Just first, let me say this- she wasn't that sour-faced old nana who winged and moaned about everything, like a senescent old cat in its final years that lays around and hisses whenever you get near - but rather she was more of a nana who was wise enough that she had something informed to say about everything, and be it positive or negative, it was always honest and said with a warm smile.
She hated straggly hairstyles on women, although I'm still not entirely sure what she meant by that. She hated modern architecture, particularly in Queenstown- I never got to the bottom of why that was either. She hated cheerleaders, but for no reason other than what an Americanization they are.
She gave honest critiques of the outfits worn by weather ladies each night. They were always passionate, and not always endearing. I have since met some of these wonderful ladies, and I didn't tell them that the lime green blazer they wore on the 4th of April, 2008 was not appreciated at Dymock Place.
But above all, and far above all others, she hated competitive cooking shows.
Lo and behold, the genes have dripped down nicely like a pot of scalding hot filter coffee, because as I lean back and unwind every night you're more likely to find me sticking pins in my eyes than watching The Great MasterBake Off, or whatever they've invented now.
How anyone could come home from a busy day's work and unwind to a kerfuffle is lost on me. For starters, unlike your average psychopath, I draw no pleasure from the suffering of others, which seems to always be what I see when I turn it on.
Nor do I like the tense music, or the yelling, or the crying, or the screaming, or anything actually. Come to think of it, the only difference between these shows and a horror movie is the purpose of the knives.
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Now it would be unfair to blame the contestants for their role in this, I have no doubt that their participation is a dream come true for them.
In honesty, even I have been known to occasionally dictate to the awestruck viewers at home what I'm doing in the kitchen at times, maybe even gracing the camera with a quick glance into the bowl to see art being made.
"Here today I am preparing delicately baked cartesian ellipses, stamped with an ellipsis, and drizzled with a bovine emulsion jus". Who doesn't love Nutrigrain.
But the person on this planet who derives pleasure from watching people cook, frantically and with old men yelling at them, rather than pretending people are watching them cook, I am yet to meet.
Perhaps it is because people see the fire in my eyes as I speak of cooking shows, and once I've finished my frothing and hissing, when I turn to them and ask, 'do you like to watch them?" in my sweetest tone, their courage is adequately whittled away so as that I don't have to begin forcibly persuading them that they are wrong.
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But I've never overheard whisperings about who burnt their dish last night and disappointed the panel of judges, other than myself.
Nor have I found myself in someone's lounge with it playing, other than as anxiety-inducing background music. And thank the lord I haven't been told by someone, "sorry, I must be going - I have to get home to watch My Masterbaking Rules".
So then who watches these shows? Where is their bleak and wretched underground lair into which they retreat by night to derive pleasure from watching people slave away over a hot stove?
Do they squeal with glee as blood is spilt in the arena? Do they scoff as poor Dave scorches his beurre noisette and is cast back off to his day job, his dreams in tatters for them to cackle at as he repents his sins of turning the gas up too high?
To think man and technology have come hand in hand, all this way just to fill my computer screen with obscene thumbnails of pained faces and eternally flaming pans in the style of Hieronymus Bosch. Perhaps hence the name of the line of kitchen appliances. Cooking is hell, after all.
Oh, and that reminds me- more than cooking shows, my nana hated technology. If I can get TVNZ On Demand to work, I'll report back with some useful information about the Dunedin Study. Otherwise, it'll be another piece of evidence for my own study.
