Posted by The Herald, Austalia on June 13, 2009 at 10:37:55:
Chef’s stale act leaves a nasty taste
ALISON ROWAT June 13 2009
If Gordon Ramsay were a dish, what would he be? Lightly pickled male chauvinist pig trotters? Scrambled ego? Career flambé? Though barely a day passes without the celebrity cook's mug appearing in the papers, this week he's been everywhere in the media - in a way not of his choosing.
Over in Australia to publicise something or other, mostly himself, he was performing at a cooking show in Melbourne. Suddenly, on the screen behind him, there appeared a picture of a multi-breasted woman with a pig's face. Offensive enough, but the blonde bombshell that is Ramsay then went on to say it was a picture of Tracy Grimshaw, an Aussie TV lady so popular she makes Lorraine Kelly look like Hazel Blears.
Outrage duly followed, with the Australian PM saying Ramsay's remarks reflected "a new form of low-life", Grimshaw dubbing him "an arrogant narcissist bully" and even his mum reportedly telling him off. After staging an initial fight-back he apologised, but the damage had been done.
Despite deliberately courting controversy with the way he acts on his television shows, Ramsay has until recently been a Teflon celebrity, with bad press failing to stick. Claims of a seven-year affair were brushed off, and his late filing of company accounts, for which his firm was fined, was treated as a mere boo-boo that could happen to any busy bod.
But how could he imagine that insulting Grimshaw, or any woman, in this way was amusing or acceptable? Perhaps he thought that, in the land of Crocodile Dundee, reptilian behaviour from men was de rigueur. Or maybe, in common with other celebrities - the recent Ross/Brand phone prank lurches to mind - he has a bad case of Marie Antoinette syndrome, where sufferers believe the rules that bind little people don't apply to them. He is finding out that they do.
There's a lot to admire about Ramsay: his energy, his passion for what he does, his unwillingness to settle for the mediocre. In his TV shows he's been a one-man Spanish Inquisition for terrible British restaurants with dodgy food, appalling hygiene and couldn't-care-less staff. He can be thoughtful, too: when he sees a business going under, and an owner at the end of their sanity, he genuinely seems to understand what's at stake. Ramsay knows what it's like to gamble on hope
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