Problem Town

“Rotherham, the obesity capital of the UK, and home to the junk food addicted “northern scrubbers” he foolhardily cussed in a TV interview last year.”

The Guardian

Nutitionally challenged Rotherham

The Sun

Town of food sin

BBC Look North

Do you recognise these descriptions of our town? The first in particular has not one fact in it.

In the run up to the show- you may have noticed that Jamie has avoided putting people right when they talk about burger mums and junk food addicts.

Wait till you see the reaction when the show goes out. Hand picked people: on screen to portray a problem.

The only person who can come out of this with credit- the caring man who saved them.

“The only way we could turn Jamie into a hero was to really see him struggle”.
Ben Frow- Commissioning Editor, Channel 4 on Jamie’s first reality show.

Rotherham- soon to known as “that place full of lazy idiots that Jamie tried to save”

The Rear Window

Scene- A backyard in Rotherham.

Jamie Oliver sneaks up to the kitchen window and watches a group of young women mess up at cooking.

JAMIE: (Shaking head) Fucking hell

Fin

 

And there you have Jamie’s Ministry of Food in a nutshell. Voyeurism. A chance for the middle classes to feel superior by sneering at the less well off. Carefully casting a group of hapless individuals and passing them off as representatives of the working class.

 

In a rare burst of honesty- this was the clip used to publicise the show on Jonathan Ross. In a pattern which will become depressingly familiar- the audience cheered Jamie to the rafters for taking on his selfless mission to raise up the savages and laughed their heads off at mentions of Rotherham.

 

Jamie displayed his usual grip on statistics by saying that the UK was the third most obese nation- after America and South America. Me neither. I thought he must have meant South Africa- but a poverty riddled country is hardly likely to be the second most obese on Earth. Also- Jamie has let it be known that people in Soweto have better diets than us plasma screen pissheads.

 

The photo’s of the Rawmarsh were put up. The audience laughed when he said he had called Julie Critchlow a scrubber. Ross generally took the piss and repeated the lie about “Big Macs” being passed to kids. Jamie didn’t join in because he didn’t have to. By coming to Rotherham- he knew that the power of the images would do his promotion for him.

 

Every piece on TV or radio I have heard refers to pushing burger and chips through the fence at Rawmarsh. Most build it up as some concerted campaign to stop the School Dinners campaign. This not true- but it is the general perception and that is all that matters. Even if the actual show has Oliver doing a five minute bit to camera apologising (which I doubt he will) – the damage is done.

 

Never mind the “issues”- let’s face it, Pass it On is a pretty thin idea. Instead, follow the lead of the radio presenter I heard on Friday. She just went on about a scene where a young girl gets alarmed when she sees bubbles in boiling water as she’s never seen it before. The radio presenter did the polite equivalent of shaking her head and saying “fucking hell”. That’s the level of analysis you’re supposed to have. If you think deeper and consider the casting process and the encouragement people may get to say whatever’s in their heads- no matter how daft it may seem- you may find the whole exercise exploiative and distasteful.

 

Jamie dodged every question worth answering. He banged on at length about how the government must keep funding investment in school dinners. When asked if he had put up the money for the Ministry of Food shop in Rotherham- he sort of made a noise which sounded a bit like yes. He failed to mention that it was also funded by Rotherham Borough Council, that RBT has given him phone lines and he wants the council to fund it to keep it open. In other words- those of us who pay council tax to Rotherham Borough Council put the money up for the shop. How much are the council getting for the tie in promotions Sainsbury’s and WH Smith are running at the moment? As a stakeholder in this enterprise- I think it’s only fair that a share of any profits should be spent on local services for Rotherham people. Don’t you?

 

Also – check the editing on the clip they showed. Either they had plenty of cameras or they are acting out the scenes more than once. Reality TV- do me a favour.

————————————————————————————

Jamie didn’t make it onto the cover of this week’s Radio Times.

