There was loads of good telly on this week. Unfortunately bog-all of it was food-related.
And since it's not my remit to wax lyrical about Bruce Springsteen, Darkness Revisited; England's second test Ashes victory; or, ahem, live Corrie (and I've lost interest in Rick Stein's Cornish Christmas, 8.30pm, BBC2, 9 December since Chalky went to the great kennel in the sky) I've had to settle for something, gulp, from the daytime schedule.
Now, I'm not a fan of the mind-numbing tosh that gets dished up for the workshy (sorry, full-time mums, etc) in the name of daytime TV, so it was with some trepidation that I pressed the 'play' button having recorded The Hairy Bikers' Cook Off (5.15pm, weekdays, BBC2).
And sadly (I say sadly because I usually heart the Hairies), my fears were well-founded. The series charts their search for Britain's best cooking family and includes cooking challenges for the competing families, foodie tips and a celebrity guest. No problems there. But what was with the studio's primary colour decor? My eyes were watering at the kids' TV brightness of it all. I felt like a Gremlin that had come into contact with water!
I'm not sure the hirsute ones were convinced by the format, either. Perhaps it was the constraints of the studio. They just weren't their usual irrepressible selves. The banter wasn't as natural as when they're roaming the country, cooking up hearty fare in the great outdoors.
That's not to say the programme didn't have its merits. Dave and Si's recipes were as practical yet inspired as ever (aubergine-wrapped lamb sausages and a seven-minute supper of sweet & sour chicken with fried rice); octogenarian Claude, with his perfect bread pudding, was a real character (he also pretty much singlehandedly won the contest for his team); and the celebrity guest, Ben de Lisi, was surprisingly witty as he whipped up a tasty-looking Swiss chard-stuffed bread.
But it all felt less than a sum of its parts. The clue was in Dave's weird interjections with random facts. As de Lisi was cooking he remarked that Aristotle had written about chard in the 4th century. A bemused de Lisi asked: "What did he say?" to which Dave replied: "It's good."
Shame the same couldn't be said of the show.
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And since it's not my remit to wax lyrical about Bruce Springsteen, Darkness Revisited; England's second test Ashes victory; or, ahem, live Corrie (and I've lost interest in Rick Stein's Cornish Christmas, 8.30pm, BBC2, 9 December since Chalky went to the great kennel in the sky) I've had to settle for something, gulp, from the daytime schedule.
Now, I'm not a fan of the mind-numbing tosh that gets dished up for the workshy (sorry, full-time mums, etc) in the name of daytime TV, so it was with some trepidation that I pressed the 'play' button having recorded The Hairy Bikers' Cook Off (5.15pm, weekdays, BBC2).
And sadly (I say sadly because I usually heart the Hairies), my fears were well-founded. The series charts their search for Britain's best cooking family and includes cooking challenges for the competing families, foodie tips and a celebrity guest. No problems there. But what was with the studio's primary colour decor? My eyes were watering at the kids' TV brightness of it all. I felt like a Gremlin that had come into contact with water!
I'm not sure the hirsute ones were convinced by the format, either. Perhaps it was the constraints of the studio. They just weren't their usual irrepressible selves. The banter wasn't as natural as when they're roaming the country, cooking up hearty fare in the great outdoors.
That's not to say the programme didn't have its merits. Dave and Si's recipes were as practical yet inspired as ever (aubergine-wrapped lamb sausages and a seven-minute supper of sweet & sour chicken with fried rice); octogenarian Claude, with his perfect bread pudding, was a real character (he also pretty much singlehandedly won the contest for his team); and the celebrity guest, Ben de Lisi, was surprisingly witty as he whipped up a tasty-looking Swiss chard-stuffed bread.
But it all felt less than a sum of its parts. The clue was in Dave's weird interjections with random facts. As de Lisi was cooking he remarked that Aristotle had written about chard in the 4th century. A bemused de Lisi asked: "What did he say?" to which Dave replied: "It's good."
Shame the same couldn't be said of the show.
More from this column
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