In praise of...Cat Deeley

It was only what a couple of surveyors from the Ordinance Survey turned up and started debating whether my pile of clothes awaiting ironing was properly a hill or a mountain, that I realised I had been neglecting sartorial chores. (The correct term is, of course, a ‘mound’ of ironing, not just because in shape the piled-up clothes resemble a barrow or grave-site of a warrior-king, but because, like ancient burial-sites, such mounds often contain treasure, such as that excellent party shirt you’ve been looking for for weeks.)

There was no snow on the peak, a sure sign that things had got beyond the point of recovery and where the only sane option is to start flogging lift passes and hope that ‘crumpled’ becomes the look for the season, but action was required.

I wrestled the ironing board into position, set the iron to ‘steam like the Flying Scotsman on the Edinburgh - London run!’ and turned on the telly.

Watching a recorded programme about the history of the Victoria Cross passed the first hour very agreeably (tee shirts, boxers and assorted casual wear). This came to an end just as I finished shirts, so I flicked channels, alighting on foul-mouthed cook Gordon ‘fucking’ Ramsey presenting a programme about how to cook things - the self-confidence of anyone in his kitchen being roasted for instance.

He appeared to reserve most of the spice in the kitchen for his language, with more effs than a kid with a stammer doing a reading of a Famous Five book. The odd thing was that, talented armature as he was, he occasionally missed the opportunity to slip in an eff where a professional might of done so. Ideally, when swearing, I like to slip in an eff between every syllable of every word, a practice that makes the ordering of ‘haricourt beans’ in a restaurant something of a chore.

The format was GR in the kitchen, GR dropping in on people who think that a dinner part is five pot noodles and a kettle in the middle of the table and saving them from ready meals and so on. They also have a restaurant with celeb guests - tonight’s was Cat Deeley.

I remember Cat when she used to present SMTV with Ant and Dec and, after initially thinking ‘what the hell?’ and ‘ah, something for the dads’, realised that anyone who could present live telly for two hours on a Saturday morning with every sign of obvious enjoyment was pure tee vee gold.

What it boiled down to is here’s somebody who appears to be very beautiful, Brummie and proud, poised and elegant and STILL manages not to be up herself. For instance, on the show last night, she did a champagne challenge where, for instance, she picked the best champagne in a blind tasting, then picked the vintage champagne and then picked the champagne that was a supermarket brand that was considered superior to a ‘name’ brand. Pure. Class.

The corker was though when she removed the top from a champagne bottle using a sabre! What a girl! She was then invested into the order of people who can decapitate magnums!

Okay, not the hardest job in the world, but I can’t think of any other celebs who would be quite so unpretentious - or could swing a sword like that. Every fantasy geek watching must have been hitting the ‘video capture’ button on their remotes.

I, of course, was too busy ironing.