Friday 7 February 2014

Come Dine at Christmas

Is it possible to get the complete giggles whilst sitting alone on Boxing day watching TV? Well I did this year, so yes, it most certainly is. If you happen to be watching “Come Dine With Me.” at any rate.
 
This show is class anyway, though where they keep finding groups of people who are so thick, or arrogant, or rude, or stupid, or useless at cooking whilst thinking they’re Gordon Ramsay, or bloody irritating, or just plain nuts, is beyond me. When you watch this programme, you hate half the contestants, feel sorry for some of them, and then decide one of them isn’t really so bad and then hope and pray they win, whilst also praying the most annoying wally comes last and is therefore humiliated. Fortunately, it often works out that way.
 
The episode in question which set me off guffawing actually had five people in it who weren’t as aggravating as usual, but oh boy! There was a girl so thick and wooden two short planks doesn’t even begin to describe it. Anyway, it wasn’t even that which gave me the giggles…
 
A super posh guy – Tim nice but dim – decided to have a wartime austerity Christmas dinner. He’s a history buff and used that as his theme for his dinner party. He’s the sort of bloke whose eyes roll back up in his head when he’s trying to think of what to say, with a mouth full of white tombstones in place of teeth. Very nice, but dumb as they come.
 
So, the guy makes an austerity Christmas cake, which he said he was sweetening with carrot because during the war they couldn’t get any sugar. Just after saying that, however, he says, and I’ll just add a few drops of vanilla essence. Um, 1939, no sugar in sight, but they’ve got vanilla essence. Yeah right. Very authentic.
 
Then he makes what he calls ‘Murkey’. I’ve heard of this before, it’s mock turkey and consists of sausage meat mixed with apple and onion, shaped into a bird shape and finished with rashers of bacon. He burnt it black. But wait…
 
One of the diners asked why it’s called ‘Murkey’ and the host explained, “it’s mock turkey and there is also ‘mock duck’“, which if he’d had a vegetarian present, he said he would have made for them, whereupon the thick bird (bless her) asked with a completely straight face and in all seriousness “and is that called ‘muck?’”
 
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa ha ha ha. Brilliant. Cheered me up no end. I was laughing so hard I thought I’d cracked a rib.

Why they call it mock duck anyway, I have no clue. Apparently it's some wheat-gluten-based vegetarian concoction, with sugar, oil and soy sauce, so why duck? I mean, I wouldn't roast a pork knuckle and call it "mock carrot". Makes no sense at all. Mind you, these half-hearted veggies have a penchant for disguising their grub as various types of meat and I bet it tastes every bit as terrible as that other pointless rubbish, Quorn*. That's not mock anything, it's just plain muck.  
 
Then, just to round it all off, the next host insists her dinner party has a Christmas panto theme, so they all arrive in fancy dress. Two of the men turn up dressed as Christmas puddings, which is a great source of merriment to the other guests. Thing is, one of the men, a posh Scottish guy with the moustache and bearing of a wing commander, turns up dressed as a pudding, but also has the tightest red shorts on you have ever seen and either he has stuffed them with something or he has the biggest testicles in all creation and you can see all the other guests squirming and desperately trying not to look at his crotch.
 
Fantastic. One more dinner party to go as I write this, which I’m off to watch now, but surely it can’t get any more surreal. Can it?
 
Oh, and if you are wondering why I’m only posting this now in February, I got very drunk on Boxing night and forgot I’d written it. Just found it in my documents and I think there could be a few more forgotten pieces lurking in there as well. Watch this space.



* See, "Quorn - what's that all about." Elsewhere on this blog.
 

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