Phil and Kirsty’s (Im)Perfect Christmas by Nick Bryans

This Christmas marvel was brought to you by the lovely Nick Bryans

I, like everyone, want the perfect Christmas, and in times of need I always turn to the host of my favourite property programme; Location, Location, Location. Sarah Beeny? No, that’s Property Ladder. Jasmine Harman? No, that’s Place in the Sun. Dominic Littlewood? That’s Don’t Get Done Get Dom! That’s not even a property show, you cretin!

I was introduced to Phil and Kirsty’s Perfect Christmas by my housemate, who told me that Liz Jones (That’s the Daily Mail’s Liz Jones) described it as ‘Blue Peter for adults with learning difficulties’, which raises two worrying questions:

1) Does my housemate read Liz Jones?

and

2) Am I about to agree with Liz Jones?

The show is like an hour-long version of that bit on This Morning where Gino D’Acampo appears in the studio kitchen and shows viewers how to make the perfect Lamb Tagine, whilst Willoughby stands and smiles and Schofield desperately tries to shoe-horn crap gags into ever momentary silence.

Kirsty Allsopp shows you how to make the perfect Christmas cake. Well I say shows you, they draft in some cook to make it while Kirsty flutters around the kitchen fingering the dough. She shows you how to cook the perfect ham. Again, I say ‘shows’, another poor sod appears in the kitchen and is forced to cook it. Kirsty’s only addition is on completion to state, in her fabulously middle-class way, ‘this will look great next to our goose’. The only hands-on stuff she does is make a felt brooch as a ‘money saving’ present (here’s a money saving tip, Kirsty - don’t buy a goose), but you never see her and the brooch in the same shot, which makes me think; ‘stunt hands’. For another ‘money saving’ present she goes to Lapland to make a Lappish felt-boot with real reindeer pieces on. Wait; so for the perfect Christmas I need to give my children bits of Lappish reindeer, Kirsty? Oh, I may as well cancel Christmas then! You actually see Kirsty making felt here; and she screws it up. The second, successful attempt doesn’t show her face and hands in the same shot, further fuelling my belief that the stunt hands are the real star of the show. To be honest, I don’t know why Kirsty is there. And to be fair she looks equally as puzzled.

Phil (erm, Allsopp?) also helps you towards a perfect Christmas. His Christmas secret, for the most part, involves pissing around on a farm in an unbearably tedious segment where he describes the history of hop farming. He then shows you (stunt hands are back) the perfect way to wrap a football, stating that ‘you can also use this technique to wrap your Christmas pudding’. Sorry, maybe this was a cultural fad that passed me by, but who on earth wraps their Christmas pudding? Is it done to keep evil spirits out? Phil approaches the tough issue of presents and does a lovely feature testing out all the toys that will be on children’s wish lists. Rather than the usual throng of XBoxes and Wiis, Phil finds an fabulous display of total rubbish, including Big Trak (some remote controlled car thing that went out of fashion in the 80s) and a infrared wand that you can control your electronic devices with (so it’s essentially an impractical, 50 pound remote control). Imagine bringing someone back to your place and to look all smooth you get a wand out and turn the fire on. They would run for the hills.

So what’s the key to a perfect Christmas? Spend all your money on ham and goose, make the kids’ presents out of old tweed jackets and if they want things to open on Christmas morning, wrap up the pudding.

Job. Done.

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