Jamie has a new look. Up top he’s untousled and slicked-back. And he’s sharpened up, dress-wise. A success, I think; he looks debonair, sophisticated, with something of a 1960s screen star about him. More James than Jamie perhaps. And he’s lost a few pounds – quite a few, I reckon. Midlife crisis? Well, he is 40. Bloody hell, how did that happen?
This isn’t about how he looks though, it’s about what currently gets his goat, and that’s sugar. It makes sense – after school dinners, and Rotherham, sugar is the logical next thing to be cross about. Jamie’s Sugar Rush (Channel 4) it’s called.
To Saint George’s Hospital in London, to “try to get my head round it”. A six-year-old called Mario has a head full of rotten teeth that need to be pulled out, and it’s all down to sugar. If Katie Hopkins is watching, she’ll be firing a salvo of Twitter blame at Mario’s parents, I imagine. Jamie is (much) better than that though. He puffs his cheeks out (there he is, old chubby Jamie!), puckers his brow, shakes his head, bites his bottom lip, to show that this is a bad thing, as well as to demonstrate concern and empathy for Mario. Who is not alone: each year 26,000 primary school-age kids go to hospital because of rotten teeth. Pulling them out costs the NHS £30m a year.
Jamie’s head is now firmly round it and he’s not happy. “We’re kind of taking the piss out of it [the NHS],” he says. “We need to help these guys do their job and focus on the things that really matter, not pulling out bloody teeth because there’s too much sugary shit in the environment. I definitely feel fired up, definitely up for a bit of a fight.” Oh Jamie, I do love it when you’re definitely fired up and up for a fight.
It’s not just rotten teeth, there’s obesity and diabetes too. Type two, at a cost of £9bn a year to the NHS, makes the tooth-pulling look like a bargain. And Helmand province was a walk in the park compared to the disorder when it comes to limb amputations, though when you consider the numbers (soldiers to sugar-rushers), perhaps the comparison is unhelpful.
Sugar gets inside us, deviously, stealthily. We need to be vigilant at all times. My (I thought) healthy branflake breakfast for example – boo, bran flakes are KILLERS. The manufacturers are sneaking into us, getting us hooked and hooked young. Imagine a shop where at eye level throughout there was booze and cigs and crack cocaine, packaged attractively with pictures of beautifully sporty-looking people, whispering, “Try me, go on, you know you want to…” Well, that’s pretty much what the average supermarket is like for a child.
Mexico gives Jamie the opportunity to model his new look in an exotic location, to sit in the back of a red pick-up, further furrowing and contemplating the global scale of the issue …
Oh, it’s easy to mock the odd Jamie-ism. But he is brilliant. Because once he’s fired up about something, got his head around it and had a little swear, he then sets about doing something about it. A sugary drink tax in his own restaurants for starters, with the money raised going to help schools to inspire kids make better choices. Then he summons his fellow restaurateurs and they come because he’s no longer just a scruffy twerp on a scooter, he’s Jamie Oliver, a man who people listen to and who gets things done.
I’ve said it before: I’d put him in charge of the country, let him get his head round that and sort it out. School dinners, Rotherham, sugar, Britain. Plus, he looks the part now.
A couple of new comedies. Cradle to Grave (BBC2) is adapted from Danny Baker’s autobiography. It’s not the most extraordinary of life stories – Bermondsey, a house full of stuff that has fallen off the back of a ship down the docks where dad Spud worked, some room for love too, though, and banter. But Baker’s observation and wit tear about joyously like demented greyhounds. There’s some nice 1970s nostalgia – wallpaper, Deep Purple, hair, Hair, an inevitable Chopper. And Peter Kay, who plays dad, travels surprisingly well – from the north-west to saaaaaf-east London.
To the north-east, the setting for Boy Meets Girl (BBC2), a fairly traditional romantic comedy, except that Girl used to be a boy. Some of the issues of being born in the wrong body are touched on, but it’s a shame transgenderism doesn’t come in bolder packaging. Quite sweet though – in a charming, not bad-sugar, way.
