Unless you have a family, a social life, tickets for the opera or an organ donor card, the weekend means one thing: slumping for several hours in front of Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday.
You know the drill five hours of washed-up football 'legends' that have slipped out of rehab or the bookies' to talk about matches they're watching on monitors but we can't see until the 10'o'clock highlights.
Saturday Kitchen (Saturday, believe it or not, BBC One) is the foodie equivalent but minus the fug of gin and defeat.
It's aspirational viewing in the truest sense, as the chances of most viewers whipping up a teriyaki hummingbird for breakfast to shake off a steaming hangover are surely slimmer than volume five of Peter Andre's Greatest Hits.
Slipping into the Jeff Stelling role is James Martin, at first glance a polo-shirted everyman but beneath whose deceptively oafish exterior beats the heart of a true food snob.
He was joined by a brace of superstar chefs you've never heard of, and some TV strumpet with an allergy to peppers, to talk stuffed squid and lobster ravioli.
Helpfully, the show's resident wine expert was also on hand to tell us what we should be drinking at 10 in the morning - although most folks on the sauce at that point are surely already in a Wetherspoon sucking coins from the fruit machine.
But TV like this should not be over-thought. Like Soccer Saturday, it's background noise you tune out, like jazz or politicians; pretty colours to be taken in through sensory osmosis between bouts of hungover vomiting or arguing with your other half about whose turn it is to de-scale the dog. If you can pick up a few tips on how to braise an apricot along the way, all the better.
Aside from the searing drama of the regular Omelette Challenge (this week, man outsmarted omelette 2-1 at backgammon) there was just one controversial note. While shelling almonds with a claw-hammer, Martin let the cat out of the bag by observing that "it's got to be easier buying these from a shop".
It was like Stelling asking viewers why, if they like football so much, they're sat on the sofa watching him instead of dodging the dog turds in a kickabout down the park.
More from this column
You know the drill five hours of washed-up football 'legends' that have slipped out of rehab or the bookies' to talk about matches they're watching on monitors but we can't see until the 10'o'clock highlights.
Saturday Kitchen (Saturday, believe it or not, BBC One) is the foodie equivalent but minus the fug of gin and defeat.
It's aspirational viewing in the truest sense, as the chances of most viewers whipping up a teriyaki hummingbird for breakfast to shake off a steaming hangover are surely slimmer than volume five of Peter Andre's Greatest Hits.
Slipping into the Jeff Stelling role is James Martin, at first glance a polo-shirted everyman but beneath whose deceptively oafish exterior beats the heart of a true food snob.
He was joined by a brace of superstar chefs you've never heard of, and some TV strumpet with an allergy to peppers, to talk stuffed squid and lobster ravioli.
Helpfully, the show's resident wine expert was also on hand to tell us what we should be drinking at 10 in the morning - although most folks on the sauce at that point are surely already in a Wetherspoon sucking coins from the fruit machine.
But TV like this should not be over-thought. Like Soccer Saturday, it's background noise you tune out, like jazz or politicians; pretty colours to be taken in through sensory osmosis between bouts of hungover vomiting or arguing with your other half about whose turn it is to de-scale the dog. If you can pick up a few tips on how to braise an apricot along the way, all the better.
Aside from the searing drama of the regular Omelette Challenge (this week, man outsmarted omelette 2-1 at backgammon) there was just one controversial note. While shelling almonds with a claw-hammer, Martin let the cat out of the bag by observing that "it's got to be easier buying these from a shop".
It was like Stelling asking viewers why, if they like football so much, they're sat on the sofa watching him instead of dodging the dog turds in a kickabout down the park.
More from this column
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