On TV

Risking It All (C4)

STEPHEN Hawking has become "a bye-word for genius" and is "one of the most famous scientists in the world". But has the author of A Brief History Of Time been barking up the wrong scientific tree for the past 30 years?

Don't ask me, I watched Horizon and couldn't make head nor tail of all the talk about atomic particles, event horizon and the information paradox.

Science never was my strong subject and, despite Horizon's best efforts to make it simple enough even for a TV critic to understand, I was none the wiser by the end.

The programme wondered if Hawking's celebrity overshadowed his contribution to science. Ever since he put forward his theory about black holes 30 years ago, other scientists have been casting doubt on it.

It had something to do with the big bang, which is the sound made by people like me hitting their head on the wall at the frustration of watching a programme where they might as well be talking in a foreign language for all the sense it made.

Hawking appears now to have done a U-turn and admitted he might have been wrong all along, although has added that his rivals were wrong too.

Thank goodness for Risking It All. I could easily understand that Steve Butcher and Lindsay McNally were in danger of going bankrupt after following their dream and opening an upmarket restaurant in Kent.

Millionaire Martin Webb was on hand to offer advice and, in the tradition of these sort of TV shows, see it totally ignored just as Sarah Beeny's expert suggestions are rejected on property shows.

Steve gave up his £40,000 a year job to spend £420,000 on the Blue Vinny restaurant (named after his favourite cheese, in case you wondered). Like those people who decide to move abroad without speaking the language, he had no idea what he was letting himself in for. He intended to be a chef despite never having worked in a professional kitchen before. His head chef had only cooked pub food. Lindsay, a personnel manager, was similarly inexperienced at working front of house in a restaurant.

They needed to take £9,000 a week to break even, but fell £2,000 short of that target. This was partly because Steve didn't know how to price a meal properly so that each plate delivered a 75 per cent profit. He insisted on using fresh and organic ingredients from local suppliers, an unnecessary luxury that added to his bills.

It took the opening of a restaurant across the road, offering the same menu at much cheaper prices, to kick start him into doing something about his situation.

Getting on for a year after opening, the pair admitted they had never worked so hard for so little. Never mind - Lindsay spoke of "a sense of achievement", although that didn't extend to being able to draw a salary for themselves.