Latest news with #TheGoodLife
Spectator
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
The Good Life simply wasn't very good
A new documentary is to be screened later this year celebrating 50 years of everybody's favourite 1970s sitcom The Good Life. I will not be joining in with the festivities. During the two-hour show, 85-year-old Penelope Keith, who played the irascible Margo Leadbetter, will revisit some of the original locations, including Kewferry Road in Northwood, which stood in for fictional Acacia Avenue in Surbiton – I can feel your excitement growing. The producers have also promised to recreate some of the creaky old sets – OK, calm down at the back. While I'm all for a bit of nostalgia, do we really need to keep reminding ourselves how innocent TV sitcoms were before alternative comedy took a rubber sledgehammer to anything produced before 1979? 'I'm not watching the bloody Good Life,' screamed an incensed Vivian in an episode of The Young Ones. 'It's so bloody nice… confirming the myth that everyone in Britain is a loveable middle-class eccentric.' I'm afraid I'm with Viv on this one. For me, it wasn't just The Good Life's cardboard sets that wobbled but the entire flimsy concept. Margo and Jerry Leadbetter and their new age neighbours, Tom and Barbara Good (surely one of the weakest title puns ever), were certainly loveable, but they felt more like upper-middle-class Hampstead types than drab suburbanites stuck in dead-end jobs. Margo was supposed to be a middle-class snob with delusions of grandeur, but she looked and sounded like a proper aristocrat with her brusque demeanour and cut-glass accent. Unlike Alison Steadman's brilliant turn as Bev in Abigail's Party, Mike Leigh's tragic take on sweaty middle-class angst, Margo never had the contorted vowels and carefully concealed coarseness that made Bev so excruciatingly authentic. Margo just felt like a dotty dowager who'd accidentally wandered into a house full of naff Dralon furniture. No wonder she looked so fed up. And was anyone surprised when Ms Keith went on to play Lady Fforbes-Hamilton in To the Manor Born, a part far more in keeping with her style? Felicity Kendal's Barbara also felt hopelessly out of place with her scrummy head-girl cutesiness and Sloaney-haired confidence – again, hardly your typical Surbiton type. We all fancied Babs, but did anyone believe she had sacrificed everything for the sake of the planet? As for the urbane Jerry, I didn't buy for one moment that he worked for a two-bit company designing plastic toys for cereal packets – it wasn't even an amusing conceit. The late Paul Eddington, a fine actor, imbued Jerry with the easy wit and debonair charm of a country squire or possibly a gentleman sleuth; he'd have made an interesting Bond for sure – but a humble draughtsman from the arse end of south-west London? Gimme a break. And if Felicity Kendal's treacly Barbara and Richard Briers's winsome Tom had been so keen on self-sufficiency, why didn't they just sell up and move to a smallholding in Suffolk? Neither couple appeared to have any children, so what were they even doing festering in the drab 'burbs? Looking back, nothing about the series rang true. The idea that installing a mangy goat and a couple of pigs in a suburban garden meant you never had to go shopping again was for the birds. Speaking of which, Margo would surely have had the Goods evicted on discovering they had named their recently acquired cockerel Lenin. The noise! The politics! No wonder Margo and Jerry became so concerned about their potty neighbours. Imprisoning farmyard animals in unsanitary conditions was surely a matter for the RSPCA. And if I'd been Barbara, I'd have told my penny-pinching hubby where to shove his second-hand loom. In 1975, you could pick up an old jumper from Oxfam for 20p, so why put your wife through the hell of having to weave a new one, which would have cost a lot more anyway? Unless, of course, they were virtue signalling their green credentials to those horribly rapacious neighbours: 'Jerry, I've scoured Bond Street,' as Margo famously lamented. A well-executed stereotype can distil the essence of a character, making them a perfect comedy foil 1970s sitcoms lived or died on the quality of their stereotypes. Warren Mitchell's Alf Garnett was completely believable as a cartoon bigot, as was Leonard Rossiter's absurdly over-the-top landlord Rigsby. John Cleese's portrayal of a middle-class hotelier on the verge of a nervous breakdown wasn't exactly subtle, but we instantly recognised the type. Back then, Brits tended to remain in their silos, only glimpsing how the other half lived via TV sitcoms. I doubt many BBC producers had ever met an actual Albert Steptoe, but Wilfrid Brambell's grotesque interpretation of a rag-and-bone man was real enough to carry a brilliant script. The reason The Good Life characters didn't work was because we couldn't place them properly. Nowadays, of course, we flinch at the idea of stereotypes, assuming they will always be crudely drawn depictions of reality. In fact, a well-executed stereotype can distil the essence of a character, making them a perfect comedy foil. With society becoming increasingly atomised, writers have lost the art of creating believable stereotypes; today, we demand complexity and back stories even from two-dimensional superheroes. The genius of 1970s sitcoms was their ability to hold up a madly distorted but instantly recognisable mirror to the tragicomedy we call life. Unfortunately, The Good Life's situational setting failed to match the comedic stereotypes and therefore failed to tell us much about the human condition. That said, I still giggle whenever I think of Margo going head to head with her nemesis Miss Mountshaft, dictatorial leading light of the local music society. With a name like Mountshaft, perhaps 1970s sitcoms weren't quite as innocent as we like to think.
