European Super League beefs up like Gordon Ramsay’s Christmas dinner | Barney Ronay
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A few years back I walked out of my front door very early in the morning to go to work and watched sleepily as a large car endlessly reversed, went forward, reversed, then went forward, trying to escape a wrong turn down the driveway. It was an engrossing spectacle: urgently and skilfully done, but also expressive of some kind of epic, cinematic impatience. Eventually I went to squeeze past. At which point a striking image loomed against the steamed-up window: a face, instantly recognisable as belonging to the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, shouting what was clearly the word “Fuck”, caught in the glow of the streetlights at 5.30am in the privacy of his own car.
![[Barney Ronay]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2022/11/21/Barney_Ronay.png?width=180&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
I didn’t really follow the TV chef industry at the time. But from that moment I became a massive Ramsay fan, mainly because he is clearly the real deal. The rage is authentic. Behind the angry mask is an actual angry face. Here is a man who shouts fuck like no one is watching.
It is a deeply attractive quality. Anything Gordon Ramsay cooks for you would obviously be mind-numbingly good. I think it would also feel punitive and righteous, a plate of bacon and eggs slammed down so hard on the table bits of it fly off, so delicious it makes you weep with gratitude, even as Gordon calls you a fuckwit sandwich and then expertly, lovingly stabs you in the eye with a fine French caper skewer.
Ramsay has remained No 1 for me. His public-private life still seems endlessly lavish, impervious to questions of scale, the life of a silk-scarved mayoral candidate in a Batman film. He is also very Christmassy, as all celebrity chefs must be. Although in this case it feels more like a manifestation of some deep festive dad-rage energy, those moments when just trying to do something nice with herbs can generate a day-long sulk because other people have opinions on types of vinegar now.
