TV Troll is in a bit of a domestic mood this week; it must be the horrible cold weather. So, to celebrate this, here are a couple of programmes guaranteed to make those of a foodie bent quiver with joy. First up is Gordon Ramsay, whose Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (Tue 9pm C4) started up last week, but apparently really hits its stride this week. As a What Not To Do In The Kitchen, it works very, very well; Gordon, any chance you’ll come and cook for us? Then there’s Jimmy’s Farm (Tue 9pm BBC2), where a posh bloke who is not Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall makes sausages out of his porcine friends, which seems a bit mean. Mmm, all of the lovely nosh in these shows has inspired us to order in a really good takeaway. But beware, reader: whatever you do, do NOT watch Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife (Sun 7pm BBC3) as it may induce vomiting, a violent allergic reaction, and a desire to slow-roast Anthea “I sold my wedding to Cadbury’s and all I got was utterly excoriated by everyone in the UK” Turner-Bovey to death in a pot filled with cold tramp sick. Apparently, the blonde Fembot goes around to some poor normal women’s houses and guilt-trips the hell out of them until they are infected with her pathological neuroses, retrograde gender stereotypes and fixed grin of death. Anthea Turner is the perfect housewife if you are Ed Gein and need someone around the house who is just as soulless and fundamentally misogynist as you are. Normal people should run a mile.
There are two new series going head-to-head tonight: will you watch old favourite No Angels (Tue 10pm C4), the acid, addictive drama-comedy (described somewhere as ”Holby City on crack”) about a group of mad-fer-it nurses, or will you take a chance on Thin Ice (Tue 10pm BBC2), a sitcom charting the day-to-day travails of the employees at an ice rink? Hmm, it’s a close-run thing, but No Angels gets the Londonist imprimatur, just because there’s a higher chance of there being healthy doses (badum tish) of sex and drugs and hot stethoscope action.
On the subject of sex and drugs, we were beyond happy with the season opener of Footballers Wive$ (Thur 9pm ITV1) last week – it was like a reunion with an old, disreputable, bitchy but marvellous friend. Even Tanya wasn’t too badly missed as Bruno and Lucy’s Pride And Prejudice-themed ‘blessing’/remarriage ended in calamity, while Amber channelled the spirit of her manslaughtered husband Conrad, wobbled her eyes à la Tanya, and got busy with a metal detector that was sent from beyond the grave. Her new haircut looked fabulous, too. ITV obviously knows its audience; a new series called Poor Little Rich Girls (Thur 10pm ITV1) is on immediately after. In the Faking It/Wife Swap mould, it deals with a rich, privileged ”superstar DJ”/Page 3 model from Chelsea swapping places with a minimum wage hairdresser from Liverpool. Sounds like a foolproof formula for entertainment if you ask us, although we’re sorely tempted by No Tax Please, We’re Rich (Thur 10pm BBC2), which looks at the many and varied ways that the filthy rich stash their money far from HM Inland Revenue’s eye. Now, we, like all civilised people, read Private Eye, and we’re regularly outraged by the accounts of barefaced, shameless tax-dodging that are told by that exemplary organ; is this programme seriously trying to teach us to emulate some of the tricks of the rich when it comes to tax evasion? Isn’t that a tiny bit unethical? Although one could always advance the argument that if they don’t pay, the rest of us shouldn’t have to either. Of course, the government should just make it harder for twats on the scale of Philip Green, who is mentioned in the programme, to squirrel away their billions; but then, most of us gave up expecting New Labour to do anything other than cosy up to the super-rich a long time ago.
This week's dose of audiovisual cheese is of the stinkiest kind imaginable, as Dancing On Ice (Sat 6.50pm ITV1) ends with Torvill and Dean "recreating" their Bolero - which has to be one of the most overplayed clips of all time. That said, even TV Troll's ice-hard heart has to melt enough to let us admit that it was a stunning performance; will it be as magical when they're whoring themselves out to ITV? Watch and see.
Saturday will bring to mind another legendary performance destined to live forever in the annals of music: it's Making Your Mind Up time (Sat 6.20pm/8pm BBC1)! That means it's the anniversary of Jordan's Katie Price's appearance in a pink Teletubby suit, and her ignominous defeat (although, as she points out in her latest magnum opus a) She never wanted to do Eurovision anyway but her manager made her; b) The song just wasn't right for her voice; c) She had horrible stage fright; and d) Javine smells of wee). Who will represent us at Eurovision this year? Let's see: it's a choice between a boyband grad who looks like an estate agent, someone out of Hear'Say (or was it Liberty X?), and a load of people we've never heard of. The comment panel sounds rather better, at least, with Wossy, dear dear Brrrruno Tonioni from SCD (roll on autumn!), Kelly O (will she imitate her mother's, um, mumsy style of judging?), and, er, terminally fizzy thought-vacuum Fearne Cotton, who we wager will be ever so nice to everyone. If only Simon Cowell could be persuaded to take part! (Ooh yes, TV Troll read somewhere that there is to be an Americavision Song Contest, with the states competing against each other, and we're practically fapping with excitement. Isn't that something to look forward to, kitsch fans?)
Original picture from www.gono.com