Newsroom
4 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Newsroom
Book of the Week: Women and chickens first
There's an interesting cultural trend in this country where city dwellers yearn for country life. A place where your neighbour is acres away, you can have animals of all shapes and sizes, you can return to the rural life of your ancestors and you can cuddle up and be cosy. So too is there a trend for books about it. I wrote my first book about living like my grandmother in 2010 and then moved to 2 hectares in the Hokianga and wrote three more. These types of books are not quite cookbooks, but they do have recipes and they are not quite memoirs but they lean heavily on life stories and they are not quite coffee table books but they have gorgeous pictures of their authors picking wild blackberries, hugging cows, or walking along the beach looking satisfied and free. I am guilty of all three of those images. We struggle to name the genre but Whitcoulls, to my relief, have arranged them under self -help and green lifestyle. What I know about the many people who read these books is that they are usually women who are yearning for something different in their life, have a desire to be more sustainable and just want to get their hands dirty for once. Some of them struggle to move to the country due to a partner who won't budge, the need to keep a job or the terrifying prospect of selling up in the city and never being able to afford to go back should the chickens get out of hand. But many are also just gazing with wonder and adoration at these books as a nice thing to do on a Sunday afternoon when women tend to find a patch of sunlight and disappear under a Mohair rug to read and dream. The Good Life by Gillian Swinton is the latest book in a well-trodden path of aspirational living or modern homesteading, as she calls it. I had to look up the definition of homesteading because it sounded a bit Amish to me. Apparently it is a lifestyle centred on self-sufficiency, typically involving subsistence agriculture, home food preservation, and sometimes small-scale production of textiles, clothing, and crafts for household use or sale. Gillian is gorgeous and very serious. Not for Gillian, the lying beatifically in a hammock in the orchard or beach walks in cosy boots and poncho. (Guilty again). Gillian wears shorts and pink Crocs, or overalls and pink Crocs, and her only nod to accessories are her dog whistle around her neck and sunnies on a fine day. She also writes a mean chapter about processing a lamb. This is when some of the Sunday cosy dreamers might find themselves averting their eyes and hastily flicking over the offending pages while they hum softly to themselves. Gillian knows her stuff and doesn't shy away from the very gruesome business of killing a lamb and butchering it. Hats off to her. 'Disembowelling or eviscerating is a straightforward process,' she writes 'but don't be afraid to take your time.' What follows is a lot of cutting, pulling and separating before we get to the squeezing of lamb poop out of intestines. When it comes to actually chopping up the animal, Gillian is enthusiastic. 'I love this part,' she says. For the faint-hearted there are also soothing recipes for honey marshmallow, stovies (she's Scottish) and a zucchini caramel crumble. There are equally well-informed pages on beekeeping, preserving, keeping chickens, producing great compost, raising lambs and calves, growing potatoes and garlic and trapping possums. Gillian has written a book about garlic which is just $10 on her website. All of this takes place at her home, Lauderburn House, which is in Central Otago on the cycle trail. Publishers love lifestyle content from the picturesque Central Otago. Notable lifestyle authors and television stars are Annabel Langbein in Wanaka, Nadia Lim on Royalburn Station between Arrowtown and Wanaka, Matt Chisolm in Chatto Creek and now Gillian who is just up the road from him. It must be bedlam at the farmers' market. There is something so pleasantly basic and reliable about the way Gillian writes. She worked in Western Australia as a station cook. 'I butchered my first bird on this farm,' she says. 'You might think an upside-down traffic cone is an interesting choice of killing cone, but it restrains the birds just the same as the fancy stainless steel ones.' More readers gently humming to themselves. The best thing about this book is that it is written by a young woman who I'm guessing is in her mid thirties. This means that her generation, the ones we old hippy girls have been writing for and raising, have got it. My own daughters, who are Gillian's age, seem to have got the memo too. Just last week one came looking for my yoghurt instructions and the other asked for my beef broth recipe. (Gillian has a great one for chicken broth and we both agree that it's the apple cider vinegar which makes the difference). She and her partner Hamish, who was raised on a farm in the Hokonui Hills in Central Southland, work while they homestead, which is a lot. The problem with many of these self help/green lifestyle books is that they look perfect but are quite frankly not achievable for anyone who has a mortgage or a family to raise. Original homesteading would have been carried out by