As some of you may recall, I take rather a cynical view of posh people telling us what to do, particularly if they’re on telly, and especially upper class male twats acting like geniuses just because they can cook (“Look how clever I am!” They cry. “ Cooking doesn’t get any tougher than this!” Well, actually it does – have they been on an arctic expedition recently?)
But last night I could barely believe what I was hearing on The One Show. Hugh Fernley Whitterington sporting a new Guardian-approved haircut was spouting on about his latest money making scam. He was apparently a vegetarian for four whole months and has managed to get a book, a TV series and no doubt a long line of chat show dates out of it which will probably take him very nicely through to Christmas thank you all very much (you may doff your caps now or later).
After regaling us with blindingly obvious facts about how we as a species eat too much meat (which, by the way, is not true of the whole world as he suggested) we were urged to try such exotic vegetables as fennel and aubergine. Excuse me but have we gone back to the 1930’s here? I had visions of him arriving back at his Club and trying to impress his cronies with his foreign discoveries, possibly fresh from a trip to Germany to get veggie dinner tips off Hitler. “I say old bean I have brought some unusual and fascinating edible plants from my travels in Europe. Fear not, for they may taste strange but can do you no ill.”
It may be news to Hugh Fernley Poshington Smug Git but some of us have heard of vegetables, and quite a few people are or have been vegetarian, including Adolf himself allegedly. He could have just gone on Google to find some delicious meat-free treats rather than on a ‘journey’ to discover you can eat plants.
Mind you, such self- aggrandisement is necessary to justify getting paid tons of money for not actually doing anything. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised as the whole of telly is run by upper middle class middle aged fascists who are egged on by a battalion of sycophants waiting to be told what to eat this week.
It is possible that I despise the man-with-new-Guardian-haircut more than Nigel Slater – after all, Hugh Poshington Smythe does own half of Devon whereas Nige only has a pad with huge garden in London.
But which one is posher... only one way to find out.... FIGHT!
