Cheryl Cole and Jamie Oliver made it (un)clear: it’s time to speak properly

Posted by Cody Chalmers on Saturday, May 28, 2011 · Leave a Comment 

Almost as soon as we breathed a sigh of relief at getting rid of them, the wannabe princess of pop Cheryl Cole and self-anointed Saviour of our Nation’s Health* Jamie Oliver have skulked back to our shores. Oh goody.

The other had his egotistically and optimistically titled Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution** yanked from the schedules of its host channel – no pun intended – recycled footage of twinkle-toed celebrity twonks hotfooting it around the dancefloor subsequently doing almost three times as well by comparison. Cor blimey guvnor!

We’ve yet to hear Cheryl’s own account of why she left America with her tail in between her legs, though the reason for her stupendous failure will probably become clear as soon as she opens her mouth to relay her tumultuous tale of woe, only for any US citizens in the vicinity to shrug their shoulders then politely enquire as to whether she can repeat herself.

Time and time again before The X Factor debacle questions were raised as to how the Geordie brogue would fare over on the other side of the Atlantic, collective amnesia allowing Simon Cowell and his assembled executive goons to all forget that when Ant and Dec jetted over – to present game-show Wanna Bet – their accents caused so many problems producers were forced to call in an interpreter.

It’s all very well celebrating the plurality of cultures that exist within our society, but that shouldn’t mean that we’re subsequently forced to try and listen in attentively every time we tune into the TV, trying to decipher unfamiliar accents . Admittedly it is nice and all to have the real world represented, shows such as The Scheme for example showing outsiders to Scotland that not everyone here talks like Sean Connery , while subtitled foreign movies can help increase our understanding of foreign cultures.

However, this isn’t education hour: The X Factor is primetime TV for goodness’ sake, when brains aren’t inclined towards doing any thinking whatsoever, with even Paddy McGuinness’s “jokey” asides resembling existentialist musings compared to the primitive desire to see shiny flashy things and loud stuff and people winning and laughing and whatever else is going on and are there any crisps left? Given how hard it was for even us fellow Brits to comprehend Cheryl’s latest clueless observations, who only knows what the Yanks would have made of the utter gobbledygook? It would have been like trying to get football commentary by listening to a punchdrunk raccoon yammering down the other end of a drainpipe several kilometres away while a tornado gushed around your ears and several alarm clocks all went off at the same time in your immediate vicinity.

Ex-Mrs Cole survived then thrived on these shores for far too long simply by prettifying herself and looking dead nice until she opened her mouth, as has become de rigeur in a cash-strapped media industry where it takes only hour or so to do somebody’s hair and make-up, but a great deal more time and money to get somebody to learn the Queen’s English and make themselves properly understood.

With that in mind, well done to the better half of “the special relationship” for pointing out the error of our ways and how we’ve started shipping supposed talent who can’t even speak our language all good and proper like. We have been rightly proud of the predomination of English around the world, and for years the mispronunciation of hugely important words such as ‘tomato’ and ‘aluminium’ were rightly pointed out.

However, now we’ve reached the point where Cheryl has been held up as a role model for other young girls to screech their way into the nation’s hearts. Same goes with Jamie and his awful ‘pukka’ accent, which should have been snuffed out quick-smartish if lame-brained producers hadn’t thought it added colour. Didnt they realise that just because viewers liked the vitality, it didnt mean that they would stop appreciating a bit of clarity?

This is the time to fight back: Nigella Lawson and Sophie Dahl should barricade the gates to make sure that the mockney monstrosity doesn’t inexplicably wheedle his way back onto our screens. And rather than allowing a shame-faced Cheryl to slink back on to The X Factor UK – which she so obviously considers beneath her anyway – why don’t they get Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey to take her role? After all, it would be nice to have an actual singer on the show for once to give good voice to proceedings…

 

* His position still intact despite the fact that one in two of us are still the size of a small whale who’s just been on a gargantuan Cheetos bing while watching the entirety of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy .

** Apparently over there the ‘food revolution’ mainly consisted of several million Americans looking at serious-looking sourpuss Jamie, then looking at the Mega Whopper Burger they had clutched between their chubby little fingers, then looking back to further behold Jamie’s smug sense of self-satisfaction for a second or two before reaching around their fat bellies for the remote control.

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Filed under Sport Articles · Tagged with Cheryl Cole, Jamie Oliver, Oliver

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