women who were not breadwinners or went out to work. They toiled at home melting animal fat into tallow, feeding hungry men on the farm, raising children, washing and cleaning as well as hand feeding a few calves or lambs and butchering chickens for dinner. Gillian is a digital marketer who works from home, while she runs the property's bed and breakfast. She also has a stunning website where she sells this book and an Instagram account to die for. The fact that she has 7589 followers will be a big reason she was approached by Allen and Unwin to write this book. Even if she sells a book to a third of her followers, that's a nice sale in our market. She writes in her introduction that readers should take what is useful for them from her book but not try to do it all, a mantra which should be preached more often by women to women who already have enough on their plates: 'For us homesteading is late summer nights in the garden after a day of work. With a Mitre 10 bucket in hand, fixing some irrigation our dogs decided to play with.' My one complaint about this book is that I can tell from her Instagram posts that Gillian is hilarious yet someone seems to have told her to put her serious hat on for the writing. Or edited it out. I am sure that the classic trope of good jokes when things go wrong are many and varied in Gillian's life and I would have loved the opportunity to laugh with her. I look forward to her next book and having some laughs as well as learning even more things that even this former self help/green living writer had never heard of such as home testing your soil, banana peel tea for houseplants and making your own garlic powder. The Good Life by Gillian Swinton (Allen and Unwin, $45) is available in bookstores nationwide.
Daily Mirror
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Little UK town named most 'boring' place to live but not everyone agrees
One South West London town has been named one of the UK's most boring places to live - but its great transport and activity offerings have some begging to differ London, known for its vibrant life offers endless activities day and night. Yet, surprisingly, a South West London town has been dubbed one of the UK's " most boring" places to live. Surbiton received the title from The Telegraph, alongside five other UK towns. The criteria used by the publication is not entirely clear, but it appears to have selected locations that people "collectively consider boring", despite each having its own unique charm. Surbiton indeed has much to offer those seeking a tranquil experience on the outskirts of London, reports MyLondon. Nestled on the edge of London and Surrey, the leafy and peaceful Surbiton was once described by The Telegraph as "neither London nor Surrey, neither ultra-middle class nor confusedly 'gritty.' It also notes that the area is close to Home Park and Hampton Court, as well as Surrey Hills and Kingston. The paper notes that the area's top tourist attraction is its station which is perhaps why it made it to the list in the first place. However, what some might not know is that the hit sitcom series The Good Life was set in Surbiton, although it was actually filmed in the Middlesex borough of Northwood. So while it might have just won the title of being one of the UK's most boring towns, Surbiton has actually got plenty to offer for those looking for a more relaxed outskirts of London experience. Transport and housing The town is well-connected to the city, despite falling within Travelcard Zone 6. Journeys between Surbiton station and London Waterloo takes on average 27 minutes - making it a great option for commuters. Its train station has a beautiful art-deco front which has featured in its fair share of TV shows and films including Harry Potter and Poirot. The area has also been home to celebrities like Spiderman star Tom Holland, and authors Enid Blyton and Jacqueline Wilson. Things to do Surbiton may have been branded one of the UK's "most boring" places, but it surprisingly offers a fair bit more activity-wise. It's nestled near several verdant areas, including Claremont Gardens and Berrylands Nature Reserve. One TripAdvisor review that is a self-proclaimed "regular" at Claremont Gardens confirmed the area is beautiful year-round. "The colours of the trees and landscape are beautiful in different ways through the year. It's definitely worth a visit for a little exploration and calm wander around the grounds." The reviewer also suggested heading out onto the water for some added fun. "I've enjoyed hiring a boat to head out on the pond too, with the quizzical looks of interest from the ducks and birds floating around. The obligatory visit to a National Trust cafe for a scone also helps!" Come the weekend, the locals revel in the "great atmosphere and true sense of community" found at the bustling Surbiton Farmers Market. Another TripAdvisor reviewer emphasises the friendliness of locals: "This farmers' market is great to visit with such a variety of food and drinks plus plants and flowers. All the stall holders are so friendly and cheerful, whatever the weather." Connoisseurs of fine architecture can also admire the historic clock tower, a John Johnson creation commemorating the coronation of HRH King Edward VII in 1902.
