THIS week my wife sat on the sofa with her hands over her ears and sang la-la-la quite loudly to drown out a certain programme that, apparently, I only watch to annoy her.

The show being the nation's current favourite Hell's Kitchen (ITV1, ITV2 constant servings) where a bunch of celebrity chefs claim they won't be intimidated by growling Gordon Ramsay and are soon being fricasseed faster than the food. Mrs La-la-la can't stand the little behind-chef's-back character assassination sessions where the celeboes grumble to each about Gordon.

"Dwain Chambers is the only sensible one there," she exclaimed as the disgraced sprinter clocked a new personal best as he decided he couldn't stand the heat on Thursday and got out of the kitchen.

Perhaps there weren't enough stimulants. He was closely followed by Tommy Vance who'd just replaced injured Roger Cook.

The sad part about this was that all my family asked one question: "Who's Tommy Vance?" A case of a good face for radio. You get the feeling that Gordon the Gorgon isn't too clued up on the famous TV faces on either side of the service counter.

Actress Lynda Bellingham crashed over as her high heels encountered the marble flooring as she came to offer support to her perspiring pals.

Gordon called security to have her thrown out. Darlington's Vic Reeves played the fool by ordering two fried eggs and got a full f-encrusted fob-off.

"They're all twits," my wife assured me, in between the la-ing reaching Eurovision-winning proportions. The biggest twit by far is show presenter Angus Deayton who has so far failed to gain an answer to any question he's asked Britain's hottest-tempered chef all week.

As for predicting the winner, it would be camp James Dreyfus if he wasn't so sweaty. My wife gleefully reported that Matt Goss has a pot-belly, so I'll put the price of a gourmet meal on Abi Titmuss merely because her smile seems to annoy Hell's Kitchen's less-than-heroic boss.

The makers of Poor Little Rich Girls (ITV1, Tues, Thurs and tomorrow) haven't quite grasped the concept of switching the lives of a £70-a-week (is that legal now we have a minimum wage?) hairdresser from Liverpool with a wealthy London woman.

The trading places ideas isn't novel, but offering crimper Katie the life of page 3 model Natalie was a new low-point in crassness.

Of course Natalie gets paid a lot of money for taking her clothes off, it isn't a particularly wholesome profession. Katie could hardly believe being given an opportunity to spend nearly £1,400 on clothes in a London boutique, then she was introduced to an agent who coldly dismissed her average-sized frame as too fat for Natalie's line of work.

Up on Merseyside, Natalie's enjoying being part of a normal family having opted out of her own working class roots to join the fake world of soft-porn.

"As seen on TV" Natalie may well move on to more wealth, leaving 19-year-old Katie with a glimpse of what's required to earn her entire year's salary with one set of snaps. ITV is billing this as a light-hearted class war... what would Gordon say?

Published: 29/05/2004