Jamie knows best – so this new show couldn’t possibly fail
Exciting news: I’m pitching a television series to Channel 4. Commissioning editors are always looking for original formats that not only entertain viewers but also engage with important real-life issues, in order to reflect Channel 4’s public service remit. The programme I’m pitching covers both bases – and would be fronted by one of Channel 4’s most dependable ratings-winners. It’s exactly the sort of thing they love. I really think they might go for it.
Entitled Jamie Knows Best, the series follows Jamie Oliver as he inspects each of the UK’s 18 million families in turn, to demonstrate how far the nation’s parenting abilities fall short of his exacting standards. Every episode begins with hidden-camera footage from inside an ordinary, lowincome household, as an unsuspecting mother and/or father cobble together breakfast, frantically polish their children’s shoes and yell despairingly at their 16-year-old to get out of bed.
Then, just as they’re finally about to bundle the kids out of the door and into the car, Jamie bursts in to show them the many, many errors of their ways.
While the children are being led off to the scales, Jamie’s crack team of nutritionists carries out an on-the-spot inspection of their packed lunch boxes, before Jamie himself grades the children for personal hygiene, physical fitness, table manners and posture.
Once the four-hour interrogation of the parents is complete, and Jamie has stripped their home of any televisions, smartphones, video games consoles and other unsuitable items, he presents the family with his 50-point plan of action, setting out a timetable of educational day trips and activities, recipes for delicious cabbage smoothies, and topics for stimulating conversation at the dinner table.
The episode concludes with the parents being invited to spend an afternoon at the Olivers’ own home, to enable them to witness expert child-rearing at first-hand.
To monitor their progress, each family will be filmed for the following six months. At the end of the series, the parents deemed to have shown the greatest improvement will be permitted to keep their children. As well as being both entertaining and informative, Jamie
Knows Best would represent a natural next step for Jamie in his mission to help British parents recognise their own inadequacies.
Having previously campaigned against Turkey Twizzlers and sugary drinks, this week he announced his determination to make more British mothers breastfeed. Declaring that Britain had “the worst breastfeeding in the world”, and that failure to breastfeed could lead to problems from “stunting to obesity to ill-health”, Jamie informed women that breastfeeding was both “convenient” and “easy”. Disappointingly, Jamie’s views have not received universal acclaim, with critics noting that he is neither a woman nor a medical professional, but instead a man and a TV chef.
Undaunted, Jamie plans to push on with the official launch of his campaign, where he will model his new range of stylish but practical nursing bras, and read extracts from his eagerly awaited breastmilk recipe book. More than 25 years after his death, Roald Dahl has topped the bestseller lists. The Great Mouse Plot was originally published in 1984 as a chapter of his memoir, Boy, but earlier this month it was released as a standalone work to mark World Book Day. From Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Matilda, no author knew how to delight children quite like Dahl did. But what was the secret of his success?
In his own memoirs, another fine author, Kingsley Amis, records his sole encounter with the great man. It was at a party in the Seventies. Dahl introduced himself and asked Amis what he was working on. Before Amis could finish his answer, Dahl broke in to tell him that he would make a lot more money if he switched to writing for children.
Amis replied that he didn’t feel up to it, thanks all the same – children’s stories weren’t his field, and he wouldn’t know what to write.
“Never mind,” said Dahl, “the little bastards’d swallow it.”
According to Amis, these are precisely the words Dahl used.
Taken back, Amis expressed doubts that he could get away with just churning out any old rubbish. Weren’t children supposed to be good at detecting insincerity in adults? Dahl looked at him sternly. “Well, it’s up to you,” he said. “But if you decide to have a crack, let me give you one word of warning. Unless you put everything you’ve got into it, unless you write it from the heart, the kids’ll have no use for it. They’ll see you’re having them on. And just let me tell you from experience that there’s nothing kids hate more than that. Just you bear that in mind as a word of friendly advice.”
And with that, he strode off – leaving his bemused fellow author to ponder what exactly he’d just been rebuked for. A grocery revolution is under way. Pre-cut avocados and prepeeled oranges have joined pre-grated cheese and pre-boiled eggs in our supermarkets. Exciting times for the lazy and the overworked alike, as entrepreneurs compete to win the custom of these two important demographics.
I’m hoping to join the gold rush by patenting a product of my own: the pre-eaten meal.
As well as being a brilliant timesaver, the pre-eaten meal is a groundbreaking aid to weight loss. As the food has already been consumed in advance by someone else, it has a calorie content of precisely zero. And it’s so easy to prepare, too. Simply open the packet – and then put it straight in the bin, because there’s nothing in it.
The perfect dinnertime solution for the busy executive.