Ready, Steady, Ainsley

This is the post that I'd been meaning to right since I got sick. On Saturday the 11th the hubby, my mum and I went to watch Ainsley Harriot give a cooking demostration as part of the Mediterranean Food Festival. Both mum and the hubby love 'Ready, Steady, Cook' and I don't mind it at all, so we were all looking forward to it.

And what can I say but... what a super-professional he was! And a great comic too - he was amazing fun (and quite a lot naughtier than he would have been allowed to be on the BBC!) and he had to be, what with the 'celebrity' local chefs they supplied him with. I mean really... they had absolutely NO charisma (Terry Pratchett calls it charismn't) and answered mostly in words of one syllable, when we could hear them. Thank goodness TV presenters Clare Aguis and Ray Calleja added some much needed fun or Ainsley might have gone away from Malta thinking that we were all as dull as dishwater!

Anyway, ten minutes or so into the cooking demo, the lights go off. Yes, the lights lighting up the stage where Ainsley, chefs, Clare and Ray are suddenly go off. And they stay off. Someone eventually hands Ainsley a torch. Yes, a torch. Ainsley shines the torch on his face and remarks that no-one can see him in the dark because he is black... and cracks everyone up. The technical people try to fix the problem. The problem remains unfixed. I want to find a little hole and crawl into it. Twenty minutes or so later, there is still no light on stage (and the cameras that were to project the cooking demo on a large screen are not working either, as is the screen). They manage to get some light on Ainsley and Co but we can barely see. But he bravely goes on, still making us laugh and being the professional he is.

Eventually, they lights come on - hurrah! But the ovens aren't working so the chefs can't use these essential tools. Besides, ony one electricity extension is working, so they have to share it to use the liquidiser. And the people using the cameras still haven't figured out that they are mainly there to show us what the chefs are cooking as this is a cooking demonstation. So we are regaled mostly to the view of Ainsley's back and to this day, I have no idea what the chefs actually cooked. It all smelled wonderful though!

Oooooh, at one point, Ainsley came to the row where the hubby and I were sitting to interview a fluffy old lady next to us and passed right in front of me! So now, the next time I watch 'Ready, Steady, Cook', I can casually remark to myself and anyone else who may be listening (probably the cats!) that I touched Ainsley's trousers. So there!