I’ve always been a fan of Jamie Oliver. Sure he’s got a pudding face and he doesn’t half talk some shit, but I had a bit of a nervous breakdown a few years ago and this led to me having an affinity for him. I’d just come back from travelling in South East Asia and after crashing a motorbike and doing a lot of mushrooms I felt an overwhelming urge to do something; Something humble, something honest, something with my hands. As a result of this quarter life crisis I went and got a job as a bottom of the rung chef at the ripe old age of 27. Humbly earning £12k a year, doing 60 hour weeks and wearing a permanent aura of cheap warm vegetable oil. It wasn’t my greatest hour and the shifts were tough, so I respect him as a fellow chef. I’ve been in the trenches and I know what its like to cut your finger on a mandolin when you’ve been awake for 48 hours and you’ve drank too much cooking wine. He’s a man who presents quality food in an approachable and elementary format to the masses. Cooking is a simple pleasure and when done right can bring someone infinite joy. As a result his passion for simplifying good grub commands my respect.

So when settling down to Jamie and Jimmy’s Food Fight Club last night imagine how disappointed I was to see him and that pig touching friend of his bumbling about the country in shit hot Capri chucking cheese about the shop. The premise of the show is a bit of inane celebrity chatter in some greasy spoon the duo have set up on Southend pier, mixed up a bit with an international battle of the food stuffs. Last night saw England giving France a right royal drubbing at the age old art of making cheese. The cheese off is not a bad premise as a standalone and maybe warrants a BBC2 half hour show nestling between the ample foody bosom of Rick Stein and the 2 Hairy Bikers. Not an hour long Essex LAAAADfest complete with an overwhelmingly nauseating 2 minute dream montage where the fat tongued chef leads an army of cheese wheel wielding artisans in to battle on the beaches of Normandy. I don’t know if the directors were as thick as Oliver or just wanted to mug him off to the nation, but last time I checked we fought Zi Germans on Normandy Beach, not the French.

Not content with defiling history Jamie invites a celebrity chum over to cook a food fight themed dish. What better way to showcase the up and coming quality of the series than to set the bar nice and high with Alan Carr cooking a cheese fvcking toasty.

I fully understand why people genuinely hate the man after last nights sugar sweet cockholding chumfest, and while I’m not knocking him as a chef, his not so subtle segue into light entertainment is starting to wear a bit thin. Stick to the snap big J.