I got back tonight, and I couldn't find any Friends

I'll start with a disclaimer, nay, a warning. If you do not like long-running, award-winning, jolly American sitcom Friends or have not ever watched it, this blog post may not have much in it for you. This blog is not going to be earthshattering, important, or even well written. It's just about Friends.

Screw the journo thing of doing a pithy bit of context for the uninitiated. Friends has been on one channel or another four times a day your entire life. If you ain't a fan now, I can't change you. And even if I could, I probably wouldn't because quite frankly, we number many and we're just fine. 

Plus there's just too damned much to explain. I can say "In LONDON!" incredulously whenever I want, and the boy, the best friend and occasionally the mother (if she's taken her clarity meds) will understand the reference. Sometimes just saying any word in the same tone as "In LONDON!" works. This post may run along those lines. You might think something like, "Oh, I didn't realise the irritating precocious child actor talking to Joey in Chandler and Monica's new house was Dakota Fanning" and that's okay. Saying, "Oh, was Brad Pitt in it once then?" means you should probably stop reading now. 

So let's crack on. I am sad Friends will no longer be on free telly at a time when nothing much else is on. That when I leave work or work-related things before 10pm, there is no longer a back-up to stick on in the background as I throw myself on the sofa and force the boy to make dinner. I am sad that it will no longer be the main reason I would ever watch T4 and thus pretend to be young and hip. So I'm just going to talk it out for a bit, okay? 

TONY'S CONTROVERSIAL BEAN DISH

Welcome to a land where every question is answered with a mistrusting glance, every doubt blown up to the size of a football pitch, and every mistake jumped on and dragged up repeatedly, squeezed for every last dreg of melodrama until there's nothing left but the dry heave of a seasoned bulimic. Welcome (drumroll) to the land of Great British Menu.

I'm being unkind. Welcome to the land of competitive food telly. Hell's Kitchen and Masterchef - I'm scowling at you.

My beef is the heavy editing designed to create drama. Each week, banter between the three chefs competing is reduced to the voiceover explaining why there's tension, the chef vaguely referencing the tension, cutting to a shot of another chef eyeing him across the kitchen while chopping carrots in a sinister fashion. It happens so often per show that these people must have learned to create gastronomic delights without ever looking down. 

I understand that half an hour of chefs silently beavering away on their chocolate tempering is not thrilling TV, but I find the formula repetitive. Their dishes are simple so there's NO ROOM FOR ERROR or their dishes are complicated so HAVE THEY BITTEN OFF MORE THAN THEY CAN CHEW?

Last week, we were battered round the head with poor Philip Carnegie's shortfalls. I'm surprised he didn't run screaming from the building with a pathological fear of ovens after the constant gloating voiceover repeatedly reminded us that "the Michelin-starred chef burnt his oh-so-technical starter and he's new to the competition, what a loser, throw rocks".

Now, I appreciate I'm a total dick to watch TV with. I bloody love reading out the disclaimer small print on misleading adverts, shouting "HA!", and am scathing in a fairly teenage way - an urge to prove I'm not stupid enough to fall for claims of Bifividus Digestivum Bollocksidis and buy loads of yoghurt perhaps - but I don't think it's TV snobbery. 

Shows like Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor (which I watch) do this a lot. The X Factor got so on board with the idea that they used the same cutaway shot of Dannii Minogue's reaction for two different contestants one series, but we don't feel cheated because these shows are big budget pantomime. Doing it on Great British Menu feels like a distraction technique. It smacks of someone not confident in their content, but why? When Tony Singh dumped a tin of Heinz in his main, I was perfectly capable of being faintly surprised without regular roars of "TONY'S CONTROVERSIAL BEAN DISH" through my telly box. Johnnie Mountain's emotion when he made it through to cook for the judges in the North West heat was genuine, no extra frosting necessary.

Maybe it has always been thus, and only now can I see the strings thanks to growing up, or getting a job 'behind the magic'. Yet I still love it and watch it daily. Food porn, huh? Ignore the words and just look at the pictures.

Great British Menu, BBC2, 6.30pm, Monday to Friday