TV3 TV3 ‘ ‘ People’s Debate’ not really one at all
I HAVE to say one thing about Vincent Browne, he's great fodder for a TV column! You'd never be stuck for something to say about him, whether it be good or bad. And he was back last week with the much heralded People's Debate, this time with an all women audience (God help us) to discuss the motion, ‘Are Irish women liberated at last?’
And as he pointed out at the beginning of the show, it was very timely given we were celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Cumann na mBan to hold such a debate. So far so good.
It all went down hill for there on in with a more subdued than normal Vincenzo looking quite uncomfortable in his surroundings. Could you blame him? The amount of oestrogen flying around the studio must have been deadly!
It wasn't long before there were handbags at dawn with various representatives from all sorts of womens groups complaining they weren't getting enough funding, attention, air time, yada yada yada.
One lady was quite indignant that there were no men there. ‘Where are the men?’ she asked incredulously.
‘Did you not read the invite?’ quipped Vincenzo, not letting her away with it. Good on ya Vinny although to be fair, if TV3 tried a stunt like that with a male only audience there'd be world war three.
It became clear very quickly that this really wasn't a debate. There was no cohesive format, or agenda of items to discuss. They went from ranting about abortion, to single parenthood, low pay for women to gay rights. It was all rather tedious and predictable.
Vincent Browne wasn't the only one who heaved a bloody big sigh of relief when it was all over!
I love my food programmes and Masterchef UK is one of my all time favourites. You'd have to wonder though what exactly are Gregg Wallace's qualifications apart from being able to shovel vast quantities of food into his gob! His background is that of a green grocer and he now owns a couple of restaurants but apart from an obvious love of food, he doesn't appear to bring any other skills to the show. It would make you wonder what gives him the right to slag somebody else's food off when he can't boil an egg himself.
John Torode, on the other hand can cook but has the personality of a plank so maybe the two simply balance each other out. Last week's programme showed the contestants having to choose from boxes of ingredients, half of which I'd never heard of before, to create a dish. French personal trainer Tomas cooked smoked duck a l'orange with a load of foamy stuff on the side while Mark made a deconstructed carbonara.
What a load of gobshitery! Deconstructed carbonara?? What does that even mean? Meanwhile the boys didn't seem gone on any of them but did thoroughly enjoy Celiyah's salt fish which Greg described as ‘knocking on the door of delicious.’ High praise indeed even if he did give her the boot afterwards.