That honour went to James May: erudite, urbane and a maker of interesting and entertaining shows. And a product of a Rotherham comprehensive school. May’s mate Jeremy Clarkson started off on the ‘Tiser. And he produced this tribute to our fair town.

Why Rotherham? Part 2

Jamie has come up with an alternative argument for coming to Rotherham.

Maybe because certain local elements have been pointing out that his “crusade” is built on a myth- Jamie has come up with a new angle:

 

Why Rotherham? MofF site

“Another reason for going to Rotherham was that it is said to be the town that best reflects the rest of the country’s population in terms of demographic make up. So, Jamie reckoned if a Ministry of Food could work there, then it could work anywhere.”

 

Anyone with a slight general knowledge will know that the above statement is tosh. You can say plenty of things about our town- but average we ain’t. How could the Ministry of Food team get it so wrong. The good news- I suspect that at least one person on Jamie’s team has read a book. The bad news- they didn’t understand it.

I believe the book in question is:

Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind
by Julian Baggini

Using the kind of data analysis beloved of websites like upmystreet.com, Baggini decided that the S66 postcode was as close as you could get to “average” in this country. The philosopher then came to live in the area- to try and get a handle on Englishness by observing the most typically English people at first hand. I flicked through the book in a shop. It contains loads of fascinating insights- such as people like Ant and Dec, eating at carverys and having a bet on the Grand National.

Never mind the quality- feel the cred’. Jamie was always banging on about being haunted by the images of Rawmarsh to justify his trip to Rotherham. Now that many local people are waking up to his game – he needs a new excuse.

The work experience kid who Googled the book title must have got a big hug.

S66- it’s in Rotherham. Problem solved.

How can anyone accuse them of exploitation?  They have chosen the most typical town in Britain. It’s like lab conditions.

They were so pleased with their new discovery- they slapped it straight on the new Ministry of Food website.

S66 covers the areas of Braithwell, Bramley, Brampton en le Morthen, Hooton Levitt, Maltby, Stainton, Thurcroft, Wickersley and Woodlaithes.

See a problem yet?

If your knowledge of Rotherham is based on looking at a map- you will see that the places are in Rotherham. That’s the borough, not the town. And they are all very handy for the M18.

If your knowledge of Rotherham is based on actually ever coming to the town- you will recognise some of the borough’s leafiest and most sought after suburbs and villages.  Many of them are places that are rammed with commuters who rarely if ever come into town. The whole road traffic system of Bramley has been redesigned to help people bomb off from Woodlaithes village to the motorway faster.

That font of knowledge (often as unreliable as the Ministry of Food) Wiki- states that Rotherham is second largest place in the country without it’s own Royal Mail postcode. This is a big area.

Rotherham centre- the home of Jamie’s Ministry of Food and many other town landmarks is S60. So is Millmoor- the place where popular dissatisfaction with Oliver has first expressed. Just up the road is Kimberworth S61.

Rawmarsh- the real spiritual home of the project and the intended venue for the grand finale is S62.
The festival was moved to Herringthorpe, S65.

These places are close to each other- but so what? Whitechapel and the City of London are neighbours who may as well be on separate planets. Hot porn film librarian Sarah Palin famously lives next door to Russia- but is as American as apple pie.

S66 is probably the least like the rest of Rotherham in terms of income, house prices and ethnic mix.

To suggest that Rotherham is “the town that best reflects the rest of the country’s population in terms of demographic make up” is misleading at best.

Let’s give the producers the benefit of the doubt. Let’s pretend that they really did want to see how the Pass it On campaign went down in Everytown UK before they rolled it out. A key feature will be the lessons Jamie gave to a select group of non – cookers. From the pre publicity- we know that these people were selected after being interviewed by researchers from the show. So- if they were serious about the claim- they would be looking to put together a group representative of the town (and therefore the nation) at large. If they were looking for a bunch of two dimensional Northern stereotypes fit to be sneered and guffawed at by Jamie’s core middle class audience- that would be reprehensible. It would also reinforce the negative image of the town. An image that drops a notch each time the Oliver fuelled media circus is mentioned.

