Just why ‘celebrity chef’ Gordon Ramsay was given such free-range to swear on the latest TV cooking extravaganza is unclear. Perhaps, it’s because after comedy, gardening and illegal invasion cooking is the new rock ’n roll, so like Cobain in a dress at Reading in ’94 this man is bucking convention, being himself, living the dream. Yet subconscious images of Ramsay smacked out in some CBGBs hole do not convince and the reality is that cooking, like anything else, is being given the mass-market marketing treatment.
C4’s Ramsay’s Kitchens Nightmares worked on a simple narrative. Within the hour, through sheer in-your-face persistence he converts somnolent young West Yorkshire chef Tim Gray and his cowardly counterpart into driven pros, and in turn the sad-looking Bonapartes bistro in the West Riding of Silsden into a thriving gastrohaunt. From rotting scallops and absurdly overcomplicated dishes comes fresh produce, simple but appealing dishes and a full house. Other scenes includes instances of hideous male bondage (Ramsay remembering his Rangers moves; chests pumped out; other Masonic arcana), but hey if gets the job done.
The conversion complete, Ramsay, who despite the expletive overload did grudgingly impress with the force of his will, says fucking job’s a gooden and gets the fuck out, off back to fucking Chelsea. But there’s 10 minutes to go of the broadgramme. A twist is possible.
And, yes, after the lens shifted focus from Gray’s face and it was back to normal life that hard-won new rep soon disappeared. Confidence drained, standards slipped, by the looks of it drugs were possibly injected and the pair looked near-cataleptic again. It was back to rotting palates of veg in corners and a can’t do attitude. Ramsay comes back in unannounced, declares his disgust and the bistro boss plays Napoleon and sacks Gray.
The Guardian swiftly ran a report on the damaging influence of the doc on the self-esteem of chef, bistro and town alike, and a psychologist warned such guinea pigs as Gray need to be profiled first before the situationist heist. Said Dr Cynthia McVey: "People want to take part because they're excited about being on television. They see it as a path to stardom, but when they actually see the result it's different. They think they have control and then realise they don't." Certainly, during Gray’s moments of comic twattery southerners were no doubt rolling out their northerner stereotypes.
Such controlled artifice highlights the role of the camera, a consistent Cull theme. A bit of reflected glory from the glare of the lens and the presence of ‘mediocraty’ like Ramsay and it’s all ‘challenges, not problems’. Take that away and quotidian life’s drab drags him back down. All of which really does make him the meeja hoor. And the ‘experiment’ futile on any other level than bland entertainment.
Yes, yes, yes. We are GREAT FANS of the assimilation of slang into corporate ad campaigns. The UK’s leading diabolic-red brands come suffixed with slogans these days: McDonalds’ Loving It; and The Sun’s We Love it. Both are glib appropriations of the modern british consumer’s absolutist -speak by Aus/US firms in further bids for market hegemony. Cull asks why these sterling international organisations have exploited these vulgar-yet-ambiguous present-tense variables of stuff-frenzied Britain.
What do they love? At the risk of sounding like Norbert Colon, our money. Fuck the fake folk dancing at the tills while they await the pale imitation of overpriced food they’ve just been told they’ve ordered (now with some lettuce and tomato. Sorry but that doesn’t instantly mean that MuckDonalds now has the health of the nation at the core of their concerns and admirable business practices). And bollocks to Lawrence Dallaglio’s hard man performance towards Asian-looking actors playing ‘Mackie Ds’ staff in a recent ad campaign for the crud-churning, cash-yearning, franchise-faced cunts. It’s going to take more than a former coke dealer to convince Cullers that reclaimed chicken in a tortilla wrap (with salad) is the most nourishing and economic option available on today’s tellingly bloated fast food market.
And fuck (and then shit all over, after having drunk 12 bottles of red wine and eaten 12 punnets of foie gras) the false plurality of The Sun’s laddish social amorousness. It’s all such a laugh in Sun world. The malevolent threat of lads pissed out of their minds with the “It’s my country” sneer ‘n swagger distilled into a night on the piss with Jordan (“I ‘ad a drink with ‘er in my mate’s bar in Spain – she is a lovely ger’wel, and got her head screwed on”) and Vincent “Never ‘urt ‘is own” Jones. Cockeny-centric? Just a touch, mate, innit?
