Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Nigella: I Worry

I saw Nigella Lawson's show Nigella Express the other night and I have to ask: is she all right? She seemed to be suffering from several overlapping manias - a need to eat all the time AND talk about it, an overwhelming desire to tell us how busy she is and a compulsion to speak in a manner so excessively, glutinously upbeat that one can only conclude she must be concealing some appalling depression or, perhaps, malfunction like the Stepford Wife who carries on gabbling after she has been stabbed. I shall not, under the circumstances, be trying her recipes.

23 comments:

  1. We watched her show for the first time last week and me and Mrs H. had the self same conversation. It is a supreme example of programme makers being completely out of touch with the of the rest of the country. It is SO London, so upper middle class and so dull. Oh, and worrying....

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  2. well I'm known for my fussiness but in her case I'd be willing to make an exception.

    cooking programmes?! why don't this tiny minority just buy a book - or a video?

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  3. The prog. is intriguing.
    Why is there no mention of Mr Saatchi? Nigella seems to live on her own with her children.
    She is obviously terribly vulnerable and my heart goes out to her; I just want to give her a hug and look after her. On the other hand she must be very tough to have got where she has. Is the combination not irresistible?

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  4. I can answer that, Philip, even though I have never watched it. It is filmed in a mock-up, inside a commercial lock-up off Kensington High St., and not in Saatchi Towers.

    Haven't you heard?! Television is all lies!!!!

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  5. I'm afraid Nigella once smiled at me, thus entirely disabling my critical faculties where she's concerned.

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  6. Anyway the name alone puts us on the same side.

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  7. I think that was probably wind, nige, from licking too many sticky spoons. also I heard she's a bit mr. magoo without her specs. sorry.

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  8. ungallant of me, I know, but one thing she's concealing -- or that's being concealed by the editing -- is a large derriere

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  9. My husband finds Nigella admirable. I can't think why.... The whole show is utter fakery. Not only is Nigella's 'kitchen' a complete fabrication, but the producers have hired buses and extras to make it look as though Nigella moves among the common people. And what's with her pretending to be eating on the move (in the aforementioned bus) and in the street. Yeeurgh - plain bad manners if you ask me. I can only watch this guff if I have been stunned beforehand by a large gin and tonic.

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  10. Now Doctor H - what's wrong with a large derriere?

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  11. Like most things that are wrong, she is wrong because she tries too hard. Tries too hard to be sultry, sexy, knowing, voluptuous, devil-may-care, etcetera and bloody etcetera.

    It's the curse of our age: Trying Too Hard.

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  12. It doesn't get more obvious than that, does it?

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  13. Slow Food is what life is really all about. Sophie has the problem down perfectly. In any case, the basic premise of the program is silly, very silly: someone that distracted 24/7 is lining themselves up for health trouble and a rotten time. Never having more than five minutes to devote to anything is a great way of losing your mind, of becoming not mindful but mindless.

    I hope Mr Saatchi is holding up under the deluge of supermarket packets and is able to slip out for a decent meal every now and then.

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  14. two points of order; her arse is bog standard size. it's her 18 inch waist that makes it look disproportionate.

    slow food is not, as often claimed, the antithesis of 'fast food'. good food is.

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  15. I'm afraid Nigella once smiled at me, thus entirely disabling my critical faculties where she's concerned.

    I can see that in a book of quotations, very nice.

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  16. Slow Food is about a lot more than food, Ian. That's why it is the antithesis of the life style Nigella is trying to sell us: the life style of the Poncetariat. The Poncetarians are welcome to it.

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  17. A cook and the wife of Charles Saatchi

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  18. isn't that a film by Peter Greenaway?

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  19. well, yes, I believe I know what you mean, Mark (I agree, of course) but it isn't the speed that's wrong with 'fast food', but the crap that goes into it. junk food is a better description only McDonald's turned it down.

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  20. Yes I did wonder tonight when I watched the programme, about Mr Saatchi.
    And my husband wondered why her children are always featured.
    Still that Margarita ice cream looked yummy...

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  21. She seems to have turned into a caricature of herself, which is okay as long as she knows we're in on the joke but seriously worrying (for her) if she doesn't.

    She's also constantly re-defining the meaning of the phrase "larger than life".

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