If you want to educate the populus on anything, making it into a fashionable item is counter-productive. Voyeurism TV is nothing new, just the sheer volume of it, as free-view TV battles against ‘quality’ output. Actually, viewing arts and crafts programmes is a modern version with a long tradition of watching, rather than doing. For those of a certain age, ‘Watercolour Challenge’ (UK, 1970s) allowed us to watch amateur painters daubing, whilst a fragrant English actress (Hannah Gordon) anchored our interest. She gently questioned the artists, whilst gazing winsomley at their canvases. DIY and Yoga were hugely popular in the 1980s - if combined, the risk of injury would have been an interesting spin-off.  Currently, TV archeology, TV sewing, TV dancing and watching couples buy houses, panders to all sorts of ‘peeping’ inclinations, with a new twist.

Maybe just me, but why is it that so many TV cooks have ‘issues’? We have chefs who clearly see food as love-substitution, chefs with large, fire-risk bosoms, chefs with speech impediments and many, many with hairstyle dysfunction. Following on, chefs who think a melange of chicken and custard is wise, and others who trick us into believing that we can all rustle up a dinner party with nothing more than a Jerusalem artichoke and a joke. I suggest ‘thematic’ cooking - it has many success factors, viz; you take a food item (in this example, broccoli) - with said food item, you create an entire menu - entree, plat and dessert. My suggestion for the day is thus: Steamed broccoli with garnish (entree), sauteed broccoli with garlic (plat) and, for dessert, broccoli mousse with chantilly. For those special dinners, an extra dish of broccoli biscuits to accompany coffee goes the extra mile. For the vegetarian guests this could be nirvana, for omnivores, misery-me. 

And still they come. There is no stopping the profusion of TV cooks - they travel to enviable destinations, on, bikes, cycle and motor - boats, barges and sometimes camels, they cook sober and they cook when more soused than their herrings. Outdoor specialists prepare - with ease - a perfect goulash, using nothing but a dead badger’s skull and a twig. In the past, spouses have cooked together.  Where will it end? The short answer is easy: Never. The cooking attraction will endure in perpetuity, with no end of ways to package it as entertainment - imagination is the only limit, to mis-quote Einstein (although he was referring to the knowledge of humanity, not humous). Personally, I’m looking forward to ‘circus’ cooking (trapeze artists preparing eggs benedict), ‘sports’ cooking (semi-professionals preparing their favourite meal whilst swimming, vaulting and curling) and - hugely anticipated ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ - a bon-mot title for the ultimate in food programmes - how to prepare an al fresco soiree for 8 whilst crossing the Alps. The only no-go area for mocking is HRH Mary Berry, a protected species. May your bottom never be soggy, Ma’am.

Home make-over programmes have had a drastic impact for builders and decorators. A much put-upon and trusted builder recently reported how he frequently turns down projects from prospective clients who expect him to renovate entire houses in 3-days - because ‘they do it on the TV’. And here is the punchline - such re-invented ‘peep’ shows throw in the pressure of time into the mix. No more are these pastimes a relaxing hobby, but now subject the participant to a time-constraint - to reflect modern living, I suppose.

But the apex of such see-not-do fashion is gardening. The very thing which requires tactility and sensory understanding, seems bizarre on the screen. Yet, the TV gardener has been re-invented for each decade, each pandering to or - in some cases - distorting the horticulture market with its suggestions. Years ago, one Mr and Mrs Suburb almost lost their bungalow due to subsidence in parts of the UK, following a chance remark about where natural stone for rockeries can be acquired for free. Bosoms emerge again, as some female gardeners distract viewers with their scant regard for robust hosiery - you know who you are. Again, presenters visit gardens in hot-air balloons, bring with them celebrities and provide either a commentary on the garden, or dig it up.

Thus, making the mundane past-time a fashion will continue, ad nauseum. Where once, only our grannies knitted, baked and pottered in the garden, modern families are compelled so to do - at  break-neck speed, with the latest gadget, of course. Long live the pink secateurs, but remember, roses are for life, not just for the weekend.