I’ve always liked Tracy Grimshaw. She seems very nice. She does this thing sometimes with her eyes when she’s saying good night at the end of the show, it’s a little squint, it’s like she’s trying to make friends with an animal.

She’s into horses, and I’ve often wondered if hers watch her when she’s on, if they hear her voice and immediately start paying attention to the television, so that’s why she gives her reassuring blinking message. Unless they don’t watch A Current Affair. Horses are very smart.

So I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when Tracy said she’d agreed in advance not to ask Gordon Ramsay anything about his marriage, and whether he’d been shagging that other woman behind his wife’s back for all those years, meeting in hotels and sneaking around.

It would’ve been kind of interesting to find out how someone so famous, with such a recognisable face – even if, I’m sorry, that face resembles the top of a creme brulee after it’s been whacked really hard with the back of a spoon – manages to have a secret affair for some seven years. Allegedly.

And whether he felt at all like - as he would put it - a total a***hole for going on about his deep love for his wife while he was at it with another woman, and whether he ever had a pang of sadness that his children had such a dog for a father.

If in fact all those stories about Sarah Symonds are true. But when Gordon Ramsay said Tracy Grimshaw couldn’t ask him any ``personal’’ questions, Tracy agreed.

``Last week,’’ she announced on A Current Affair Monday night, ``his publicists stipulated incessantly the interviews on this trip not include questions about his marriage and private life. We all know why. I respected that request, but it appears with Ramsay that respect is a one-way street.’‘

What the hell is that about? She’s a journalist. The only job description she should stick to is the one that says she asks questions. Who cares whether Ramsay still respected her in the morning? She could’ve still put statements to him and he could’ve opted to respond or not respond, but that’s what she’s there for. To ask questions. Not to sit there like they’re best friends. Or like she works for Ramsay, or for Ramsay’s publicists.

And it doesn’t say much for what kind of lame-arse he is, that he has to be protected from a soft and cosy television interview by PR people.

Of course, in one way, Tracy’s livelihood does depend on Ramsay, and on every other famous person who goes on A Current Affair with something to sell.

Access to those big names soon dries up when they discover they’re not allowed to just sit in the studio and deliver their own press release. But what would’ve happened had Tracy decided, bugger it, I’m going to ask him whatever I feel like, whatever I think the Current Affair audience might be keen to hear about? What’s the worst that could’ve happened then? That Ramsay got irate and called her a pig?

I thought Ramsay liked pigs anyway. Pigs with roasted apple sauce, pig sausages with gravy ... And he was very upset when his pigs Trinny and Susannah were murdered.

Can I just ask at this point, is it really that much of an insult calling somebody a lesbian? Lots of guys love nothing more than a lesbian. Or two lesbians anyway. Maybe Gordon means he’s opposed to lesbians who look like Andrea Dworkin but not to ones who look like hot cheerleaders. I have no idea, and it’s hard to care very deeply what Gordon Ramsay says about anything anymore.

7 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Evan says:

      03:15pm | 14/06/09

      How can a show abandon something it never had in the first place?

    • Gordon R says:

      04:54pm | 14/06/09

      ACA is not journalism Di, it’s entertainment. It’s like going to Maccas and complaining about the lack of jamon iberico.

    • reality raver says:

      09:29pm | 14/06/09

      We created Gordon Ramsay the superstar because he was an a**ehole, and then we become or shocked when he acts like one.

      Personally I think the only person he has to explain is infidelity to is his wife.

    • Perrin says:

      12:08am | 17/06/09

      What’s the bet that Ramsay, Grimshaw and Nine cooked up this little PR stunt in the kitchen before he arrived in Australia?? There’s no doubt that Nine and A Current Affairs enjoyed a fantastic ratings boost as a result of this little childish crap!! To be quite honest both Grimshaw and Ramsay are both PIGS!! Oink Oink!

    • JULIE HO says:

      09:30pm | 24/06/09

      ACA is not JOURNALISM! have you all seen the stories that they have produced to us at 6:30pm - for example - “EXCLUSIVE, (and i note that they over use this term “EXCLUSIVE” AUSTRALIA’S MOST DANGEROUS CAR PARKS” and i remember them doing a piece on Paris Hilton which took up half of the segment! No wonder the CHASER “MEN” are always onto them like a rash! Seriously guys, the bantering between Ramsey and Grimshaw was blown up out of proportion-in the end they both got what they wanted - Ramsey=PUBLICITY, Grimshaw=RATINGS. So in hindsight both parties were happy! Everyone should be watching quality JOURNALISM like 4 CORNERS, ABC NEWS etc….

    • alan cotterell says:

      09:53am | 28/06/09

      People wonder why it’s difficult to get apprentices into the food trades.  People like Gordon Ramsay are a major part of the reason!  I suggest it’s wrong to lionise someone who’s obviously a foul-mouthed bully in the workplace! You will note that there has recently been a big jump in numbers in cooking apprentices, apparently due to the TV programme ‘Master Chef’‘!

    • Mr Pastry says:

      02:22pm | 06/08/09

      Julie Ho is correct ACA is tabloid trash.  The blind regurgitation of press releases the endless film promos, diets and celebrity gossip is NOT news.  At best it is lazy journalism and far worse than the UK’s Sun and Mirror tabloids which can stoop very low indeed.  Tracy Grimshaw needs to feed her horses but I am sure they would forgive her if she left.

 

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