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I don’t watch a huge amount of television, but this evening I caught a re-run of Channel 4′s Come Dine With Me. I can only conclude that it was actually a comedy, playing up to the sterotypes of people that’d go on this kind of show. Here’s my synopsis. Read on!

The location:
Torbay

The people:

• Gavin is an unintentional Chris Moyles lookalike who – quite frankly – is massive, gay, doesnt like fish, can’t eat cheese due to a ‘mental’ problem, but will quite happily eat tiramisu stuffed with mascarpone.
• Patrick is an Anglo-American antiques expert and professional male chauvanist wanker – a sort of cross between Cliff Richard and Kryton from Red Dwarf. He lives in a musty house full of badly-painted pictures of his decendants, and has  servants that respond when he rings a dingly bell. Has two pet Whippets that apparently don’t beg for food at the table.
• David is also gay, and likes being chauffeur driven in his friend’s Rolls Royce to the farm shop in order buy overpriced cheese and fish. His partner doesn’t know that he and Gavin have secretly touched each other already.
• Carol is a large but nice mum of 2 who works as a kitchen sales manager who, according to Patrick, persists in ‘flirting’ with him by getting her cleavage out. The cameraman takes advantage of this, and ensures her wabs are in shot as often as possible.
• Alison is a well-meaning but pathetically wet, dull and clearly dead-behind-the-eyes housewife, who’s soul is such that if it could be described as a colour would be a symphony of beige. She doesn’t understand innuendo (or ‘Inuandio’ if you’re David) and likes to spend 3 hours a day cleaning, and is proud of using 4-6 bottles of bleach a week. Her only pleasure is entering as many competitions as possible with her competition club.

The meals:
Gavin the self-confessed drama queen manages to cook a meal that, if subjected to scientific scrutiny, would probably be classified as ‘a ground-up goat and a dog’s chewtoy covered in chocolate sauce’.

Patrick, who is immeasurably proud of his Aga (“I’ve been told it’s the largest in the village…it gets me quite a lot of attention from the women”), has ended up using that oven to cook his guests a main course dish that wasn’t what he said it was, and then a dessert that failed so spectacularly that it had to be blended into a creme-brule-shake and poured onto the compost heap to ensure it was disposed of safely.

David serves up a fish-based starter, causing Gavin to go hungry because of his dislike of fish. Succumbing to the guilt of having broken David’s chair when he sat his huge bulk in it, Gavin feels obliged to try some anyway (and, predictably, doens’t like it). The food is otherwise acceptable, but spoilt by Patrick’s unabashed chauvanism and innuendo that goes over Alison’s head (and straight into Carol’s massive wobbling jugs).

Carol serves up a fish-based starter to spite Gavin, who gets drunk as a substitute. Carol quite openly hates Patrick at this stage, and has no hesitation in serving him a seperate main course that consists entirely of the scrapings from a can of cat food, drizzled with snot from one of her children.

Alison predictably provides stable but uninspired dishes that are adequate, but not enough to make the contestants actually like each other. Patrick continues his innuendo to such a degree that Alison’s little-used undercarriage drops out of her body and scuttles off to the library to read up on feminism.

The results:
Awarded at Carol’s house and read out by Carol herself, the results come in as follows:

5th: Patrick. Delivered by Carol with wonderful vitriol and venom, directly into Patrick’s face. She’s clearly loving it. Patrick tries to be a good loser by clapping loudly and neighing “Oh yah, well done!”, apparently missing the point that he lost.
4th: Gavin. Doesn’t seem to mind, and is more interested in David’s arse.
3rd: Carol. Seems a genuinely good sport, but is drunk by this stage and no longer cares. Wants Patrick out of her house as soon as possible.
Joint 1st: Alison and David. It’s the only thing that Alison’s ever won, and almost passes out. David doesn’t seem to mind, and is more interested in Gavin’s arse.