Cake and Crisps

Play Along:

Knock, Knock

(Who's There?)

Smell Mop

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It's actually not my joke, Antonia told it on the fantastic show Top Chef which just wrapped up its 4th season on Bravo.

My wife is addicted to several reality television shows. Jon and Kate plus 8, What Not To Wear, Top Chef (which is very good), Mystery Diagnosis, that show with Gene Simmons , and the inspiration for the joke retelling above, You Are What You Eat. You Are What You Eat is one of a crop of reality shows that airs on BBC America. Other shows of note include Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares ( episode "The Walnut Tree" seems to be on a 24 hour loop), How Clean Is Your House, Last Restaurant Standing, My Big Breasts and Me and the nation specific makeover craze Britain's Worst Teeth. When it comes to reality television, the British do it right.



Back to the knock, knock, joke. On the aforementioned You Are What You Eat, a nutritionist, Gillian McKeith, shows people the crap they eat and then turns them into healthful sprites who outlive those tortoises that live a very long time. That is unless they fall off the wagon, or should I say, ice cream truck. The show starts off effectively every week with the, "surprise, we've been secretly taping you and recording everything you ate this past week." They then astonish the viewer and shame the participant by displaying on one long table, everything that person ate during the course of the week. The volume is usually frightening but the inevitable fish and chips usually look pretty good. And then the unthinkable happens, Ms. McKeith demands that her fallen angels defecate into Tupperware which she then smells and rubs between her fingers. She is so scientific about it, "Oh Nigel, you're barely chewing your food," "My god that is the most putrid smelling poo I have ever whiffed;" you half expect her to taste it and describe its mouth feel. Worse yet she makes all the participants smell and feel it as well.
As if the long table of fried food wasn't embarrassing enough.

The show proceeds with drastic changes in diet, negative reactions to tofu and claims of feeling more healthful. It ends with the necessary hugs and the before and after underwear photos . The self help shows have a formula that works. I just thought it was important to inform everyone that there is a show on television which makes people smell and feel their own poop. If you have a DVR, use it, you will not be disappointed.

In other TV news, injustice in our universe hit an all time high as the TBS sitcom My Boys was brought back for another season. The sitcom equivalent of a dead baby joke makes me pine for Misguided (great show recently cancelled),

and, John McCain knows how to be creepy.

Also, The Amazing Race is awesome.