The people who they selected include- 51 year old miner (from the other side of Donny) who has never made his own dinner and says cooking is for “poofs” and young single mum who lives exclusively on takeaways (from a part of the Dearne Valley that is Rotherham in postcode but Barnsley to most people).

Typical of the people you meet every day?  Me neither.

You don’t suppose they have been picked for entertainment value do you? The next generation of Lizzie Barsleys.

Why Rotherham?

The more they tell us why- the less believable it is.

Why Rotherham?

rom the start- we’ve been asking the question- Why did Jamie Oliver choose Rotherham?

The man himself has come up with a variety of unconvincing answers so far. Now- his Ministry of Food website has a section entitled Why Rotherham?

MofF SIte

“Jamie was originally inspired to start the movement in the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham so he could meet some of the Rawmarsh Community School women who were brought to fame around the world for allegedly passing chips and burgers through the school railings during his campaign to change school dinners.”

 

Notice the word “allegedly”. One person making these allegations was a certain Vicky Pollard lookalike. He claimed that the “scrubbers” had been shoving “Big Macs” through the fence. 100% untrue. If he just wanted to meet the women [presumably to apologize for making untrue allegations and helping to make them national hate figures], couldn’t he have done that privately and left it at that. That would have appeared a little more sincere.

Instead, in The Sun, Julie Critchlow told us that:

 

“He was very nice and listened to my side of the story for two hours. Then he told me he wanted to teach Rotherham to cook.”

 

So basically; the idea for the TV show was in place already and he was casting. The Rawmarsh media storm is the key to everything. A minor dispute between individual parents and a school built up to be some ideological clash between the thick, reactionary North and the savvy, aspirational Jamie nation. A fictitious event that meant it was impossible to question the motives of the Naked Chef. The Rawmarsh fence was Jamie Oliver’s Reichstag fire. You are either with him or on the side of the forces of darkness and must be destroyed.

 

The Channel 4 sales website exists to attract sponsors and adverts to upcoming projects. For months, Jamie’s Ministry of Food was pitched thus:

“ABC1 Women
In the First World War (sic) Britain’s nutrition was in crisis. The government responded by creating a new Ministry of Food.
Jamie Oliver believes we are currently in a similar state of crisis so he’s going to set up his own Ministry of Food. Co-opting his family and friends, he’ll use his home town of Southend as his base to continue his one man mission to stop good people eating bad food.”

 

That sounds a laugh doesn’t it? All of them pitching in to set something up- a bit like the one where Kerry Katona and Phil Tuffnell got their old school mates to build something. Or Challenge Anneka or Charlie’s Garden Army.

Hold on- this sounds a bit light weight. People aren’t going to buy this. To get people on side – we need to give it some edge. How about digging up that non issue from Rawmarsh?

Brilliant- we can keep showing that footage over and over again. We can throw in a couple of disclaimer lines to get the mums onside- but it’s the images that really stick in the head. We can also make a preachy show about the poor state of British cooking without alienating the ABC1 Southern female demographic we rely on. By casting a bunch of Northern losers- our lot can carry on scoffing their Sainsburys ready meals- safe in the knowledge that Jamie is not angry at them; just the really bad poor people. They’ll buy the book too. I mean; if it works for those Rotherham dopes- it must be good.

The imagery of Rawmarsh 2006 looms large over the project. Every piece of pre publicity mentions it- unfairly suggesting that Rotherham is one of the most unhealthy places in the country. Statistically- this is nonsense. But, as we all know [particularly those in TV production], statistics can be twisted, or invented, to suit your needs.