NZ Herald
02-06-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
Steve Braunias: A new way to save the world one egg at a time
Wateregging! It's always exciting to come across a new word and more so a new concept, a new way of doing things, a new way of saving the world one egg at a time. I discovered it in a recently published book, The Good Life, by Gillian Swinton, which
The Advertiser
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Protein all the rage for (Mr) men and women of a certain age
One Saturday afternoon 40-odd years ago, my sister and I were watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory on TV when struck by the genius idea that eating lollies could only enhance the experience. Luckily, the Hill Street shop was just across the road, so we knew could make it there and back by the time Augustus Gloop would be landing in the fudge room. Being the early '80s, however, it was a largely cashless society for kids (the only children who had their own money back then were psychopaths), so in fiscal emergencies such as these we'd have to scrounge around the couch for coins like Tom and Barbara did that time in The Good Life to pay the council rates. If the sofa was a bust, we'd be forced to brave the toxic detritus of the Kingswood ashtray in the hope a 20-cent piece might being lying somewhere at the bottom of the cursed receptacle, fully aware such an endeavour could be as life-limiting as rolling up for work armed with a shovel and alacrity the day after Chernobyl blew up. I recall we were able to raise a little less than $2 - only sufficient to buy about three kilos of jelly babies, teeth, strawberry and creams, bullets, milk bottles, freckles, bananas, pineapples, and pythons - but almost enough to get us to the great glass elevator denouement. Decades of dying tastebuds since then, I've been resigned to thinking the only Pavlovian response TV could get out of me was drooling over home-shopping ads for garden hoses. Turns out I was wrong. Dead wrong. TV is making me hungry again. For the special stuff. TV wants to feed this man meat. And I'm on board. And so is, it feels, everyone else in their 50s trying to, if not turn back time, at least limit those elements which can make ageing any uglier than it necessarily needs to be - such as carbs and bike shorts. But living in this insufferable new age of online enlightenment means we're too clever to just say "meat". These days we must say "protein". Protein, as far as I can tell, is meat and eggs and fish. And maybe mushrooms? I'm not sure. I love mushrooms and would very much like for them to be part of this discussion, but sub judice constraints prevent me from going there (and believe me, I'm desperate to go there). Anyway, watching one of those American barbecue competitions the other day, I noticed all the contestants referred to the ribs, briskets and drumsticks they intended to slow cook for three to four weeks in their locomotive-sized offset smokers as "protein", not "meat". "And far mah proe-teeeyen, ahh'll be cukeen this mowse I done gone hit with mah peek-arp just this mah-nen" (for translation, pretend you're Parker Posey). READ MORE: This protein-washing of the dietary conversation seems to give us a green light to throw off the oppressive chains of colon care and just go nuts (more protein, I believe, but don't understand how). And talking of chains and nuts, I've also been watching Untold: The Liver King on Netflix. While this, ahem, "documentary" peters out quickly, revealing itself to be a bit of a one-trick pony (that one trick being to eat the pony), learning about testicle-chomping internet phenomenon Brian Johnson and his odd Texas family has been mildly entertaining, if not entirely predictable. Despite his hulking and ridiculously shredded physique that screams steroid abuse, Johnson was apparently able to hoodwink millions of followers into believing his extraordinary appearance was down to nothing more than an offal-rich diet and several million daily push-ups. Even though I'm not on the social medias and am coming in late to the Liver King and his "nine ancestral tenets" and associated supplements empire, it was hardly a shock to learn he's been plugging himself with enough human growth hormone to make a bikie blush. What was genuinely shocking, however, was the number of eggs his family eats. They eat almost as many as our lot. Lately, we've gone the full goog, yolk around the clock, and loving it. Eggs are delicious, plentiful (we live in a village lousy with chooks) and can be cooked at least two different ways. It's difficult to stay across the health status of eggs - it seems to change from week to week - but all the science I need to convince me we're on the right track can be found in the Mr. Men TV series where Mr Strong eats, like, a lot of eggs - a regime which enables him to turn an entire barn upside down, fill it with water and use it to extinguish a blazing corn field. Given Mr Strong's suspiciously square jaw, it's hard not to wonder if he isn't dabbling in a little HGH himself, but