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Jamie Oliver is back in the news again, only this time, I have to confess to feeling conflicted.

He got a lot of flak the last time around for attempting to improve the heath of our nation’s children. Personally, I couldn’t give a stuff about our nation’s children, except inasmuch as they keep bloody quiet and provide a pension for me when I’m old. Nonetheless I am advised that children are our future, and that it is a Good Thing for us to safeguard that future by improving the quality of school meals.

Mostly I’m advised this by Hugh. Sometimes I wonder about him.

I’m fairly sure there’s a way to improve school meals without being completely arrogant, obnoxious, and nanny-statish about it, though. I’m not at all surprised that Tony Blair got involved with the campaign: it must have fit right in to his preconceived notions about the right of people everywhere to be told what to like by a telegenic authority figure. Also it drew some attention away from that morass of illegal wars he’d started, but now I’m straying off topic.

Other people felt the same way as I do. A hundred years from now, those images of disgruntled mothers handing cheeseburgers through the school fence will be trumpeted as the first blow of the common man⁰ against the tyranny of other people knowing what’s best.

And now Jamie has responded, and he’s responded by going on the offensive and taking the piss out of Rotherham, which is a tactic that I can at least respect.

Personally, I think that cooking is a fun thing to do, and if you show people that, they’ll develop a taste for it. It stops being fun if you start by showing them all the things they’re doing wrong, and then move on to passive-aggressively make fun of their lifestyles.

I also think that there’s nothing wrong with cheeseburgers every so often. I believe in everything in moderation, including excess.

In an upcoming episode we attempt to cook one of Jamie’s recipes, and in doing so we find out just how much cop he is as a chef. Due to the running time of the episode, I didn’t get to say much about what I think of his attitude. Fortunately, that’s what blogs are for.

I fully expect to have plenty more to say about Jamie as time goes on. Even if he single-handedly saves the nation from obesity, he’s still an irritating little man, and he must be stopped.

⁰ The word “man” is used here in its original Anglo-Saxon sense. Don’t get me started.