The Channel 4 sales site now reads:

“Jamie wants to start a food revolution and encourage British people to abandon their ready meals in favour of home cooking. He attempts to recruit one of the fiercest critics of his school dinners campaign: so-called ‘Burger Mum’ Julie Critchlow.”

Julie Critchlow The Sun that, in 2006, she:

“had no idea who Jamie Oliver was. I wasn’t particularly interested in TV chefs and I didn’t watch Jamie’s School Dinners.”
She only got the hump when Jamie started slagging her off unfairly.

Rotherham has already been described as “the nutritionally challenged town” [The Sun] and “the town of food sin” [BBC]. Wait till the show goes out. Our town is going to become the shorthand for poor health, laziness and plain ignorance.
Jamie has also come up with an alternative argument for coming to Rotherham.

Maybe because certain local elements have been pointing out that his “crusade” is built on a myth. Jamie has come up with a new angle:

 

Read: Why Rotherham 2

Shame

The latest in The Sun’s Ministry of Food pieces is depressing beyond belief. Young single mum on benefits- another Northern stereotype ticked off.  Headline:

Shame of Mums in Jamie’s Crusade

This is the one that you know is going to come off worst on TV. Guaranteed to get the heads shaking.
I’m not going to go into details- I haven’t got the stomach for it. One of these girls could be on her way to becoming a national laughing stock. Even though there’s a “happy ending” scripted- we all love to remember the bad bits best. Jamie’s pulled her up onto his white charger and shown her the way forward. How fulfilled she will feel in six months is another matter.

Does being able to knock up a chow mein really turn your life around? Does the whiff of soy sauce summon a flock of whistling bluebirds; eager to fly away with your problems?

In reality TV land it does.

Don’t think it over- buy the book and sign up for chubbyfacebook.com and it could happen to you too.

And of course- you can laugh about those scrubbers from Rotherham. All the rest of them are just like that you know. They should stop their benefits / take their kids away / put them on rations and vouchers.

These girls were carefully chosen. Maybe because they are young- they are more forthcoming. The X-Factor generation know you need a tragic story if you are going to be a face on reality TV.

The most striking thing about the piece is the picture. It is far more obvious in the paper than online.

How many times do you think they took that snap before they got the sponsor’s name and web address smack in the middle of the two girls? How much would an advert that size cost normally? Price of a kitchen in a Rotherham shop?

And remember- this is the spoon fed positive coverage. Wait till the negative stuff starts.

The Star – Two Years Late

The Star had a piece on Julie Critchlow today. They basically cut and paste all the quotes from yesterday’s Sun article and rattled them off without comment.

Our local evening paper getting their local stories by reading the nationals.

Is it any wonder they are going out of business.

The Rotherham Record have run two big guest editorials over the last two weeks: one slamming the exploitative nature of reality TV and the other arguing that the new government scheme aimed at getting kids cooking is flawed. Neither mentioned Ministry of Food.

Strange

Mick the Miner: Picasso and Me

Mick the Miner was the star of today’s piece in The Sun.

The Ministry of Food hype offensive is impressive- a double page spread every day in the nation’s biggest selling newspaper. Unfortunately for the producers- the more information that gets out about this enterprise, the more the whole thing is exposed as a charade.

Casting is everything when you’re putting together a drama.

The pretence the whole show is built upon is that our hero is haunted by the images of Rawmarsh. He decides the key to the nation’s health is to get people cooking at home. He decides to kick off his new chefs’ network in Rotherham. If he can get the town of food sin onside- surely the rest of the country will believe in the project. The whole thing will end with a huge party next to the fence where the burger mums force fed their kids chips. The town that rejected Jamie have come to love him and accept that he is always right and they were worthless no marks till he shone his light upon them.

A key ingredient is getting the right stereotypes on board to crumble in the face of Home Counties finger wagging.

