Angaston, South Australia: Aussies I hate

I love 99.9% of all Aussies. They’re funny and quirky and wonderful people. That being said, we’ve been quarantined for less than ten days, yet the number of Aussie TV personalities I hate is growing faster than the Coronavirus.

Andrew O’Keefe – The host of Australia’s version of The Chase, O’Keefe is truly the most annoying man on television. He’s pompous, overbearing, unfunny, and prone to make odd noises and absurd hand motions. But his most annoying trait is his constant, phony, grating guffaws.

“Fast” Ed Halmagyi – Author, chef and one of the hosts of Better Homes & Gardens TV, Halmagyi has one of the most irritating voices in the history of sound. His head is always tilted and turned so that he can only look into the camera out of the corners of his eyes.

Every host of The Project – According to Wikipedia, The Project features “…stories by the main cast, often of a humorous but insightful nature.“ No, it really doesn’t. There’s nothing insightful when you know exactly what each host’s opinion will be before it is proffered. And just because everyone laughs uproariously in reaction to everyone else’s clearly-scripted-but-supposedly-adlibbed comments does not mean those comments are funny. (From left to right above: the smug Peter Helliar, the incredibly smug Waleed Aly, the remarkably smug Carrie Bickmore, and the tremendously smug Lisa Wilkinson)

Curtis Stone – If given a choice between watching Curtis Stone or having my eyeballs gouged out with red hot spoons, I’d opt for the spoons. He’s a celebrity chef who nearly reaches orgasm every time something touches his tastebuds. Nothing — absolutely nothing — in the history of food has ever tasted as good as whatever this guy just stuck in his pie hole. That exaggerated reaction just drives me up the wall.

Jamie Oliver – Yes, he’s actually English, but he’s constantly on TV here in Australia. At one point during the preparation of each recipe he is guaranteed to crouch down and bend over so that his face is on the same plane as the food and the camera. It’s a completely unnatural stance with no discernible purpose, but he clearly considers it his signature move. It’s like his version of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook. I don’t know why it bothers me so much, but it does.

I have a feeling that the more TV we watch during our isolation, the more this list will grow.

However, I’m not sure Jamie and I are going to survive six months in quarantine. It’s only been ten days and she already seems a bit aggravated by the fact that every time one of these people appears on-screen I point my finger at the TV and say, “Ka-pow!”

We really need to get Netflix.