m slightly suspicious that he’s dumbing
it all down. I only suspect, mind you, because I’m no cook and I’m
even less inclined to attempt cooking when I live with such a very fine practitioner
of the art. Anyway, a couple of Jaimie’s recipes have been tried and the
ingredients’ balances seemed a bit out of whack to our taste. Just sayin’.
The most hilarious cooking show without a doubt is Come Dine with Me.
Well, it’s barely a cooking show at all, with only the barest mention
given to how the food is prepared, but it’s highly entertaining –
or highly annoying depending on the mood you’re in. There are regional
spin-offs and other variations running now, the formula is so successful, but
the idea is to throw a group of five strangers together to host dinner parties
which are judged by the guests and given points accordingly. The winner gets
a cash prize, but it’s just as often the hosts are judged on their personalities
as the meals and the narration is pun-ridden and subversive to boot so you really
do have to be in the mood. It’s educational though, because quite a few
of the hosts get the menu and/or the cooking excruciatingly wrong.
My personal favourite is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s (I looked it up)
River Cottage cookery show. Hugh’s modest style belies some fiercely
held beliefs and principles, not the least of which is using seasonally and
otherwise readily available ingredients, home or locally grown where possible.
There is a local franchise. They’ve got the wrong bloke by a country mile.
The cooking show that really annoys and dismays me, and her, however, is Ten’s
MasterChef Australia. I’ve seen it perhaps three or four times
now and my only possible excuse to repeat this demoralising exercise is that
there’s absolutely fuck-nothing on any other channel.
This so-called cooking show on steroids and liquid nitrogen (it’s so photogenic,
darling!) with the annoyingly portentous music track, highlights the competitive
aspects to the total detriment of anything vaguely recognisable as cooking.
It and The Voice are thoroughly interchangeable. I wouldn’t notice
the difference.

Of course, we’re all alone in this life. By which I mean I’m
all alone in my life, just as you are all alone in your life. There’s
no other me and there’s no other you, which is statistically amazing
when you think about it. All that aside, there are a few occasions in our
lives when we interface with the society we live in and we have to do it totally
solo, such as jury service. Or voting.
You were probably wondering when I was going to get around to that. Well,
we’re here. As I write it’s the eve of the election we’re
pissed off we had to have. Well, one reason we had to have it now is because
the present term of office is patently too short. I know nobody talks about
that sort of stuff these days, but I am. Talking anyway. It should be four
years. No discussion.
For what it’s worth, (which will be nothing by the time you read this),
I’m pegging a hung parliament. I think that so many of us are sick of
having to appear to take notice of these power-crazy fucks that we’re
going to vote for anybody else first (I’m for the Arts party) and then
let the pencil do the talking and walking.
Incidentally, I’ve mentioned the compulsory voting thing to a few Americans
over the years. Their eyes bug and they are incredulous. ‘But that isn’t
democracy’ they inevitably say. I’m beginning to think they’ve
got a point.

I was going to write
about there being too many people on the planet. There’s a link in this
remaining shard that may have you collapsing into the foetal position if you
look at it for too long.
In so many ways we’re slaves to our inherited genes, which seems to
suggest the predestinationites’ team might have a point, and as we move towards
our unarguably predestined ends, we find that certain genes passed down the
line by our forebears can be detrimental to our quality of life, if not annoyingly
fatal on occasions.
The way medicine’s heading though, a lot of those feeble or downright
toxic genes will be eliminated in the upcoming Brave New World, and children
formerly destined to be afflicted with hereditary diseases will be able to
live complete and healthy cycles for the first time in their family histories.
And that would be perfectly fine, except that the world’s heading for
the largest population of humans in, well, human history. If you want to freak
yourself out, check out the world population clock http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/