Ready, Steady, Crook!

Chefs are in the news.

Budget TV’s dreadful Antony Worrall Thompson has apologised for shop-lifting, saying he felt ‘stupid’ and that he would seek ‘treatment’, after being caught red-handed with booze snaffled from his local Tesco supermarket at snobbish Henley-on-Thames.

Bumptious Worrall Thompson, whose career has long been eclipsed by taller people including other chefs, has expressed blubbing remorse for his thefts. He’s bewildered as to what his motives could have been, though trying to avoid paying money probably came into it.
Being nicked for stealing wine is one way of returning to the public eye, of course. Perhaps like a fallen evangelist, ritual contrition will re-launch him. But more becomes clear when we learn Worrall Thompson is the godson of legendary alcoholic and part-time actor, Richard Burton.

Meanwhile, as part of the government's Change 4 Life public health campaign, it’s reported telly chef Ainsley Harriott has helped devise a cookbook promoting healthy dishes which can be created for under £5. But watching his TV cooking programme ‘Dances with Saucepans’, now sadly axed, Harriott’s own daily diet appears to include at least twenty shots of espresso. Would you take his advice on nutrition? 

Worse, Ainsley’s branded collection of supermarket culinary delights includes quick-cook rice or cous-cous, flavoured with combinations of appalling chemicals probably sourced from ICI. I’d never eat the stuff. But I wouldn’t mind sticking a fork into one of those mad bulging eyes.