Jamie Oliver

Me too, Teetime. I always admired his efforts to improve school dinners, employ and train people with few other opportunities and get the country cooking good basic food. I haven’t seen the programme but will make sure I do.

Yes I have become a fan of his recently. I didn't like him when he first started as he seemed very cocky but he has tried to do a lot of good. His recipes aren't bad either.

Yes. He was banging his head against a brick wall with his campaign. I was teaching food technology at the time and he was always a big hit with students. We saw him at the Food Show in Birmingham and he was great with his demonstrations, advice and encouragement.

Too many celeb chefs are only in it for the Michelin stars, glossy books, ego massaging TV programmes etc. At least Jamie Oliver puts his money where his mouth is and he has a lovely wife and family.

I have ordered his veggie book. I just hope it's not too Italian because he did seem to get stuck in a rut for a while.

I've always found a lot to admire about Jamie and his various eating healthy campaigns, particularly with regard to overhauling some of the food dished up in schools. I think he was very sincere in his endeavours.

However, I take issue with his comments about his restaurants going under due to Brexit. Brexit aside having eaten in Jamie's several times the food was pretty awful and other people I have spoken to who have eaten there said the same. Like a lot of celebrity chefs who want to conquer the high street, I think he overstretched himself and just expanded too quickly, far too many balls in the air. Marco Pierre White who is an adversary of his, so could be accused of having an axe to grind, but imo quite rightly pointed out that if Brexit was a factor then all restaurants would go the wall and poor service was a regular complaint with patrons. There have always preferable high street alternatives with similar costing menus to Jamies such as Cote and Bills, who are far superior imo and both seem to be thriving. Sometimes a famous name is not enough if the food and service are pretty poor.

TerriBull totally agree his High St. chain was "underwhelming" both gastronomically and in hospitality.

Several of our AC have visited his "up market" restaurants and they were unfortunately unimpressed, tables close together, service not up to scratch, wine grossly overpriced.

We have always watched his programs and have several of his cookbooks which are good and easy to follow. His Friday night show is filmed just down the road on the end of Southend Pier, tickets are like gold dust!!

Think he expanded to soon, far to many projects on the go at once.

I wish him well.

He believes his own publicity ,I was shocked that just a couple of weeks after sacking 1000 people because his chain folded he was arranging a huge vow renewal and buying a new multi million pound house ..while keeping his current multi million pound house .Talk about rubbing his ex staffs nose in it !!

Yes. That's shocking, paddyann and definitely bad timing but I suppose you could argue that he put a lot of his own money in to try to keep his restaurants afloat. Some businessmen bale out at the first sign of trouble.

I remember one of his American programmes where he showed how most burgers were made and I’ve always made my own since then!

Jamie's Veg cookbook has arrived and it really good - in fact probably the best Vegetarian cookbook I have ever seen.

That's good, Teetime. I've ordered mine.