Jamie Oliver divides opinion. An unassuming little fella he first took to our screens with a bish bash bosh approach to cooking, teaching us that it’s ok to make sub-par vaguely edible food as long as you do it with a cheeky grin and a wink. There were a few naysayers but we chucklingly dismissed them as out of step. After all this was Jamie, our lad about town. He clearly couldn’t believe his luck, having come from humble beginnings in the kitchen of his dad’s pub he was now fronting a primetime cookery show where the more slapdash and lairy he was, the more the public lapped it up – chuck in some pasta, add a bit of salt, you got yourself a gourmet meal. He quickly maximised his exposure, tramping through fields squeezing mozzarella balls as the poster boy for Sainsburys and made time to set up pretty worthwhile projects like Fifteen, giving employment to teenagers who were struggling. But clearly, he never wanted this fame – his face grinning out from every bookshop window, his merchandise packing the supermarket shelves – such fame was too much responsibility for one man to shoulder. All this had been a little joke that got out of hand, a dare conceived down the pub – fake an Essex accent, throw some food around a kitchen and see how long it takes the British public to cotton on. The adoration of the British public has lost its appeal for Jamie, it’s the only explanation for the frankly antagonistic move he’s now pulled. He’s going out with a bang, with the ultimate annoyance that will make the public shun him forever. He’s done his research and discovered that the most heinous culinary crime is taking incessant photos of food. A pastime that has seen a surge in popularity recently thanks to the young things’ obsession with Instagram – a tool that lets you add a rosy vintage-feel filter to photos, magically turning your sausage and mash into gourmet fodder at the tap of a button. So popular is this penchant for documenting every morsel that passes our lips that there are whole websites devoted to it, and now Jamie’s cashing in. With his Cook It, Snap It! ad campaign – a call-out to the nation to buy his latest cookery book, have a go at piling all the ingredients together, and then photograph the results which will be compiled into yet another stocking filler – no doubt he’s hoping that in one fell swoop he can line his pockets for the future and piss off the British public enough that they will leave him be. Life of a solitary mountain goat herd, here he comes.
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