Un-Masterchef

I can't be doing with the new format for 'Masterchef -FOOD DOESN'T GET LOUDER THAN THIS!' It's a bit too X-factor for me. Or should that be Eggs-Factor?! ('No,' says Mrs Miggins.) Or Popcorn Idol?! ('Even more no,' says Miggins.) Or maybe I'm a Celery, Get Me Trout of Here?! ('Just stop now,' says Mrs M, 'or your writing career will be in ruins.')

Anyway, it's too emotional now. Too dumbed down. It's like the producers have said, 'If you think you can make beans on toast come and audition for us, and we'll publicly humiliate you for burning the toast, but it's okay because you can always have an emotional breakdown, blame your failure (or should that 'deferred success') on an incident you had with a can opener back in the Summer of '88 and you'll be a celeb for the next 3 weeks.'

There have been two programmes this week - the so-called 'auditions' where 20 places are up for grabs for the proper part of 'Masterchef - PRESENTERS DON'T GET LOUDER THAN THIS'. To be honest, I barely made it through the first programme. I think I drifted off about three quarters of the way through to have a shower and read the back of a shampoo bottle. The show seemed to be full of completely deranged bonkers women cackling like crones on a dodgy batch of HRT, weird blokes who clearly had never met so much as a frying pan before and 'with-it' youngsters who were hell-bent on 'deconstructing' trifles and burgers. What does 'deconstructing' mean anyway? Surely that's just a term for 'too lazy to put all the ingredients together in the right order in the first place??'

And as for the presenters, Mr Shiny Head Gregg and Aussie Torode, well, they looked completely out of sorts having to do the X-factor thing of letting someone through or rejecting them for having lumpy mash and over-crispy fish skin. And the voice-over kept saying things like 'Having split the judges' decision...' well, I'm sorry, but in my book you have to have more than two judges in order to split them with any sense of the nervous tension that is required of this format of programme delivery. Splitting two judges just means one likes you, one doesn't, 50:50 back to square one. At least with three judges there's a possibilty of a 2:1 split and a punch up.

We all know a bloke is going to win anyway, because Shiny Head Gregg and Aussie Torode do a mean line in patronising the little ladies before sending them all home in the semi-finals because someone has to put the chicken nuggets and oven chips in for the kiddies' tea. And pop the kettle on whilst you're there, love.

It's not shaping up to be a proper cooking competition at all. It's shaping up to be a fast-food version of the classic original started by Loyd Grossman all those years ago.

And it's a big, full-fat, shouty, spoon-banging-against -the-teeth-in-an-irritating-way shame.