To be sick to death of all these "Look at me! Look at my kids! Look at my house!" books and television?

[thomasbodley]

Kirstie Allsop's doing my nut. The woman is an estate agent FFS, surely there are other women who are better qualified to write books and present programmes on British crafts? Every time I see her flouncing around in front of her Aga at fucking Meadowgate I want to dry-heave. The rich husband and the live-in nanny who make all this hobbying possible are nowhere to be found, of course.

Joanna Gosling's book (which she's been plugging away on Mumsnet despite apparently having nicked all her material from this site) is beyond bollocks. The woman admitted herself she has a cleaner and a babysitter - doesn't this disqualify her from teaching the rest of us how to keep house? She's a breakfast TV presenter, why's she being photographed looking picturesque in a hardware store?

Oh, and I'm really, really struggling to give a fuck about Sarah Beeny's attempts to hang on to her 97-room mansion.

I know I don't have to watch their telly or read their 'books', but seriously, what does that leave on the schedules?

I loved Mary Berry on Great British Bake-Off. I loved Amanda Vickery's series.

Where are they now? Why oh why can we not have some women of substance that we actually admire on our screens, instead of all this titty TV totty?

Oooooo do tell about webchat going wrong!!!

If you live in London, a million quid will buy you a terraced shit-hole in a street with stabbings and social housing, so you can hardly blame Kirstie for that.

I do blame her for pretending it's so fucking difficult to negotiate down from £275k to £250k on LLL though. You need a professional homefinder to manage that deal for you, no?

I lived in London for years - I know what a million will buy you, and its not a shit hole! and of COURSE I blame Kirstie!!!!

On of the teenagers I work with can do better crafts than kirstie!! She's a real character would rather watch her

Valium - on the botox thread in Site Stuff, someone posted: 'On the Q&A for a book called something like "Superwoman"(??) a couple of months ago, some posters were quite emphatic in their criticisms of the book. (They regarded it as being quite retrograde in that it placed the burden of juggling work and home squarely on women, and pushed an unwelcome and oppressive ideal of domestic perfection.) Although the comments didn't amount to personal attack, and weren't aggressive, I recall that an MN person stepped in and reminded posters about courtesy etc. So it felt like a frank discussion wasn't really being nurtured.'

Am guessing this meant Joanna Gosling?

Lisa - I would indeed much rather watch an interesting teenager do crafts than Kirsty

Darn! Sorry I missed it elder

And can I add Lorraine Pascal to the Sophie Dahl pile? Another model turned 'chef' who minced around a beautiful kitchen all day making lovely, completely impractical food. With all that money/help we could all make 8 kinds of fucking fudge.

Elder that was the book. I love books about top tips, so I sneaked a peak in WH Smith. I swear all the tips were stolen from a thread that was on here about six months ago. If I knew how to do a search, I'd do the link. MNers should sue for royalties .

Worst of all I love her recipes

OK, I've got to say it - why, OP, do you say that Kirstie's hobbying is made possible by her "rich husband"? Do you not think that she is being paid to make these programmes or something? She is also "The Right Honourable Kirstie Allsop" or something like that. She's a rich woman in her own right. I know she was an estate agent but really she is more a TV presenter now. Since when could TV presenters only present on topics they were expertly trained in?

And I'm not surprised Sarah Beeny has 2 nannies - she has got about 75 children to be fair .

See, I don't have issues with Lorraine Pascal. I think it's because she's adopted and a single mum. She's a trained pastry chef and had her own cakeshop too, long before she was spotted for the telly. I admire people with that kind of gumption when it would be very easy in their shoes to be all "woe is me".

I kind of have the same compassion for Sarah Beeny, whose mother died when she was very small (yes, strangely I feel sorry for the multi-millionaire with four children and a sodding gorgeous husband).

Fair point Jingle, am sure she's paid a fortune, and worth a fortune.

It's more the "you can do this, too" thing that infuriates me - yes, we can all make glass Christmas tree baubles on a £300 two day course

YANBU - your post made me laugh :)

Jingle

Would you not find it bizarre if an academic taught a class that had nothing to do with their subject?

If a lawyer advised you in a completely different area of law to their own practice?

If a gynaecologist examined your ear canal?

Why is telly any different? I LOVE people who know what they're talking about. Kate Adie or Orla Gearin for example - flipping marvellous.

Ooo am intrigued ... did the Joanna Gosling webchat go south? Do tell!

YANBU, but I love Sarah Beeny. Have totally gone off Kirsty since she did the crafty thing, do not like that programme and DH keeps recording it for me! Maybe he has secret craft ambitions?
I'm sad Lorraine Pascal didn't just stick to making cakes and sweet treats, she goes dead eyed when making savoury food, and she never tries anything she cooks!

thomas - yes, some of those things would be weird. I'd also draw the line at Kirstie Allsop being my gynaecologist. I'm really not that fussy about who's presenting my TV programmes though . So long as I quite like the person, I'm happy.

They have £300 courses to learn to make baubles? Unless you intend to go into the bauble making business I don't see the point of that!

here's t'thread

thomasbodley have to differ about Beeny's "sodding gorgeous husband" . Yuk.

Completely agree OP. It feels as if there is nothing us plebs can do without advice from the TV. It seems the majority of programs are now "how to..."

Off the top of my head we can now be told how to:

buy a house
cook
clean our houses
give birth
parent our children (behave/eat/sleep)
do crafts
renovate houses
get fit/lose weight
manage money
train our dogs

Nothing seems to be sacred. The beauty is of course that this can all neatly be put into an hour episode with the following format:

I need to do X
I can't do X
I'm having a good try at X
It's gone a bit wrong so I need to be seen again by the expert on X
Now I've achieved X
Hoorah!

Yes indeed Smackapacca. And it is an emotional journey and there are tears along the way and at some point we question the advice of the sleb but by the end we have accepted their superior knowledge.

All done with the sleb perfectly made up, dressed and coiffed, while Normal Person is a bit scruffy and wrinkled, just to underline the fact that the famous people are a better breed of human being than the rest of us.

Kirstie winning all those prizes at county shows when she'd only been doing the craft a few days was a classic.

Oh yes - I forgot the "journey". Nobody can do anything ever without the "amazing journey".

Kirstie "you can never lose money on property" Allsop should stick to her bl**dy pincushions and crochet and stay away from giving unsound investment advice. That said, YANBU.

I've never forgiven her for putting gold leaf onto pears for the 'seating' name cards at her xmas dinner. It worked out at £15pp and looked shyte.

In her defense, I can only imagine the chaos if the pears hadn't been there though.