Goethe had an interesting theory...

Who’s Gertie?

Why we love Roy and Becky on Corrie (ITV1, Wed)

Ze Restaurant - life's no picnic

So can anyone explain to us why so many people want to run a restaurant when they can’t actually cook?Raymond sure doesn’t seem to know. In fact, so despairing was he about all the terrible twosomes who remain in The Restaurant (BBC2, Wed), he refused, in a fit of pique, to give anyone his “Restaurant of the Week” award. And frankly, we can’t blame him.This week’s test meant the couples had to offer a take-away menu, alongside their normal service. Between them, they offered a delicious concoction of 14-hour-old sarnies (yum), something called clangers (puff pastry containing jam and mince) and oven chips. To complete the picture, there was the Chinese bloke who can’t cook Chinese and the English woman who can’t cook English food and gets mighty offended if anyone implies otherwise.Not surprisingly, none of the regatta-goers with their caviar and champagne really fancied purchasing a box of shriveled-looking sarnies.As the Restaurant stepped up its spooky, “Harry Potter” soundtrack, we couldn’t guess who might be going in “ze shallange”. They all deserved it.In the end, Rah-mond spared Lindsie and Tim. We were glad of that. Poor old Linz had already been through the works, thanks to that shouty, sweary tool who refused to pay for his food. And he didn’t even stay to sample the delights of a clanger. He wants to count himself lucky he wasn’t dining in one of the other restaurants. They REALLY can’t cook.The only other couple to stay out of “ze shallange” were smiley, happy cuddle-bunnies Russell and Michele. Word to the wise... we reckon Raymond wouldn’t mind “urpening a restaurant” with them. If they do triumph, we’ll be steering well clear of their eatery – they’re so irritating. But then, maybe we just don’t have cheerful souls.

It never rains, but it pours - on Sunshine

It was hardly a laugh-a-minute, Steve Coogan’s new comedy-drama Sunshine (BBC1, Tues).
In fact, after an hour of watching this tale of a feckless northern gambling addict and his long suffering family, we were just about ready to top ourselves.
Course, it had its amusing moments - well, one at least that we can think of, actually.
The scene where our hero Bob “Bing” Crosby tried to quietly eavesdrop on a punter’s supposed betting tip - while he was sitting on the loo having a rather noisy dump.
Nothing like a bit of toilet humour to lighten our mood.
But, generally speaking, you’d have more belly laughs watching an average episode of Coronation Street than you would this.
Penned by Craig Cash and Phil Mealey (who also appeared - albeit rather unconvincingly - as Bing’s binmen workmates), this opener did have some promising moments.
We particularly loved the great Bernard Hill as good old Grandad Crosby - funny, warm hearted and just generally a very nice bloke.
But even he looks like he’s in for some awful catastrophe soon. All those dizzy spells. Oh ’eck.
At the end of the programme, we left Bing a broken man having been the victim of a rather daft betting shop scam.
He’s lost the family’s “Disney” money. His wife knows he’s been at the savings tin and is probably about to chuck him out. And his lovely dad is probably going to cop it soon.
Don’t know about you, but we can’t WAIT to tune in for next week’s hilarious escapades...

Alright Serge... why we want John to win

Strictly night… and the thing we were most looking forward to was John Sergeant’s (or was it Jo Brand’s?) tango – and the twinkle-toed tubster didn’t disappoint.
Sultry. Raunchy. Impassioned. John’s tango was none of those things. Instead he capered around the room with a broad Cheshire cat grin on his face. “It had all the characteristics people associate with me,” he beamed, at the end. “Passion. Rhythm. And raw sexuality!”
Well, perhaps not. But, as Bonzo Tortellini said: “Eet worked!”
I don’t know a single Strictly watcher who doesn’t adore John. He's what Strictly is all about.

In recent years, the show has focused boringly on ex-pop starlets performing "a different kind of dancing" (yeah, right) with clinical, lacklustre brilliance. But surely it's people like Serge, rotund golden oldies flinging themselves wholeheartedly into jives and rumbas, that give Strictly its entertainment value?

Never mind slinky Rachel Stevens or muscle-bound hunk Austin Healey. Surely it has to be John in that final?
As for charmless chef Gary Rhodes… well, he’s no loss, really. He had none of the charisma we’ve come to expect from a dancing dunce. The only shame is that, next week, another girl is going to have to go. Don’t suppose it could be Lisa Snowdon, could it? That way, we’d get shot of Brendan at the same time.

Ze Restaurant – I’ll take that on board

It took us the usual twenty minutes to work out what on earth the contestants on The Restaurant were supposed to be doing in “ze shall-ange” this week.

Rah-mond was there, in his foxy suit, and we could pluck the odd phrase from his French burble “eef you are successfool”, for example. We’re not sure precisely what a “success-fool” is but we reckon there are some on this programme.

Anyway, we needed nice voiceover woman to inform us that, this week, the contestants had to make and serve delicious airline food to a variety of high-profile guests. And Sarah Willingham. Who? Sarah Willingham. She’s one of the judges but, apparently, quite easy to overlook. Two teams completely forgot to give her her dinner.

Tim and Lindsay, as we expected, were immense and promptly became best-buds with their cooking partners, Steve and Helen. We reckon they’ll all start going on holiday together once the series is over.

Not surprisingly, the teams that struggled were the ones that can’t really cook much. The Welsh Wok-ites struggled because Peter the Chinese bloke STILL can’t manage to cook rice.

But it was the endearing Northern Dimwits who departed. Fair enough – what they dished up in the name of “Lancashire hot-pot” looked more like it belonged in a chamber pot.

“We’ve lost out to a Chinese man who can’t cook rice,” sighed Dimwit 1 (Chris). True. But better than being an English man who can’t cook ANYTHING.

