Persistent Distraction

Great British Menu

How I hate this program. 

I hate it because I love cooking shows and have a weak spot for celebrity chefs.  I hate it with a fiery white-hot passion that compels me to switch on BBC 2 every evening at 7:30.

The premise, which is repeated twenty-seven times during each program by the ex-royal correspondent presenter, is that every week two chefs compete to win the prize of cooking for the Queen.

Each week two well-known or up-and-coming or chefs prepare a four-course menu which represents their region.  On Monday, the contestants banter and snipe and prepare a first course which the other then tastes. Tuesday through Thursday they repeat the slicing, searing and bitching through the fish course, the main, and the dessert.

On Friday, the chefs supposedly cook every dish again, for the judges.  The viewers' credulity is stretched on this by the daily previews of the judges tasting the creations.

In the grand tradition of vote 'em off reality shows, the judges cold-bloodedly butcher the candidates.  They greet the Michelin-star-studded chefs' hopeful creations with pronouncements like:

"This dish absolutely disappoints me."

"Aaaaggghhhh!  Mint sprigs!  The foulest ignominy from the bowels of hell!"

"It smells like a pub ashtray."

One obviously airbrushed photo of the aforementioned judges:

And the unretouched version:

I could mention the ridiculous rules of the contest (the first heats oblige the judges to vote for an overall menu, regardless of their favorite single dishes, yet the final pits starter against starter and pudding v. pudding, though the favorite dishes and their creators may have been eliminated), or the painful announcement of the winner (by my calculations, in each episode the lesser-known chef has won), or the rather hard-to-swallow notion that the final menu for the Queen's 80th birthday luncheon will be chosen by her subjects in a phone-in vote just days before the event...but that would just be irrelevant, since my real beef with the series is that I would give my right tastebud to be a judge myself, but I'll never experience the cured salmon with sweet citrus asparagus and dill hollandaise.

And neither will Her Majesty, because Gary Rhodes was voted off.

A footnote:  Judge Butthead redeemed himself slightly in last night's program when he wished for a Spinal Tap amp moment... he would have scored the Welsh fish course an eleven. 

Cheap DVDs, Recovered Memories, and The Power of Denial

I'm a sucker for chick flicks:  romantic comedies, period drama, anything based on a Jane Austen novel or starring Hugh Grant.

Yesterday while out shopping I noticed that Donner had the latest Pride and Prejudice on DVD for €9.99, or 3 for €25 (I'm also a sucker for a bargain).  So I scooped up a copy and began browsing for two more to go with it.  I decided to finally get a copy of Sense and Sensibility, the Ang Lee one (Austen AND Grant?  How had I resisted that pull so long?).  Vying for the number three spot were a BBC production of Northanger Abbey, and Four Weddings and a Funeral.  (Austen VERSUS Grant?  Cruel choice to make...)  I hadn't seen the former, and had already seen by my calculations Thirty-Six Weddings and Nine Funerals.  Therefore, having learned the hard way to favor the known quantity in DVD purchases, and wondering why on earth I hadn't bought this one before, I chose FWAAF. 

This evening, I fancied some comfort viewing.  I surveyed my purchases and decided upon Four Weddings, for its familiarity:  Charles swearing as he wakes up late for another wedding, Scarlett's mad hats, the W H Auden poem, Fiona's arch wounded persona, and all the lovely scenes of average-looking people in pretty clothes. 

So I put that disc in the player, selected English with Dutch subtitles, and pressed Play.  As the opening credits began, I was struck by an incredible, horrendous realization.  Suddenly I knew why I had never bought the DVD, even though it is exactly my sort of film, and why yesterday, distracted by the Grant/Austen dilemma, I had consented to fork over the cash:

I had forgotten that Andie MacDowell was in it.

I watched it anyway, of course.  Her flat, twangy delivery is still annoying, but it wasn't her fault she was given lines like "Is it still raining?  I hadn't noticed."  Anyway, the rest of the movie is romcom therapy and worth owning the DVD for.  I'm keeping it next to Bridget Jones, on Rainy Saturday rotation...

Fun with Subtitles

Bless the Dutch for subtitling rather than dubbing.  I like to learn new expressions by watching bad  American television on Net5, and reading the subtitles.

The best material for this language acquisition system are old episodes of Friends, because, as I know the dialogue by heart, I can anticipate the words I'd like to learn in Dutch. 

In "The One with the Anniversary Dinner," Ross takes a three-hole punch from Rachel's desk at her office, and a colleague protests, "That's our three-hole punch!"  The subtitle read, "Dat is onze vitaminedrank!"