what is beyond any shadow of a doubt is his gym mate, Mr Noisy, is roid-raging his brogues off when he walks into Wobbletown and terrorises the main street traders. I'D LIKE A LOAF OF BREAD! I'D LIKE A PIECE OF MEAT! Which, as it happens, is precisely the refrain ringing through the light-headed heads of every contestant in this year's Alone Australia over on SBS - a show which puts protein on a pedestal like no other. Meat is the whole point of the Alone franchise; obtaining it equals victory. You can fiddle about with all the fiddlehead ferns you want, but unless you secure protein, you're barely in the game (hibernators should be banned, by the way). The knowing grin on Corinne's lovely blood-smeared face after she gutted that wallaby was worth $250,000 alone. Unless Quentin the evil quoll suffocates the 39-year-old in her sleep, Corinne may win, like Gina Chick, off the back of a single marsupial. But as much as the highlands hunter-gatherer deserves to take the cash (we should also spare a thought for poor old Ben, whose 40 days of Christ-like torture was more harrowing than anything Mel Gibson could subject him to), I - being in the pale, male and stale camp myself - can't help but root for Murray. Yes, 63-year-old "Muzza" is a bogan who swears too much, but he's a brilliant lateral thinker, can literally catch fish in his sleep and has consumed so much eel flesh his gout flared up (he should definitely steer clear of the Liver King's product range). Muzza may not be fashionable, but he gets the job done and surely the sheer frequency of his protein procurement makes him more than worthy to carry the torch? And the tongs. One Saturday afternoon 40-odd years ago, my sister and I were watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory on TV when struck by the genius idea that eating lollies could only enhance the experience. Luckily, the Hill Street shop was just across the road, so we knew could make it there and back by the time Augustus Gloop would be landing in the fudge room. Being the early '80s, however, it was a largely cashless society for kids (the only children who had their own money back then were psychopaths), so in fiscal emergencies such as these we'd have to scrounge around the couch for coins like Tom and Barbara did that time in The Good Life to pay the council rates. If the sofa was a bust, we'd be forced to brave the toxic detritus of the Kingswood ashtray in the hope a 20-cent piece might being lying somewhere at the bottom of the cursed receptacle, fully aware such an endeavour could be as life-limiting as rolling up for work armed with a shovel and alacrity the day after Chernobyl blew up. I recall we were able to raise a little less than $2 - only sufficient to buy about three kilos of jelly babies, teeth, strawberry and creams, bullets, milk bottles, freckles, bananas, pineapples, and pythons - but almost enough to get us to the great glass elevator denouement. Decades of dying tastebuds since then, I've been resigned to thinking the only Pavlovian response TV could get out of me was drooling over home-shopping ads for garden hoses. Turns out I was wrong. Dead wrong. TV is making me hungry again. For the special stuff. TV wants to feed this man meat. And I'm on board. And so is, it feels, everyone else in their 50s trying to, if not turn back time, at least limit those elements which can make ageing any uglier than it necessarily needs to be - such as carbs and bike shorts. But living in this insufferable new age of online enlightenment means we're too clever to just say "meat". These days we must say "protein". Protein, as far as I can tell, is meat and eggs and fish. And maybe mushrooms? I'm not sure. I love mushrooms and would very much like for them to be part of this discussion, but sub judice constraints prevent me from going there (and believe me, I'm desperate to go there). Anyway, watching one of those American barbecue competitions the other day, I noticed all the contestants referred to the ribs, briskets and drumsticks they intended to slow cook for three to four weeks in their locomotive-sized offset smokers as "protein", not "meat". "And far mah proe-teeeyen, ahh'll be cukeen this mowse I done gone hit with mah peek-arp just this mah-nen" (for translation, pretend you're Parker Posey). READ MORE: This protein-washing of the dietary conversation seems to give us a green light to throw off the oppressive chains of colon care and just go nuts (more protein, I believe, but don't understand how). And talking of chains and nuts, I've also been watching Untold: The Liver King on Netflix. While this, ahem, "documentary" peters out quickly, revealing itself to be a bit of a one-trick pony (that one trick being to eat the pony), learning about testicle-chomping internet phenomenon Brian Johnson and his odd Texas family has been mildly entertaining, if not entirely predictable. Despite his hulking and ridiculously shredded physique that screams steroid abuse, Johnson was apparently able to hoodwink millions of followers into believing his extraordinary appearance