James Delingpole James Delingpole

Cooked-up tension

issue 04 February 2012

Masterchef (BBC1) is a total waste of life — and I should know, because I’m addicted to it. It came to me suddenly and I’m still not sure how it happened. All I know is that one year I was like: ‘Masterchef. Ah, yes, it’s that foodie programme Loyd Grossman presents, which critics always call things like “Moaasterchoif” and “Mxxrgrghstrchrrxff” to show how amusing they can be about the presenter’s pronunciation.’ And the next I was: ‘Noo! Noo! No way was cloudberry coulis on calf’s brain carpaccio an ejection offence! That boy’s got talent. You should have got rid of the woman with her crappy tarte au citron…’

Actually I’ve just done another thing critics always do when writing up Masterchef: competing to see who can conjure up the most imaginatively ludicrous dish to represent the kind of imaginatively ludicrous dishes they tend to imagine get served up on Masterchef.

Regular viewers will know, however, that this is a fake observation.

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