Until now, Gordon Ramsay’s biggest achievement was that he’d become famous despite looking like a pensioner’s ballbag.
But not any more – Gordon Ramsay has now eclipsed any celebrity or culinary fame he’d gained by becoming the swearingest man in British TV history. On Channel Four’s Ramsay’s Great British Nightmare on Friday, Gordon Ramsay managed to cram 132 uses of the F-word into a two-hour show, whipping up a flurry of outrage in the process.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the world’s bear population responded to the news of Gordon Ramsay’s swearing by running off to have a quick dump in the woods.
Without a doubt, Channel Four’s Great British Food Fight season has been the best thing on television so far this year. It basically distilled the essence of the country’s four best-known celebrity chefs down to their core characteristics – you got to see Heston Blumenthal being a boggle-eyed madman, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall weeping because Tesco sells chicken rather than organically-reared stinging nettles that have been steeped in goat urine for a week, and Jamie Oliver urging us all to only eat pigs that wore top hats and knew how to speak Latin when they were alive.
But best of all, you got to see Gordon Ramsay relentlessly swearing like a docker with a stubbed toe. Gordon Ramsay’s show was entitled Ramsay’s Great British Nightmare, which saw him trying to save the nation’s recession-hit restaurant industry by going into some restaurants, screaming a torrent of obscenities at all the waitresses and pretending that all the food was actually so disgusting that he’d end up dead if he even so much as put his face near it.
Which, on reflection, probably isn’t the cleverest way to get people to start going to restaurants again – it couldn’t have been more depressing if the entire show consisted of one slow-motion clip of a dirty chef shitting into a sandwich to the music from the end of Funny Games – but that’s not what made people angry.
No, what made people angry is the fact that Gordon Ramsay literally couldn’t stop swearing during the show. Literally. In the two hours of Ramsay’s Great British Nightmare, Gordon Ramsay and his guests managed to blurt out one swearword every 20 seconds and, as the News Of The World reports, it’s caused all kinds of huff-faced TV watchdogs to fall the ground clutching their ears:
Channel 4 had 49 complaints but is braced for more. Watchdog Mediawatch UK yesterday urged the government to withdraw the channel?s public funding. Boss director John Beyer said: ?Gordon doesn't need to swear. There's so much public concern about swearing on TV.? Channel 4 defended Gordon. A spokesman said: ?It was after the watershed. The swearing is a expression of Gordon?s passion.?
Look, we don’t know what all the fuss is about. Of course Gordon Ramsay swears a lot – the man looks like a weather-beaten animal bladder, for God’s sake – he’s bound to be angry. And remember – the less Gordon Ramsay swears on his Nightmares shows, the more time he’ll have to fill with those braindead over-literal team-building demonstrations he’s so inexplicably fond of. And we’d much rather watch Gordon Ramsay swear a bit than take part in a bullshit self-help session in a boxing ring with a crying chef whose daddy never hugged him.
Besides, as Channel 4 said, swearing is just an expression of Gordon Ramsay’s passion. And, since the alternative way for Gordon Ramsay to express his passion allegedly involves him getting shitfaced on poppers and having extramarital sex with a woman who looks like a melting waxwork of Peaches Geldof, we can probably all agree that the thought of him swearing is less likely to mentally scar us into permanent impotence. As you were, Gordon.
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Melodie says
Goddamn it. If it’s not American blogs bragging about having access to Hulu (which is not available in Canada) it’s British blogs bragging about programming we won’t see in Canada till the horn of judgment sounds.
As if it wasn’t hard enough living in a world where we’re a YEAR BEHIND you on Coronation Street. Now this.
NOW THIS.
euclid says
Um, Melodie, I believe Canada is a year behind in everything.
It’s 2010 out here and all the problems have been solved.
The rest of the world is now sitting by a pool watching Canada
on our organic flat screen house and laughing till our ears bleed,
and yes, we do have drinks with those little umbrellas in them.
Ironlung says
49 complaints? send them each a cookie and a cold can of shut the fuck up.
im sure the bbc will be able to turn that 49 into 10,000 within the week.
The Dread Pirate Sausage! says
“it couldn