Gordon Ramsay -

I have been watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares lately and I am struck by one thing. Each show is like a factory production line pre-packaged formula piece of infotainment. This coming from a 'chef' who apparently hates prepackaged inferior product in favour of fresh produce....but this program is well past it's used by date.

So lets do the Ramsay Shuffle and take a look at the layout of these episodes. It does not take long before you are wondering if you are watching the same episode from last week, just at a different restaurant, with different staff. So the episodes start with Ramsay arriving at the establishment in question and proceeding to try some dishes. Oh surprise, surprise!!! he hates every mouthful and they all apparently taste like s*#t.

The number of times I have heard something like "why the hell would you put this with this?"....um it's called cooking Gordon and if you are so afraid of experimenting with food, you shouldn't be in a kitchen.

Then we have the assault on the kitchen staff, complete with insults and derogatory comments...we also move into 'renovation mode' because, surprise surprise, he hates the interior design of every place he visits as well. So in comes the 'makeover' team to change the interior of the place, completely ignoring any wishes of the owner, by the way, because all their ideas are insulted as well. It wouldn't surprise me if he walked into a room that looked exactly like something his design team would do and he would hate it anyway because he 'has to'.

So we move into the next phase which is the revised menu of his own ideas...oh and don't you dare try anything he makes and tell him you don't like it...you may not make it to the door alive!!

So the new menu is tried on a crowd of diners and then the formula kicks into high gear...it's time for the 'pat on the back' sequence for the staff...with such things as "come on big boy" and the like. After perhaps a few more thrown in hiccups here and there, it is time to wrap up the episode with some good old arse kissing about how great everyone did and so forth....basically turning monster Ramsay into supportive Ramsay and golly gee cheesecake photo moment, isn't he a swell guy everyone.....lets all hug and simply forget that this guy has been a prick for the entire show.

Then it gets worse....we have Hell's Kitchen. A show about chefs competing for a restaurant. Now I have no problem with him yelling at his own staff and swearing at experienced chefs who should know better than to do something really stupid in a kitchen....but this show made me stop watching Ramsay every again. He actually swore at a customer..I mean...what the hell?
The last time I checked customers are your 'bread and butter' and you simply don't treat a customer with that kind of disrespect. Not only did he swear at these two ladies, he continued to mock them as they walked away.

So for this viewer, from now on, any channel with Gordon Ramsay on it will be changed to another channel. I am actually quite surprised that no-one has smacked him in the mouth on a more regular basis.

Anyway.....that's my two cents.