was down to nothing more than an offal-rich diet and several million daily push-ups. Even though I'm not on the social medias and am coming in late to the Liver King and his "nine ancestral tenets" and associated supplements empire, it was hardly a shock to learn he's been plugging himself with enough human growth hormone to make a bikie blush. What was genuinely shocking, however, was the number of eggs his family eats. They eat almost as many as our lot. Lately, we've gone the full goog, yolk around the clock, and loving it. Eggs are delicious, plentiful (we live in a village lousy with chooks) and can be cooked at least two different ways. It's difficult to stay across the health status of eggs - it seems to change from week to week - but all the science I need to convince me we're on the right track can be found in the Mr. Men TV series where Mr Strong eats, like, a lot of eggs - a regime which enables him to turn an entire barn upside down, fill it with water and use it to extinguish a blazing corn field. Given Mr Strong's suspiciously square jaw, it's hard not to wonder if he isn't dabbling in a little HGH himself, but what is beyond any shadow of a doubt is his gym mate, Mr Noisy, is roid-raging his brogues off when he walks into Wobbletown and terrorises the main street traders. I'D LIKE A LOAF OF BREAD! I'D LIKE A PIECE OF MEAT! Which, as it happens, is precisely the refrain ringing through the light-headed heads of every contestant in this year's Alone Australia over on SBS - a show which puts protein on a pedestal like no other. Meat is the whole point of the Alone franchise; obtaining it equals victory. You can fiddle about with all the fiddlehead ferns you want, but unless you secure protein, you're barely in the game (hibernators should be banned, by the way). The knowing grin on Corinne's lovely blood-smeared face after she gutted that wallaby was worth $250,000 alone. Unless Quentin the evil quoll suffocates the 39-year-old in her sleep, Corinne may win, like Gina Chick, off the back of a single marsupial. But as much as the highlands hunter-gatherer deserves to take the cash (we should also spare a thought for poor old Ben, whose 40 days of Christ-like torture was more harrowing than anything Mel Gibson could subject him to), I - being in the pale, male and stale camp myself - can't help but root for Murray. Yes, 63-year-old "Muzza" is a bogan who swears too much, but he's a brilliant lateral thinker, can literally catch fish in his sleep and has consumed so much eel flesh his gout flared up (he should definitely steer clear of the Liver King's product range). Muzza may not be fashionable, but he gets the job done and surely the sheer frequency of his protein procurement makes him more than worthy to carry the torch? And the tongs. One Saturday afternoon 40-odd years ago, my sister and I were watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory on TV when struck by the genius idea that eating lollies could only enhance the experience. Luckily, the Hill Street shop was just across the road, so we knew could make it there and back by the time Augustus Gloop would be landing in the fudge room. Being the early '80s, however, it was a largely cashless society for kids (the only children who had their own money back then were psychopaths), so in fiscal emergencies such as these we'd have to scrounge around the couch for coins like Tom and Barbara did that time in The Good Life to pay the council rates. If the sofa was a bust, we'd be forced to brave the toxic detritus of the Kingswood ashtray in the hope a 20-cent piece might being lying somewhere at the bottom of the cursed receptacle, fully aware such an endeavour could be as life-limiting as rolling up for work armed with a shovel and alacrity the day after Chernobyl blew up. I recall we were able to raise a little less than $2 - only sufficient to buy about three kilos of jelly babies, teeth, strawberry and creams, bullets, milk bottles, freckles, bananas, pineapples, and pythons - but almost enough to get us to the great glass elevator denouement. Decades of dying tastebuds since then, I've been resigned to thinking the only Pavlovian response TV could get out of me was drooling over home-shopping ads for garden hoses. Turns out I was wrong. Dead wrong. TV is making me hungry again. For the special stuff. TV wants to feed this man meat. And I'm on board. And so is, it feels, everyone else in their 50s trying to, if not turn back time, at least limit those elements which can make ageing any uglier than it necessarily needs to be - such as carbs and bike shorts. But living in this insufferable new age of online enlightenment means we're too clever to just say "meat". These days we must say "protein". Protein, as far as I can tell, is meat and eggs and fish. And maybe mushrooms? I'm not sure. I love mushrooms and would very much like for them to be part of this discussion, but sub judice constraints prevent me from going there (and believe me, I'm desperate to go there). Anyway, watching one of those American barbecue competitions