Suffering the BBC Blues

I see now that The Chipster’s continuing grouchiness is partly the result of watching too many food programmes. Rick Stein, Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson… They present a view of food that I’m totally unable to share. Perhaps there are people who are able to afford freshly culled Bulgarian shrimp or that rare form of lemon grass which only grows in the shadow of a Buddhist monastery in Tibet, only I don’t see it for sale at my local Co-Op. Nor do I have oddly shaped dishes to serve it on, nor lots of middle class friends who we have around for dinner and discuss the middle period of Gustav Mahler’s life. TV chefs throw Parmesan cheese around like it’s cheaper than mud and then, usually in a self-pleased air, admit that ‘I don’t particularly like Parmesan and would always prefer to spend that little bit extra and use a cheese scented with the extract of a unicorn’s horn’. Have you seen what a piece of Parmesan cheese is going for these days?

It’s probably the misfortune of many of us that TV presents us with a vision of the world seen through celebrity eyes. Top Gear is the worst example I know. Despite being reduced to cycling everywhere, I still love the show but I do wish they wouldn’t keep reviewing £120,000 cars and then mocking each other when they admit they’re buying one. Clarkson can sound like a terrible bore when he starts on about his supercars. The only one I find I have time for is James May, who seems to have retained a sense of proportion, though he too might stretch my patience if he hands around that Oz Clarke for too long.

I also feel sorry for any poor fool who tries to copy the Top Gear’s challenges, not remembering that whey the trio drive across Africa in a second-hand car, they have a team of people to back them up, if not an army detachment or two. Holiday programmes do the same, presenting exotic locations as if they’re merely a bit further than ‘down the road’. And if you’ve not had your nose rubbed in it enough, leave BBC2 on after Top Gear and watch Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman ride down Africa.

I suppose many of us have long since realised that we’ll never earn enough to own an Aston Martin, but does the TV have to make it so hard for us? When they mock me for not being able to afford to buy a hunk of cheese, I begin to think that I should save money by not renewing my TV licence. It does nothing but make me feel miserable.