No doubt, number one on the shopping list was a big, obstinate miner. The Jamie target audience loved Billy Elliot. It was the closest to ‘Up North’ most of them had ever been. They would be sure to flip over a journey which took a senior version out of his dreary existence to a new life of metrosexuality. Imagine if Jamie could take a sexist oaf and pass him off in society as almost a Southerner.

The researchers probably thought that they’d be able to find a collier who fitted the bill easily. Rotherham- you won’t be able to move for ‘em. Riding round the cobbled streets on their pit ponies: a trombone in one hand and a snap tin full of pigtail baccie in the other. Then they hit a slight hitch.

The only pit left in the borough of Rotherham is Maltby. Maltby is a town in it’s own right- complete with Jobcentre, non league football team and everything. The pit is at the far end of town- I’d guess about eight or nine miles from Rotherham town. Quite a hike.

Undeterred- the production company went headhunting for a miner. Mick the Miner takes up the story in today’s Sun:

“Two girls from Jamie’s TV company came to the pit earlier this year and when they saw me finishing my shift they asked if I could cook.

“I said, ‘No, it’s for poofs’.

“My wife does all the cooking — I’ve never even made beans on toast’.

They must have nearly wet their pants with excitement. The perfect subject. Sexist, homophobic, larger than life- if Jamie could get this guy on camera and convert him it would be TV gold. Even if he didn’t- we could sort it in the edit. If it all goes wrong- we can hang the dinosaur out to dry and feed him to the liberal columnists.

Another, bigger hitch. The Sun describes our hero as:

“Mick, from Armthorpe near Doncaster.”

I assume this is true.

I’ll admit- I had to look Armthorpe up on the map. It’s so far East it may as well be Warsaw. According to the RAC website- it is 22.65 miles from the centre of Rotherham.

To help our Southern readers: imagine if someone was supposed to be making a campaigning documentary about social problems in Inner London – but one of the main characters is someone who lives in Guildford and works in Croydon.

So much for the idea of getting the local community together to help each other. Mick can get to Hull as easy as Rotherham. The message is clear- the producers found someone who would be an ideal character for Jamie to bounce off. So what if he doesn’t live in the town we’re supposed to be helping.

Another hitch- a real deal breaker: Mick wasn’t interested. No way Jose. He had no intention of getting involved. He told The Sun:

“They were very persistent, though, and eventually I gave them my number — to get rid of them.”

 

Exactly what anyone would do right? When you’re dead set against something- you give the people who are hassling you your contact details, so they know where to reach you whenever they want. To further show his resolve and resistance to cooking- Mick travelled all the way to Rotherham for a Jamie event. The rest is history.

The relationship between Mick the Miner and Jamie Oliver is a glaring example of the flaws underpinning Jamie’s Ministry of Food. Both men are using each other for their own ends. Jamie Oliver needs to produce an entertaining TV show. He needs participants willing to jump through hoops and basically build the Jamie myth. For reasons we have outlined before- the Pass it On idea is fundamentally unattractive to those it is supposedly designed to help.

Off the back of his “success” in Rotherham- Jamie will be able to sell books. More importantly- he will be able to set up the Pass it On campaign among his core fans. They all cook anyway, but this could turn into some posho dinner party database. Social networking’s where it’s at baby. A fully signed up and subscribed foodie nation who can be pimped out to any marketeer with a pound note. Facebook for people who love food. (Chubbyfacebook? Doublechinbook?)

 

Cynical, sinister- but pretty smart eh?

 

Mick the Miner is obviously a very popular bloke at Maltby colliery. The comments and emails I have received about him since I first mentioned him on the blog have talked about him in glowing terms. I’m not going to pretend I know Mick, but the impression I get is- he likes to be the centre of attention. Take this comment from “Maltby Mafia” for example:

“nar then leave ar mick alone he just loves publicity he might be a balloon head but he’s ar balloon head.”
The love of publicity is the only possible reason for someone who claims to hate cooking to get involved with the Ministry. The difference in attendancefigures at the M of F HQ between when the cameras were there and when they weren’t was colossal. Once the cameras are gone for good and the scheme is rolled out- only the foodies will be left. They’re the ones with the profile the advertisers want anyway- so it’s all good. Social enterprise- do leave it out.

