Festive food for thought
HAVEN’T they left it rather late to be showing the final bit of HOW TO SPEND IT WELL AT CHRISTMAS WITH PHILLIP SCHOFIELD (ITV, I realise there’s still a week-and-a-bit to go, but this is an episode focusing on which food and drink we ought to be buying – a major job for many, and one that ITV bosses surely aren’t suggesting we should have left quite this late.
Me, I finished ordering all our Christmas booze about three weeks ago.And, being a particularly well-organised chap, I finished drinking it exactly a week later.
But hey-ho, these buying guides of Phillip’s are a fun watch regardless, and I don’t suppose he really expects millions to be hanging on his every word, any more than we’re likely to be standing with pen and notebook poised whenever a TV chef pops up with yet another ingenious suggestion for what to do to our turkey.
Those joining Phillip tonight in a taste-testing role include five of the cast from reality TV nonsense The Real Housewives Of Cheshire, sampling rival brands of bubbly.
None of it is Champagne, mind you, and none sells for more than £10 a bottle.
“Will any be good enough for their refined palates?” Phillip inquires, with what sounds to me like a hint of sarcasm.
Also on the show are singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor and her mum, former Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis, taking a look at various retro kitchen gadgets currently enjoying a revival.
There are modern-day answers, for example, to the sandwich maker and teasmade.And nor, it would appear, does the contemporary Sodastream model disappoint. I’m particularly pleased about this, as I own one myself, use it on a daily basis and can bask in the satisfaction of knowing I’m now as trendy as I am burpy.
Elsewhere, MasterChef’s Gregg Wallace makes a rare appearance on Channel 5, not in tonight’s round of WORLD’S STRONGEST MAN (7pm) – although I think we’d all have loved that – but presenting GREGG WALLACE’S
MAGICAL CHRISTMAS MARKET (9pm). He loves a good market, does Gregg – he famously used to work in one – so he’s off to sample some of Europe’s finest.
That and to lend a hand to various local craftspeople, all of whom are far too polite to inquire who on earth this strange Englishman is and why he keeps shouting.
Finally, if you’ve come this far with the ludicrous GOLD DIGGER
(BBC1, 9pm), you may as well see it through to the bitter end.Will Julia go ahead and marry Benjamin, now she knows about the terrible thing he did?
Oh, don’t pretend you don’t care.