I could have sworn even Gordon Ramsay wouldn't shock Oz

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Jun 14, 2009 | by TOM SHIELDS

CHEF Gordon Ramsay has been in the news for some bad-boy behaviour down under. Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd went as far as to use the term "low life" in connection with Ramsay's comportment while in the city of Melbourne.

The loud-mouthed chef has scaled peaks of rudeness but to be excoriated by Australians for bluntness is a signal achievement. Australia, the land of the brown eye competition. Australia, where the disrupted wedding celebrations can restart because the best man has now apologised for shagging the bride. Australia, where a Sheila who gets pregnant but does not want to marry the man concerned is described as not only a good lay but a real sport.

I should point out here that it was Gordon Ramsay and the Australians who set the tone of this article. I merely use these bad words as evidence and, even then, only in context.

The details of Ramsay's misdeed are tedious but definite evidence of lowness.

Appearing on stage at a food fair, he flashed up on screen an image of a naked woman on all fours with a pig's face and numerous sets of nipples. He likened the image to Tracy Grimshaw, host of a TV chat-type show on the Aussie Channel 9.

It was hardly a spur-of-the-moment thing, since Ramsay made references to the lady on three consecutive days at the food fair. You might conclude there was an element of creating a stooshie for the sake of publicity. Channel 9 also broadcasts Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and Hell's Kitchen programmes. Ramsay had appeared just before on Grimshaw's show and was his ebullient self, joshing with the hostess about a large mole on her lip. Don't ladies just love it when men josh about a large mole on their lip? Such a smoothie, that Gordon Ramsay.

Grimshaw then went on Channel 9 to express her disgust at Ramsay's male porcine misdemeanour and threw in a casual reference to the chef 's little local difficulties in his marriage. All very declasse but awfully good for the ratings.

I am not a fan of the man who has built a persona based on swearing and conduct which could be fairly classified as bullying.

I do confess to watching, in that car-crash way, his programme where he rips the shit (sorry, it's the bad company I'm keeping in this article) out of precious and pretentious American restaurateurs.

I have been in a Ramsay establishment only once, when he had Amaryllis at One Devonshire but failed dismally to cater for the Glasgow market. The food was lovely but not at the prices being charged. My main memory of the dinner was the rudeness of the waitress.

I don't know about the real Ramsay. His former mentor Albert Roux sees a different Ramsay to the public image. Speaking about Ramsay, Roux said: "He had a very disturbed background. He used to be very shy. I love dogs, and when a dog does something naughty the head goes down and the tail goes between the legs. That was our Gordon. You only had to tell him once.

"He understood everything and was so very eager to perform. He is extremely talented and has a very big heart. He is not the young man we see on television. The media made him swear. He is a young man who is prone to cry when he is upset. He is very soft. " Perhaps we have got Ramsay all wrong.

THERE is also concern about potty-mouthedness in schools. Research has revealed that the playground songs favoured by the little ones, below, are getting racier.

Older generations used to skip along to such ditties as: "I lost my leg in the army/ I found it in the navy/I dipped it in some gravy and had it for my tea -" There was one about wee Sam and a piece on jam but I can't remember how it ends.

Now apparently our Britneys and Kylies are singing about being sexy, cute, and having to cope with boys wanting to touch their chest. In the old days, of course, there was Bobby Shafto but let's not go there. Little girls have always been good at double entendres: "Mary had a little lamb, she thought it very silly/She threw it in the air one day and caught it by its -/ Willy was a watchdog, sitting on the grass/Along came a wasp and stung him on the -/Ask no questions tell no lies . . . " They would pose colourful questions such as: "Does yer ma drink gin? / Does she drink it oot a bin? /Does she get a funny feeling/When her belly hit's the ceiling -? " They were acutely observational: "One, two, three a-leerie/I saw Mrs Cleary/Sitting on her bum-balearie/ Eating chocolate biscuits. " In the reporting of this phenomenon, an example is given of today's more fecal playground rhymes: "Scooby, Scooby Doo had a poo/It fell in Shaggy's slipper/Shaggy put it on, what a pong/It made him shake and shiver. " This is faintly disgusting but not in the same class as the old favourite:

"Red jelly, green jelly/Snot and bogey pie/ All mixed up with a dead dog's eye/Spread it on toast, spread it thick/Wash it down with a cup of old sick. " The research, costing zillions of quid, is being done by three universities as part of a two-year study into primary playground culture . Which is fine since it lets academics out into the playground to get some fresh air.