Live And Learn, Don't Mess With Australian Women

By Darryl Mason

Gordon Ramsay doesn't get a lot of lip back from the women he insults in the British media, or the women he rains torrents of verbal abuse down on in his TV shows. You don't often, or ever, see women he's insulted get in his face and tell him to fuck off.

While Tracey Grimshaw and A Current Affair have been quick to capitalise on Ramsay's dickheaded attempt to be a stand-up comedian while in Australia, turning it into a ratings and profile bonanza for Grimshaw, it's been curious to see Ramsay's reaction to having a media shitstorm explode around him.

He's not in control of this, he's not in the bully domain of his kitchen, his kingdom, he's not in charge, and female journalists are now chasing him into hotel foyers shouting, "What do you want to call me, HUH?"

He needed a security guard to step in and stop the women who challenged him yesterday. He looked panicked. Worried. Uneasy.

Ramsay knows what his audience, and potential future audiences, across the world are seeing about him blasted across headlines and leading evening news bulletins. It's not tough Ramsay, or Sweary Ramsay, it's Weird & Creepy Ramsay :

...he showed an audience of several thousand at the Melbourne Good Food and Wine show a doctored photograph of a woman naked on all fours, with multiple breasts and a pig's face, announcing that it depicted Grimshaw, who had interviewed him on the previous night.

Yeah, that's not what anyone could call a whole load of good publicity.

Today, Tracey Grimshaw is soaking up the banner headlines and column inches of UK tabloids with her mostly impressive Go Hard back at Ramsay :

"Obviously Gordon thinks that any woman who doesn't find him attractive must be gay. For the record, I don't. And I'm not."

"Gordon Ramsay made me promise not to ask on Friday about his private life. He then got on stage on Saturday and made some very clear and uninformed insinuations about mine."

"We all know that bullies thrive when no one takes them on, and I'm not going to sit meekly and let some arrogant narcissist bully me."

"The guy's sort of on the ropes in many ways … his marriage must have been put under enormous pressure at the end of last year, his business has clearly been under enormous pressure, and his shows don't rate as well as they used to."

As Ramsay would put it, Fucking Ouch.

Tracey Grimshaw, thanks to Ramsay and A Current Affair quickly moving to make this minor news event into one hell of a big deal, is now enjoying spectacular ratings, and a sudden international profile.

And as sad as it is to say, this is a big story internationally, for this week at least.

So Kevin Rudd is not going to miss out on this action :

"All I could describe his remarks as reflecting is a new form of low life...'

New form of low life isn't bad, a bit over the top, but then that's Rudd, when he wants to hand over some instant headlines, and it sort of sounds like something a detective might have said on Underbelly.

But deputy PM Julia Gillard absolutely nails the moment :

"I think what he should do is confine himself to the kitchen and make nice things for people to eat..."

In other words, get back in the kitchen, food man. It's good advice.

Ramsay can learn a lot about delivering a killer funny line, with true sting and wit, from Julia Gillard.

While the publicity might seem to be a good thing, as in no publicity is bad publicity, for Ramsay's news series on Channel Nine, we may see Channel Nine actually use this opportunity to dump the expensive Ramsay now his ratings are heading for the toilet. Will all this media attention make more people tune into his show? Probably not. And when Channel Nine bails on his show, they will make it look like they smacked down this Jock git in the process.

It's not always a surprise to hear in the media that some famously aggressive man has punched a woman in the face, there has been plenty of that lately. But what Ramsay did in making that huge photo of multi-titted pig woman a part of his show was just downright bizarre, weird and plenty creepy. Forget Grimshaw. Why would he want to expose his audience to that?

And ulimatey it might prove harder for Ramsay to live down. Does he think the pig woman photo is funny? Or does he think it's erotic?

Maybe he should just call the whole bizarre episode A Piece Of Performance Art, instead of trying to make it sound like he has been treated unfairly, and done over.

It must cause Ramsay at least some grief that, yet again, women have again exposed him for the fuckwit that he is.


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Too Much Of A Coward To Have His Own Words Quoted Back To Him

By Darryl Mason

A few days later, The Professional takes a very similar stance to The Orstrahyun on the Gordon Ramsay publicity spectacular :

....will Channel Nine do the same and cancel future shows with Ramsay or will it reward him for attacking its star?

I submitted the following comment to The Professional Idiot's blog, where the freedom to debate on any subject is supposedly written in stone, and open to all comers, at 10.27am, Tuesday.

This is Andrew Bolt on Gordon Ramsay (April, 2008) :

"...I've fallen for the bloke. My kind of guy completely. More of him and civilisation is safe."

"I like particularly the standards Ramsay upholds...."

"He thinks reason beats irrational sentiment."

"Here's Ramsay coaching millions of Australians into Liberal values and making them seem contemporary."

"Ramsay...is an artist who uses them as tools to create something beautiful from nothing..."

"Make something of yourself, is his message. Test yourself. Find passion. Make a life and, in Ramsay's own passion, his values and his art, he has."

"(Gordon Ramsay) creates a noble calling from a job, and a life from a collection of days."

So, is civilisation still safer?

Is he still coaching Australians in "Liberal values"?

Is Ramsay still "my kind of guy completely."?

My comment quoting The Professional Idiot's own words in an earlier column on Gordon Ramsay hadn't made it into the comments when I checked at 11.37am, though other comments submitted by people not writing under their own names went up on a few minutes earlier, at 11.23am.

I resubmitted the exact same comment at 11.34am. No dice.

I tried one more time, at 3.56pm, thinking surely he isn't so ashamed and embarrassed of his enthusiastic praise of Ramsay's "Liberal values" that he'd censor his own words from his own blog comments?

It still didn't show up.

I sent him an e-mail asking if he still stands by his claims about Ramsay keeping civilisation safe.

Nothing.

So at 4.38pm, I sent this short comment, with a direct link back to The Professional Idiot's own column, archived at the Herald Sun, on Ramsay :

Do you stand by your April 2008 column where you claimed, amongst many other words of praise, that Gordon Ramsay personifies "Liberal values", that is, conservative values?

Your column, where you called Ramsay an "artist" also had you saying, "...I've fallen for the bloke. My kind of guy completely. More of him and civilisation is safe".

Now surely The Professional Idiot wouldn't censor a non-abusive comment that included only his own quotes about Gordon Ramsay, and a link back to his own column from which those quotes were pulled?

Surely The Professional Idiot can't be that precious?

Let's see.

UPDATE : The Professional Idiot really is that precious, none of my comments quoting his enthusiastic praise for Gordon Ramsay passed his censor.

So much for standing by what you say.

Interestingly, this Herald Sun columnist will not allow his own words to be republished on his blog when the quotes are attributed to him, but when Toaf put some of that big sigh Gordon Ramsay infatuation and praise in a comment under his name, and not The Professional Idiot's, well, up it went :



(click to enlarge)