I can’t bare the Naked Chef

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, 28 JULY 2002

IF YOU ARE a regular reader of this organ, you will know that I am no fan of the Naked Chef. It would be fair to say that between the Naked Chef and me, a great deal of love is not lost. We have never come to blows or anything, no matter what you may read in the tabloid pages of the yellow press, but relations between us are not cordial. Let’s just say we do not speak to each other, and leave it at that.

There are many things I do not like about the Naked Chef. I do not, for one thing, like his lips. He has lips like the inside of a giant clam. I am afraid of standing too close to those lips in case they snap shut around my ankle and hold me immobile while the tide rises and slowly drowns me. Fortunately, I have devised a technique for neutralising the threat of those lips. Remember this simple manoeuvre if ever you find yourself in close proximity to Jamie Oliver and the rising waters of the seashore: place your right hand behind his head and press, with a firm and steady motion, his face against the nearest wall. A squelching sound will tell you when maximum suction has been attained between lips and wall. A few gentle backward tugs by the hair should ascertain firmness of bond. Congratulations! Jamie Oliver and his lips are now immobilised. You are safe! Plus, you won’t have to hear a grown man use the words “Tucker” or “Yeh?” or say “Wicked” as an expression of approval.

It has been suggested that my principal complaint against Jamie Oliver is not his lips or his David-Beckham-meets-Keith-Floyd hairdo, or the fact that he has a vocabulary of fewer words than Marlee Matlin’s mynah bird, or even that cutesy scooter that makes the ladies go “Awww”. (Just wait until someone arrives to fetch you for a date on a scooter, girls. Then you’ll really say “Awww”.)

It has been suggested that my principal complaint has something to do with the fact that each year he sells more copies of his rotten cookbooks than you can shake a stick at. (And believe me, I have shaken many a stick at those books.) This allegation, while uncharitable, is regrettably true. Jamie Oliver is young, slim, attractive to the public and sells lots of books. His very existence is abhorrent to me.

But my better self sometimes asserts itself. “Perhaps he is not so bad when he is not mugging it up in the kitchen,” says my better self. At which point I throw my better self in a headlock and shove my thumb into one of its eyes. So it was something of a relief to discover this week that the little swine is even more of a dunderhead when he’s not mashing potatoes or jellying eels or whatever.

Jamie Oliver was a guest on Parkinson (BBC Prime, Monday, 10.30pm). He’s a lovely old duffer, is Michael Parkinson. He brings to me the same comfort as Graeme Hart the weather guy, or a cricket test on a summery Saturday afternoon: it feels as though nothing can go too terribly wrong with the world as long as Parky is having a good old chuckle with his guests. “Ho, ho, ho, ho, hooo, dear me,” says Parky during the course of a good old chuckle. When he is merely chuckling politely, he goes: “Ho, ho, ho. Yes.” To a veteran Parky watcher, these variations are all important.

You could tell that Parkinson was slightly bemused at finding himself interviewing a chef in his early twenties with absolutely no life experience. “The secret of my success is that I am really passionate,” said Jamie Oliver.

“Oh really?” said Parkinson, perking up at the scent of a conversation. “Passionate about what, exactly?”

This was a question Jamie Oliver had not asked his press manager. “Um, uh, well, everything, mate. Everything, yeh?”

Parky pondered. He didn’t want to belabour the point, but there was really nothing else to talk about. “Presumably you’re especially passionate about food?” he offered.

“Oh, mate,” said Jamie Oliver, his eyes shining like a pair of faucets, “food is brilliant. Because you know, flavours are, well, they’re a real experience, aren’t they? Lovely. Wicked.”

Soon Parky was stretching for something to ask. “Culinary fashions change so quickly,” he ventured. “What do you think we will be eating in 20 years?”

Jamie Oliver’s new vertical hairstyle quivered slightly in the gentle breeze of his deep thought.

“You know,” he said at last, “the secret of my success is that I am very passionate …”

“Is it true that you have never read a book?” asked Parky.

“That’s true, yep,” said Jamie Oliver with a proud smile. At least, I think it was a smile – it is hard to tell with those lips. It was a shocking admission. Even the person I always believed to be the biggest cretin on television – Margaret from Big Brother 1 – has read a book. If you will recall, she couldn’t remember precisely the title of the book, “but I know it was by Danielle Steele”. Think about that – Margaret with her suntan-lotion-stained paperback Danielle Steele is better read than one of the best-selling authors on the market today.

Thoughtfully, Parky had invited Elle McPherson on the show to make Jamie look better. “So, Elle,” said Parky happily, “do you mind it when people call you The Body?”

Elle was ready for this question. “No, no,” she said. “Bodies are good, because they have everything inside them, like, you know, a soul, and a spirit and … uh …” Polyps? Duodenal ulcers? Tapeworms? Sometimes, if you’re lucky, selected bits of other people’s bodies? We don’t know. She never finished the thought.

“Anyway,” said Elle, “it could have been worse. I could be called … uh … The Brain.”

Parky chuckled. “Ho, ho, ho,” he said. “Yes.”