the other day, I noticed all the contestants referred to the ribs, briskets and drumsticks they intended to slow cook for three to four weeks in their locomotive-sized offset smokers as "protein", not "meat". "And far mah proe-teeeyen, ahh'll be cukeen this mowse I done gone hit with mah peek-arp just this mah-nen" (for translation, pretend you're Parker Posey). READ MORE: This protein-washing of the dietary conversation seems to give us a green light to throw off the oppressive chains of colon care and just go nuts (more protein, I believe, but don't understand how). And talking of chains and nuts, I've also been watching Untold: The Liver King on Netflix. While this, ahem, "documentary" peters out quickly, revealing itself to be a bit of a one-trick pony (that one trick being to eat the pony), learning about testicle-chomping internet phenomenon Brian Johnson and his odd Texas family has been mildly entertaining, if not entirely predictable. Despite his hulking and ridiculously shredded physique that screams steroid abuse, Johnson was apparently able to hoodwink millions of followers into believing his extraordinary appearance was down to nothing more than an offal-rich diet and several million daily push-ups. Even though I'm not on the social medias and am coming in late to the Liver King and his "nine ancestral tenets" and associated supplements empire, it was hardly a shock to learn he's been plugging himself with enough human growth hormone to make a bikie blush. What was genuinely shocking, however, was the number of eggs his family eats. They eat almost as many as our lot. Lately, we've gone the full goog, yolk around the clock, and loving it. Eggs are delicious, plentiful (we live in a village lousy with chooks) and can be cooked at least two different ways. It's difficult to stay across the health status of eggs - it seems to change from week to week - but all the science I need to convince me we're on the right track can be found in the Mr. Men TV series where Mr Strong eats, like, a lot of eggs - a regime which enables him to turn an entire barn upside down, fill it with water and use it to extinguish a blazing corn field. Given Mr Strong's suspiciously square jaw, it's hard not to wonder if he isn't dabbling in a little HGH himself, but what is beyond any shadow of a doubt is his gym mate, Mr Noisy, is roid-raging his brogues off when he walks into Wobbletown and terrorises the main street traders. I'D LIKE A LOAF OF BREAD! I'D LIKE A PIECE OF MEAT! Which, as it happens, is precisely the refrain ringing through the light-headed heads of every contestant in this year's Alone Australia over on SBS - a show which puts protein on a pedestal like no other. Meat is the whole point of the Alone franchise; obtaining it equals victory. You can fiddle about with all the fiddlehead ferns you want, but unless you secure protein, you're barely in the game (hibernators should be banned, by the way). The knowing grin on Corinne's lovely blood-smeared face after she gutted that wallaby was worth $250,000 alone. Unless Quentin the evil quoll suffocates the 39-year-old in her sleep, Corinne may win, like Gina Chick, off the back of a single marsupial. But as much as the highlands hunter-gatherer deserves to take the cash (we should also spare a thought for poor old Ben, whose 40 days of Christ-like torture was more harrowing than anything Mel Gibson could subject him to), I - being in the pale, male and stale camp myself - can't help but root for Murray. Yes, 63-year-old "Muzza" is a bogan who swears too much, but he's a brilliant lateral thinker, can literally catch fish in his sleep and has consumed so much eel flesh his gout flared up (he should definitely steer clear of the Liver King's product range). Muzza may not be fashionable, but he gets the job done and surely the sheer frequency of his protein procurement makes him more than worthy to carry the torch? And the tongs. One Saturday afternoon 40-odd years ago, my sister and I were watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory on TV when struck by the genius idea that eating lollies could only enhance the experience. Luckily, the Hill Street shop was just across the road, so we knew could make it there and back by the time Augustus Gloop would be landing in the fudge room. Being the early '80s, however, it was a largely cashless society for kids (the only children who had their own money back then were psychopaths), so in fiscal emergencies such as these we'd have to scrounge around the couch for coins like Tom and Barbara did that time in The Good Life to pay the council rates. If the sofa was a bust, we'd be forced to brave the toxic detritus of the Kingswood ashtray in the hope a 20-cent piece might being lying somewhere at the bottom of the cursed receptacle, fully aware such an endeavour could be as life-limiting as rolling up for work armed with a shovel and alacrity the day after Chernobyl blew up. I recall we were able to raise a little less than $2 - only sufficient to buy about three kilos of jelly babies, teeth, strawberry