To get to that stage- the Rotherham experiment needs to turn the paper the right colour. Through Mick- Jamie has the ideal savage to do a Henry Higgins on. He also got the chance to dress up like a little action man and go down the pit with his new, butch friends- which will excite his sizeable “poof” following no end.

(Article with photo of Jamie and Mick getting down and dirty)

Mick’s goal is unclear. I’m not really buying the road to Damascus conversion. The stuff Mick comes out with is so over the top. I’m thinking he either knows what the producers want and he lays on the Northern schtick with a trowel to keep the lens pointed on him or he is simply taking the piss.

Examples from today’s Sun:

“It was like a miracle had happened — all the flavours just exploded in my mouth. I knew that from that moment I was hooked.”

“It was like Picasso had walked into my life and taught me how to paint.”

 

Whether he’s on the level or angling for Carol Vorderman’s job is immaterial. Mick the Miner has been parachuted into town to portray the unhealthy, feckless, takeaway loving populace of Rotherham- although he looks pretty healthy in his pictures, has sporty kids, has eaten his wife’s home cooked food every night and doesn’t live in Rotherham.

They may as well get actors in. They may as well use puppets.

This is as unreal as reality TV gets.

DVD

I picked up the Sun DVD today. They only put one out each day in the outlets so, if you want the set, you have to go into either Sainsbury’s (altruistic sponsor of Ministry of Food and Jamie’s bank) or WH Smith (favoured pusher of the Ministry of Food book) every day.

These guys play hard ball when it comes to marketing.

The DVD today consisted of two recipes- Meatballs cooked by Jamie and Evolution Cucumber salad prepared by Julie “Formerly a threat to Western society but now Jamie Oliver’s Mate” Critchlow.

Evolution Cucumber Salad: cut up a cucumber and chuck wads of olive oil all over it.

You can follow that can’t you? You don’t need me to come round your house and hold your hand do you? Amazing how people used to be able to manage with just cookbooks before the pass it on campaign.

From her confident demeanour and the way she brandishes a knife- Julie Critchlow looks like someone who is no stranger to the kitchen. She twists those Sainsburys labels to the camera like an old pro when adding the olive oil. At the end-despite her obvious ability- she has to say:

“If I can do this- anyone can.”

Remember- she has managed to cut up a cucumber and throw some olive oil on it. Is every Rotherham person in this thing required to undersell themselves- or are they just encouraged to do so?

 

Print the Legend

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

 

“I had no idea who Jamie Oliver was. I wasn’t particularly interested in TV chefs and I didn’t watch Jamie’s School Dinners.

“All I knew was that the school was desperately ill-equipped for what it was trying to undertake.

“They were trying to provide 1,200 dinners in just two half-hour sittings with not enough staff.

“My children came home telling me about jacket potatoes which were raw in the middle and dry, pre-packed sandwiches they were being forced to eat.

“They asked if I would take them a fresh sandwich up to school so I bought them from the local shop, Chubby’s, and passed them through the gates.

“On the second day other kids asked me to do the same for them. By the third day, it was going ballistic. Another lady told me she would give me a hand and we took a list of everything the kids wanted and ordered it from Chubby’s.

“There were bacon and sausage sandwiches, tuna and egg mayo sandwiches, half a dozen portions of chips and gravy, crisps and pop.”

Julie Critchlow – The Sun Weds 17 Sep. 08

That is the true story behind the Rawmarsh media circus of 2006 according to the main player. Julie Critchlow and her friends became the burger mums- held up as examples of everything that is wrong with Britain. They, and by association, the town of Rotherham, became a kind of shorthand for ignorance, stupidity and the break down of society. A bunch of thickos who would only get off their fat arses to protest when their right to shovel chips into their kids was challenged.

