Cooking up another one.

1 September 2018, 20:57 | Updated: 1 September 2018, 21:01

cook

You know what there aren't enough of on television? Programmes about cooking.

The BBC are reportedly working on yet another cooking show to rival The Great British Bake Off, a programme that answered the question: what would people who don't like cooking like to watch while they're eating baked beans straight out of the can with a spoon?

Two previous series starring Mary Berry and Nadiya Hussain failed to find an audience, so instead of coming up with an idea for a programme that has a hint of originality to it, the vastly paid and highly regarded experts in telly-land have decided to do the exact same thing again, to see if that works.

That is just what we need in this country right now – more programmes encouraging people to eat sugar.

We haven't reached peak fat yet, so grab your elastic waisted sweat pants because we’re going extra-large.

According to The Sun, BBC bosses are casting around for competitors to appear in a programme that they have called Celebration.

Guess what it is going to be. That's right, a competition between cooks to see which of them will connect with an audience enough to be granted a book deal.

It will have two teams of rival bakers and cooks tasked with...oh I can't be bothered to explain, you know exactly what it will look like because it has been done a thousand times before.

Does anyone have an original thought in television?

If it isn't cooking, it is dancing, or dancing on ice, or dancing while diving into a swimming pool off a ski jump.

If one TV channel has a hit, every other channel wants a piece of the...er...pie. That's why everything is replicated endlessly until all life is squeezed out of a format and only then will the executives forlornly search around for something new.

It is an exercise in covering themselves against blame. If a new show in a tested format fails, it is the fault of the presenter. If a brand new format fails, it is the fault of the executive that suggested it.

That is also why the same people are on everything.

If a programme featuring Stephen Fry is not a hit, it is Stephen Fry's fault. If a programme that does not feature Stephen Fry fails, it is the fault of the person that did not hire Stephen Fry.

The weirdly successful show about making cakes called the Great British Bake Off moved to Channel 4 in 2016 losing its judge Mary Berry and presenters Mel and Sue.

Channel 4 searched and searched and by some miracle they found someone just as unfunny as Mel and Sue, a man who looks like he is a dead member of the 1970's glam band The Sweet.

Even with him on board, it still failed to achieve the boffo ratings of its predecessor, and neither did anything the BBC put on against it, so now we will get another show about fiddling with ingredients to join the 53 million other shows about cooking on the BBC.

I am not sure but is that what we really want from a state broadcaster that is paid for by a tax that you will go to jail for not paying?

This new show will be added to the ones with star names on the marquee that are already on and being repeated endlessly like Keith Floyd Gets Drunk and Grills Something, Nigella Pouts, Two Fat Ladies Drink Cream, Gordon Ramsey Swears Too Much For It Not To Be Put On and Paul Hollywood Has Blue Eyes.

Added to that, there are a myriad of no-name competition shows and celebrity versions of all of the above.

When they're not on, it's Jamie bloomin' Oliver on every channel, every minute of every day.

And we STILL don't cook anything from scratch, we just ring for a pizza and stuff our fat faces while we watch that lot do it.