News International loves hegemony that pays out in captive proles who pay to be imprisoned (except, post-Hillsborough, on Merseyside). The Sun ad banner also prompts us to think of the dead-end national politics forced down by these cash ‘n culture-empowered cunts. We Love It is insouciant enough to suggest that they don’t care if you read their malign emergency turd/ piss absorber, while pointing out the desperation of politicians to convince you of their ‘dodgy' arguments. Therefore... that’s right, The Sun has won it! Don’t trust Westminster’s dodgy vote grabbers, we’re the voice of the people – impassioned but only when we can see the world’s gone mad (in Redhill), sticking up for your everyday man and woman (unless they're Asian lottery winners, no hidden agendas) – it’s all such a laugh. Except paedophilia – which lurid labia piercer-in-chief Rebekkkah Wade will go out of her way to get in the paper and consequently give pics from a pederast site much wider domestic exposure than legally possible, while simultaneously implicating artists (poofs).
All brought to you by such protectors of freedom and civilisation as Trevor Kavanagh. George Pascoe-Watson. Richard Littlejohn. Emily Smith. Stewart Whittingham. William ‘listen to me, I’m posh’ Shawcross. Martyn Sharpe. John Sadler. Ally ‘cunt’ Ross. Dominic ‘trade in turd’ Mohan. Julie Moult. Charles Rae. Philip Cardy. Craig Jackson. Victorian Newton (of shit). And sundry other slavish hacks salivating at the thought of Murdoch’s cash penetrating their bank accounts and minds.
We would not want to do a disservice to any of our journalistic colleagues at the News International plant at Wapping but those who contribute to The Sun in particular. It’s a ‘great read’ and what makes Britain a miserable piece of self-loathing shit to live in.
So, if we’ve missed any of you esteemed Sun submitters off our rollcall of complete greats, then DO let us have your details so we can rectify this.
Maybe we could all go for a curry one night. Cheers!
BBC 1
Monday 7 April
Pseudo-Shakespearean finale aside, England Expects, directed by Tony Smith and produced by Ruth Caleb, was a fine attempt at portraying how one man’s milieu – “the mud people taking over” in East London – eventually emasculates his masculine self-control. His prejudicial demons take over; he becomes white trash scum.
Stephen Macintosh was superb as Ray, the rancid cockney weasel fighting a losing battle against the emotional disability caused by his generationally-loyal father. A generational clash outside his old spunker’s house perfectly encapsulates the origins and evolution of English neo-fascism and racism: conservative; post-war consensual; fathers bleating about ‘darkies’ in their front rooms but able to live on the same street as the same ‘ethnics’ singled out by their disenfranchised offspring, who accentuate that net curtain prejudice into the personally embittered political outlook of the fascists. The scene with them lurking in darkened lager havens (pubs) on hot sunny days plotting their next corner shop stance was tremendously observed. That failure to find paternal acceptance/approval in the front room or on the football pitch stagnates the self and finds manifestation in extremism – the type that the father’s generation correctly identifies as weak but refuses to take responsibility for any part in its creation. The ICF football hoolie backdrop was subtly conveyed and illustrated what a central cultural dynamic the terraces in the ’80s were for people like Ray.
All dead eyes and lazy cockney slur down pat, Mackintosh captured details like the over-extended nature of the walk of the ‘hard man’. A model of control until he could no longer dominate his clearly-embedded prejudices, teetotal Ray did not choose the dissolution of a drunk railing against race into his can of super-T. Instead, he ushered his youth football team into beating up a local Asian (though his coprophile attack on the middle-class banker in the Hun hen's house was to be commended). Then his crossbowing of a Muslim woman (Preeya Kalidas out of Bollywood Dreams, sensibly pursuing more meaningful work) was the denouement for the uproar that led to his stabbing – ironically at the hands of his young racist protégé. With the Bengali kid Rashel (Sadiqui Islam) blamed, the drama offered up the all-too-true reality of a likely Met Police miscarriage of justice. Other performances were good, such as by the actress who played the role of the alky mother struggling against her environment and circumstances and blaming anyone with different skin colour through her booze haze. The camera also has a great role. And Ray’s perv-abuse of it in his job as Corrupt Bank PLC security guard was an accurate rendition of the myriad wrongs of our CCTV culture.
The last scenes, where Ray’s daughter Nikki reads out a fascist party script-cum-obituary while clearly feeling uncomfortable but being too emotionally vulnerable about his death to resist the manipulation, thankfully did not wrap matters up in a neat, tidy and comfortable way. Despite the optimism for the future contained in Nikki’s (albeit smack-fuelled) bond with Rashel, the latter’s last scene in prison was clearly meant to indicate that as a disenfranchised and now imprisoned British muslim – turning to the fanatics would be likely. A last betrayal of the truth of Tower Hamlets life, but a minor oversight in a depressingly real drama.
See also Mark K-Punk on England Expects