Plausible isn’t it. A few women just doing a favour were stitched up and became silly season superstars. They have been vilified for all this time- if only we’d known this before. Thank goodness The Sun has sorted it all out- we can all move on now.

If only…

Even at the height of the madness, the ‘sinner ladies’ were making perfectly reasonable points to the press. (read Times article), but were drowned out by the abuse. Who wants to debate when you’ve a three second video clip that confirms every prejudice you can think of?
When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

 

Julie Critchlow is now 100% signed up to Ministry of Food. As a result, she gets the chance to put the record straight in the paper one time. I don’t know what her motivation is for joining up with Jamie Oliver, but I hope she is being well rewarded. She certainly deserves it after the vilification she copped- much of it whipped up by a certain mockney chef.

Unfortunately for Julie, and Rotherham- some people won’t let go. For example:

“Jamie chose Rotherham, South Yorks, to launch his most ambitious campaign ever. Asked why, he grins sheepishly before replying: “It’s where Julie Critchlow lives.”

Julie became infamous in 2006 as Jamie’s arch enemy when she attempted to sabotage his School Dinners campaign at the town’s Rawmarsh Comprehensive by delivering junk food to kids through the railings.

She failed and his mission resulted in the Government pledging £500million over six years to improve meals.”

“Arch enemy”,”junk food”, “sabotage”. She didn’t watch School Dinners or even know who Jamie Oliver was. Who’s still churning this crap out?

Well, actually, Sharon Hendry of The Sun wrote this on Monday to introduce the week long series of puff pieces. The same journo who did the interview with Julie.

 It’s not just the papers digging up the past:

“Jamie wants to start a food revolution and encourage British people to abandon their ready meals in favour of home cooking. He attempts to recruit one of the fiercest critics of his school dinners campaign: so-called ‘Burger Mum’ Julie Critchlow.”

That’s from the Channel 4 sales website (at least they’ve updated it from the original idea of Jamie and his family playing “Challenge Anneka” in Southend).

Why did Jamie Oliver come to Rotherham?  Statistically- it is not an exceptional place in terms of obesity. We have already been labelled “the town of food sin” and “nutritionally challenged Rotherham” and it’s only going to get worse. Two years ago, the media took a few choice images and added their own twisted narrative. Overnight- our town became internationally known for all the wrong reasons. Imagine the damage an experienced production crew could do if they got to select the cast and had 6 months worth of footage to edit into four tasty, bitesize bits.

Do you think they may show a certain news clip at the start of the show?

Unless there’s a clear problem- there’s no call for a solution.

If the truth isn’t enough to convince people of the need for action – sex it up.

Unless there are people in black hats- there’s no reason for the new sheriff to ride in and clean up this town.

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

The Big Tease

Another day, another double page spread in the nation’s favourite family newspaper (It wasn’t the actual centre spread- that was devoted to a useful guide on how to beat the credit crunch by becoming a pole dancer).

Not really very much on Ministry of Food today so not much to say. Jamie Oliver has always made it clear that he feels his family life is private and it people should focus on what he does, not personal matters. Today’s piece is him talking in depth about the most intimate details of his relationship with his wife and the couple’s family planning.

The drip, drip of general negativity about Rotherham was in evidence again. Our town was described as “nutritionally challenged Rotherham” and Julie Critchlow is depicted as some kind of well loved community leader.

The worry has always been that Rotherham would get a rough deal and the show would be a study in unreality TV. A dashing celeb’ rides into loserville and knocks a bunch of undesirables out of their sloppy habits and into a shape that Middle England approves of. Tomorrow’s helping should give a clear indication of exactly how we, the people of Rotherham, are going to be portrayed in Jamie’s Ministry of Food.

We are teased with the line-

HOW I ALTERED FOOD HABITS OF UNHEALTHY TOWN