Ze Restaurant - you 'ave to leesten verray carefully

Well, we felt very sorry for Tim and Lindsay getting “poot in ze shallarnge” (that’s “put in the challenge” for those of you not attuned to Raymond Blanc-speak).
After all, once drippy Lindsay had dried her tears about missing her son, they flung their whole hearts into their Japanese theme, even going for a big karaoke finale.
And their food certainly looked a tad more appetizing than the stuff being churned out by those Northern numbskulls who were doing Mexican.
Last night Rah-mond, in his wisdom, had assigned each couple a different national theme for their restaurant dishes.
“We could do beef and horseradish in a fajita - that’d be good, wouldn’t it?” asked Dimwit Northerner (1) Chris, as the British viewing public clutched their stomachs in agony. You can put anything in a fajita, you know, and call it Mexican. Carrots. Green beans. Anything. And they did.
Not surprisingly, they too were in “ze shallarnge”.
Also in there was the hilariously named Welsh Wok which went Spanish, probably because its customers are now totally confused about what kind of cuisine they might get to eat there. (“Ahm baffurled by ze concept”, as Rah-mond might say).
Angry Man Chef and his Bungling Sidekick (James and Alastair) were lucky not to join them, having penned their menu in “French” – the kind of French where vegetable becomes “veggie-tabluh” and pears becomes “parres”.
Rah-mond was mightily offended at all this, despite the fact his English is hardly anything to write home about.
In fact, that’s one of the funniest things about this show – half the time we haven’t got a clue what he’s on about.
Whereas Alan Sugar tells his would-be colleagues straight (“You’re fired!”), Raymond beats about the bush a bit more.
Unfortunately, this tends to mean nobody really knows who’s staying or going.
“You ‘ave nurt convinced me un oeuf,” he’ll say, while the contestants stare at him blankly (“Does he mean us? What’s going on?”)
Our money’s on the Northern Dimwits to go.

Soapsuds

Corrie
DO we think this week was the most badly-planned exit of any character EVER in the history of soap?
It certainly seemed that way to us. Last Friday, Jerry-Kebab (who we’ve only just managed to stop referring to as Sinbad) half-mentioned something about going to Spain. By Monday, he and his two youngest kids had gone. For good.
"Are you sure you’ve thought this through?" Mel asked him, echoing our own "viewer to scriptwriter" concerns.
"Yeah, it’ll be fine," breezed Jerry.
"But you don’t speak the language," pointed out Mel, reasonably.
"Ah – soon learn," said Jerry, a man who’s never even been able to speak Mancunian, never mind anything more adventurous.
"And you don’t know anybody," said Mel.
"Ah, balderdash and piffle," shrugged Jerry (or something similar) before he and his family set off for Spain with no job, no money and next to no possessions.
We don’t understand why Corrie have proved masters of the slow-burning plotline and yet can be so cack-handed with their slow-burning characters.
Anyway, following the rapid dispatching of Harry, Vernon, Jerry, Kayleigh and Finlay, Lovely Liam should be afraid, very afraid, now Tony’s in the know.
And, BTW, were you shocked at the sight of Rawsie in a revealing corset? Not us. The biggest shock is that she doesn’t walk around like that all the time.

Jamie's Ministry of Food:

“If Jamie’s School Dinners was Star Wars, this is the Empire Strikes Back,” said Jamie Oliver at the start of his brand new TV mission this week.
Yep, Jamie’s Ministry of Food (C4, Tues) showed quite a lot of the celebrity chef talking utter excrement – but this certainly livened up what could have been a very dull show.
The series is a kind of follow-up to the lisping hero’s earlier efforts to persuade schools to improve their lunch time menus.
Only this time, he wants to improve an ENTIRE TOWN’S eating habits. By passing on a few simple healthy recipes and hoping his “students” go on to teach them to a couple of other people. And in the end about two million people will know how to cook. Or something.
Obviously, to do this he needed to head to a scummy-looking northern town where folk left cans of beer and boxes of crisps piled high outside their back doors.
So off we trotted to Rotherham, where the first person we met was Julie Critchlow – the gobby mum who famously passed bags of chips through to her kids when Jamie’s healthy school lunches were introduced at their school.
The chef was amazed when he met her that far from being the work-shy junk-food loving harridan she appeared to be from the news clips, Julie and her mum were actually quite keen on home cooking.
They even made Yorkshire puddings, for goodness sake.
Jamie was obviously terrified of the tough-talking matriarch.
So much so, he completely forgot to bring up the issue of why she was feeding her kids chips through the school fence then. If she was such a devoted fan of healthy home cooking.
Instead he decided that she was going to be some sort of ambassador for the new “mission.”
A couple of volunteers who hadn’t got a clue about cooking agreed to be the first to learn all of Jamie’s new recipes.
They included a well-meaning young mum who was shown giving her kids their “fourth takeaway of the week.” And it was only Tuesday.
She turned out to be quite a natural in the kitchen actually.
Other volunteers weren’t quite so successful though.
One seemed to have trouble with the concept that when a pan was bubbling, that meant it had reached boiling point.
There were also grumbles that all this cooking and teaching lark was just far too time-consuming.
And indeed, when Jamie caught up with his subjects a couple of weeks later, even the successful mum had fallen off the wagon and started buying kebabs again.
Jamie wasn’t put off though – proudly boasting to camera that he had still “enriched her life.”
We’ll see.
Entertaining though this show undoubtedly was, we can’t help being a tad put off by the “look at the thick northerners” tone.
Still, clips of future shows, where Jamie is seen at a football pitch with the crowd crying: “You fat b*****d!” look highly promising.