If Gordon’s so great, why’s he in a third rate Top Gear tribute act?

At th e eg o Olympics, Gordon Ramsay would take gold in bragging, posturing and namedropping. he makes Donald trump look shy and Paul hollywood seem insecure.

One of his shameless boasts, as he swaggered round Mexico in Gordon, Gino And Fred ( ItV), began: ‘I remember sitting in the pitlane with Lewis hamilton at the Monaco Grand Prix...’

Naturally the story ended with an awestruck Lewis assuring Gordon that, had he not decided to be the world’s greatest chef, he’d doubtless be the F1 world champion.

I lost count of the number of times Gordon gloated about his restaurant’s Michelin stars, as if anyone cares what a tyre manufacturer thinks of his cooking.

If he’s such a superb kitchen artiste, why waste his life dragging a third-rate top Gear tribute act from one continent to another?

As the trio careered around tijuana, on their way to the U.S. border, they stopped for a buggy race around dirt tracks. We were supposed to believe this was an impromptu jape, though the fact they had crash helmets waiting for them emblazoned with their names did slightly give the game away.

So did a fake crash that was as blatantly staged as the bout of

Mexican lucha libre wrestling that followed.

Only one moment in the entire hour-and-a-quarter felt even faintly unrehearsed. At the restaurant where Caesar salad was first served, Gordon was showing off how he could invent a much better dressing on the spur of the moment, when he dropped a plate.

First Dates star Fred Sirieix, usually the quietest of the gang, started laughing uncontrollably — not his usual hearty guffaw, but a high-pitched warbling. When Fred really finds something funny, he giggles like a schoolgirl.

there’s something deeply tasteless, even colonial, in how Gordon barged into restaurants all down Mexico’s Pacific coast, tasted the fare and declared with infinite condescension that it was pretty good, but he could do much better.

At one bar that reputedly does the world’s best scrambled eggs, he commandeered the kitchen to cook his own, then stood over the assembled staff while they meekly agreed his version was delicious.

I’d like to see him suffer that indignity at his own poncey French restaurant in Chelsea — to have a

Mexican celebrity waltz in and show him the proper way to grill a Dover sole.

O-t Fagbenle delivered a hilarious send-up of the bloated celebrity ego in Maxxx (e4), the sitcom he wrote and stars in, about a washed-up boy band singer trying to revive his career after years of self-indulgent excess.

Maxxx is a monster of vanity, fuelled by pills and booze, who can’t believe the public has forgotten him — even when one man accosts him in the street and demands a selfie, yelling: ‘You’re Craig David! I’m your biggest fan!’

I bet that made Craig David wince, too. Fagbenle insists the show isn’t based on any real-life faded star, and that he’s laughing at his own ego. ‘ Ambition can make you do and say crazy stuff,’ the actor says.

But like the rock spoof Spinal tap, this comedy is bound to have former boy-banders shouting: ‘that happened to us!’

It might become a trite in-joke, if somewhere under the layers of delusion there weren’t something to love about Maxxx. he misses fame but more than that he misses Jourdan, the supermodel girlfriend he had at the height of his success.

Jourdan Dunn plays herself. So do chat show hosts Larry King and Jonathan Ross. this one’s hidden away on a Freeview minichannel, but it’s definitely worth a look.