3 days ago
Is this TV's most facile idea for a show yet?
I realise, from correspondence, that I am not the only person in the country suffering from kitchen angst. Thousands, perhaps millions, of you are likewise afflicted. Materialistic saddos who retire each night wondering if they will ever be able to afford an Ilve Majestic dual fuel Milano 150 Range cooker — and, equally, where to put it if one day that scratchcard pays up £19,995.
I remember my mum's delight in finally getting a fridge (1968) and a year later an automatic washing machine. The kitchen has taken on a different meaning these days: it is no longer sufficient to have a narrow, noisome, utilitarian corridor. Today it needs to reflect our commitment to eating as the premium act of conspicuous consumption — and so in middle-class homes kitchens have become vast basement cathedrals to food and showing off. Our secretary of state for energy and climate change, Ed 'Net Zero' Miliband, actually has two kitchens in his London home, but when I last saw the photos it didn't look to me like he'd ever cooked in them. That's class, that is. Two kitchens and he ignores them both.
