In the summer of 2004, I got a call from my agent to say that they were bringing back MasterChef and wanted to know if …
“What, that crap old show from the Nineties that my dad used to go on with Loyd Grossman? You’re having a laugh? That’ll never work!”
“But do you want to present it?”
Not really, was the answer. I’d just been hired to co-present The F Word on Channel 4 with Gordon actual Ramsay, whereas Shine Productions (for the BBC) had some chubby Australian chancer I’d never heard of called John Torode pencilled in, and wanted to see if he and I had any “chemistry”. Still, they offered me a couple of grand to show up at a rented space