spinoff

Thought for the day: despite what some would have you believe, there is nothing - not one tiny little thing - that is either hard, clever or big about cooking in expensive restaurants, no matter what the Hun Ramsey would have you believe.

 

Like M.P.White, Ramsey has recently published an autobiography which, like his odious TV programme, revels in his considerable capacity for bullying, swearing and cooking people's tea.

 

Why is this man celebrated? His rebarbative brand of aggression, blue language and hideous appearance are three things that modern society abhors - so why does he remain popular? And who on god's good earth does he imagine will want to read a book dealing with the subject?

 

Do we want to read 400 pages of: "Monday - got up, ruined someone's day by swearing, bullied someone else, beat someone up and then made a fruit pavlova"?

 

No sireebob. Celebrity chefs who revel in machismo are amongst the most laughable entities ever to walk the face of the earth. We must laugh at them, long, hard and often.

 

Yours etc.,

 

Spinoff.

Interesting to see Boris getting bonked over the head with the media frying pan for his outburst of Jamie Oliver-themed apostasy. Interesting to see also the way in which the Tory Pary – in the full flush of conference – dealt with it.

 

In the end, it was dealt with in the “chuh! Boris, eh?” manner which was probably the right one. As an original and an eccentric, Boris was allowed some leeway.

 

And it was this sudden leakage of character that set this Spinoffite thinking – politics… character… hmm.

 

Because there have not been any, have there? Politicians with character, that is. Not recently anyway, and certainly not in the Labour party.

 

Sure, there will be dead-eyed Labourite apparatchiks in the Blair and Brown bunkers who will shoot forth a jet of hagiographic guff concerning their man at the drop of a hat.

 

The toe-curling leaked Blair aide memo shows the extent to which, amongst his own, Blair is worshipped as some sort of a god. But among the wider population? Not a bit of it.

 

So we at Spinoff, though by no means Tories, welcome Boris J. We feel that he brings humour, character and warmth to the political table, qualities that the New Labour machine seems at times almost specifically designed to crush.

 

Yours etc.,

 

Spinoff.

Yes - there wasn't a great fluidity, was there? About Mr G.Brown's speech today. At conference. The voice is solid yes, but he's got no real sense of phrasing or timing. And he didn't say a word about Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Iran. Or Palestine. Or Trident. Or the NHS strikes. Or the pensions black hole. Or anything.

 

Soundwise, it worked well-ish as a Credo; a crie de coeur in the Presbyterian / humanist mould, setting out a craggy-faced, wind-swept vision of chilly-thighed, freshly-starched Brownite leadership - all "neeps and tatties with pastor Brown in the grey, stone rectory", washed down with strong, bad tea and then in the morning crisp, cold white clothes laid out on the bed by a disapproving, black-clad mother, who glowers at the suspicious stains on the eiderdown before thrashing you down the street to school, and to hours of Calvin and Erasmus on hard benches.

 

And in that moment I found myself thinking "fuck that".

 

Yours etc.,

 

Spinoff.