and creams, bullets, milk bottles, freckles, bananas, pineapples, and pythons - but almost enough to get us to the great glass elevator denouement. Decades of dying tastebuds since then, I've been resigned to thinking the only Pavlovian response TV could get out of me was drooling over home-shopping ads for garden hoses. Turns out I was wrong. Dead wrong. TV is making me hungry again. For the special stuff. TV wants to feed this man meat. And I'm on board. And so is, it feels, everyone else in their 50s trying to, if not turn back time, at least limit those elements which can make ageing any uglier than it necessarily needs to be - such as carbs and bike shorts. But living in this insufferable new age of online enlightenment means we're too clever to just say "meat". These days we must say "protein". Protein, as far as I can tell, is meat and eggs and fish. And maybe mushrooms? I'm not sure. I love mushrooms and would very much like for them to be part of this discussion, but sub judice constraints prevent me from going there (and believe me, I'm desperate to go there). Anyway, watching one of those American barbecue competitions the other day, I noticed all the contestants referred to the ribs, briskets and drumsticks they intended to slow cook for three to four weeks in their locomotive-sized offset smokers as "protein", not "meat". "And far mah proe-teeeyen, ahh'll be cukeen this mowse I done gone hit with mah peek-arp just this mah-nen" (for translation, pretend you're Parker Posey). READ MORE: This protein-washing of the dietary conversation seems to give us a green light to throw off the oppressive chains of colon care and just go nuts (more protein, I believe, but don't understand how). And talking of chains and nuts, I've also been watching Untold: The Liver King on Netflix. While this, ahem, "documentary" peters out quickly, revealing itself to be a bit of a one-trick pony (that one trick being to eat the pony), learning about testicle-chomping internet phenomenon Brian Johnson and his odd Texas family has been mildly entertaining, if not entirely predictable. Despite his hulking and ridiculously shredded physique that screams steroid abuse, Johnson was apparently able to hoodwink millions of followers into believing his extraordinary appearance was down to nothing more than an offal-rich diet and several million daily push-ups. Even though I'm not on the social medias and am coming in late to the Liver King and his "nine ancestral tenets" and associated supplements empire, it was hardly a shock to learn he's been plugging himself with enough human growth hormone to make a bikie blush. What was genuinely shocking, however, was the number of eggs his family eats. They eat almost as many as our lot. Lately, we've gone the full goog, yolk around the clock, and loving it. Eggs are delicious, plentiful (we live in a village lousy with chooks) and can be cooked at least two different ways. It's difficult to stay across the health status of eggs - it seems to change from week to week - but all the science I need to convince me we're on the right track can be found in the Mr. Men TV series where Mr Strong eats, like, a lot of eggs - a regime which enables him to turn an entire barn upside down, fill it with water and use it to extinguish a blazing corn field. Given Mr Strong's suspiciously square jaw, it's hard not to wonder if he isn't dabbling in a little HGH himself, but what is beyond any shadow of a doubt is his gym mate, Mr Noisy, is roid-raging his brogues off when he walks into Wobbletown and terrorises the main street traders. I'D LIKE A LOAF OF BREAD! I'D LIKE A PIECE OF MEAT! Which, as it happens, is precisely the refrain ringing through the light-headed heads of every contestant in this year's Alone Australia over on SBS - a show which puts protein on a pedestal like no other. Meat is the whole point of the Alone franchise; obtaining it equals victory. You can fiddle about with all the fiddlehead ferns you want, but unless you secure protein, you're barely in the game (hibernators should be banned, by the way). The knowing grin on Corinne's lovely blood-smeared face after she gutted that wallaby was worth $250,000 alone. Unless Quentin the evil quoll suffocates the 39-year-old in her sleep, Corinne may win, like Gina Chick, off the back of a single marsupial. But as much as the highlands hunter-gatherer deserves to take the cash (we should also spare a thought for poor old Ben, whose 40 days of Christ-like torture was more harrowing than anything Mel Gibson could subject him to), I - being in the pale, male and stale camp myself - can't help but root for Murray. Yes, 63-year-old "Muzza" is a bogan who swears too much, but he's a brilliant lateral thinker, can literally catch fish in his sleep and has consumed so much eel flesh his gout flared up (he should definitely steer clear of the Liver King's product range). Muzza may not be fashionable, but he gets the job done and surely the sheer frequency of his protein procurement makes him more than worthy to carry the torch? And the tongs.
