Just found this article where Gordon tells us a bit more about the lawsuit against him and the Kitchen Nightmares USA production team. I wonder what the outcome will be, and if they will be able to air the episode in question. I hope court works fast in the US, because Kitchen Nightmares starts in less than 3 weeks.

Renowned chef and television personality Gordon Ramsay has finally spoken up about a recent lawsuit targeting his new reality series, Kitchen Nightmares. He made his statements more than two weeks after a judge threw out the lawsuit and ordered Ramsay and the plaintiff, Martin Hyde, to enter arbitration.

“I would never-ever-ever dream of setting anything up,” Ramsay told TelevisionWeek last Friday. “I want to sleep at night. We were issued a writ because, God bless America, if the toilet paper is not thick enough and you come out with a rash on your ass [you’ll get sued].”

Hyde was fired from a Manhattan restaurant during the filming of Kitchen Nightmares, a series that follows Gordon Ramsay as he visits struggling restaurants and tries to aid the owners improve their businesses. In June, Hyde filed a $1 million lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Ramsay and the show’s producers, saying the they planted spoiled meat, rigged a chair to fall apart and hired actors to pose as guests while in the restaurant.

“The idea of bringing moldy food in and planting actors is a f**king joke,” Gordon Ramsay said. “There’s a man who got very scared and very embarrassed about his lack of professionalism. For a man to waste lawyers’ time and taxpayers’ money to get upset about something you’re the cause of…”

On the other hand, Carl Person, Hyde’s attorney, said that the show unfairly went after his client, making him a camera-ready villain for the series.

“[Mr. Hyde] wasn’t the one in charge of the kitchen,” Person said. “The person responsible left the restaurant a week earlier. They’re going to make him appear he was the one in charge and he wasn’t. They’re setting him up.”

The recent lawsuit is similar to allegations made against the UK version of the series, which Ramsay also hosts. The restaurant went out of business after it was featured in the show. A local newspaper then wrote an article regarding the bankrupt restaurant, saying the show was staged. Ramsay subsequently filed and won a libel suit against the newspaper.

“I don’t want to start that kind of bullsh*t over here,” he said. “You know it just scares me that litigation can just happen overnight, and then you’re on the defense.”

A crew member from Kitchen Nightmares, scheduled to premiere on FOX on September 19, told TelevisionWeek prior to their interview with Ramsay that the restaurants the show helped were “so disgusting,” they did not have to do anything to make them look bad. The crew member also said that though they got local patrons to fill the restaurants for some scenes, “they weren’t told to lie about their experience, only to be entertaining for the camera: ‘If you like the food, then really like it. If you don’t, then really don’t.’”

Source: TVweek

In my previous rant, I wrote about my content being stolen. Turns out it was very urgent for me to start watermarking, because I’ve noticed alot more content thieves. I’ve also noticed some of the clips from the late night talkshows being copied over to Google video. I’m still really pissed off, but since my work gets copied, it must mean I’m doing something that people like, right ?

I have since started to watermark my videos, and put my url at the end as a 5 second credit screen. I am currently reuploading all my videos with these added watermarks, you can follow the progress here:

PROGRESS REUPLOADING: DONE!

Thank you for your patience. Get ready for a lot of new content !

Apparently Gordon has offered some UK food chain to take part in his show Kitchen Nightmares, which is good news, because it probably means that there is another UK version of Kitchen Nightmares in the making. Here is the whole article:

Gordon Ramsay has offered his Michelin starred services to roadside restaurant chain Little Chef.

Producers of the ferocious TV chef’s show ‘Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares’ - in which he tries to revive ailing restaurants - have written to the fast food chain inviting them to take part in the show.

An insider told Britain’s The Sun newspaper: “We were surprised by the offer but Gordon has been a critic of Little Chef in the past.

“He wrote about us in his autobiography so he clearly has ideas for the place.

“It’s no secret that Little Chef is not the force it once was - but a kick up the backside from Gordon could be just the tonic.”

Little Chef - which currently runs 192 roadside cafes and was saved from bankruptcy by private equity firm RCapital in January - are seriously considering the offer of taking part in the Channel 4 show.

In his autobiography ‘Humble Pie’ Ramsay said: “Little Chef don’t employ chefs - they employ people who can use the technology they have installed to heat up pre-prepared food.

“That’s not to say that I’m not hopeful that things will get better, and I’m willing to play any part I can in making British dining habits change.”

A spokesman for Optomen who make ‘Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares’ said: “We don’t normally send out letters to chains, but one was sent to a Little Chef. We haven’t heard back from them yet.”

Publisher: Lauren Johnson, August 23rd 2007, source: 24dash

I’ve had enough! People everywhere are taking the hard work I put in, and stealing it. First I found alot of sites embedding my videos without any form of credit or anything. Ok, that one is probably my own fault, if I don’t want the videos embedded, I should probably disable that option in youtube. Then I found people copying my articles, letter by letter, onto their website, again without any form of credit or anything. And just now, I found out some twat has taken the Gordon Ramsay interview from Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and uploaded it to youtube under his name. Again, no credit whatsoever. So if you want to thank the person that made me take offline all my videos, send all your hatemail to youtube user ‘hazelangus’.I’ve also had it with some people deliberately going through as many youtube videos of mine as they can, and giving them the lowest possible rating. I also moderate my comments, and so far I had to go through a few “fuck you”s and what not in the comments. Therefor all future videos will have both ratings and comments disabled.

At this point, I’m fed up. There are only 2 options left for me to do. Best case scenario: I embed all my videos with a bigass watermark that has my url. Worst case scenario: I quit my blog and keep all the nice videos for myself. I’ll sleep over it, but at this point, it’s not looking good.

Leave a comment if you agree … or disagree …

Update: I just woke up, saw all the nice comments here, in my mailbox and on the youtube site, so it does seem like alot of people care. Thanks for your support. I’ve decided to bring all my videos back, with a small watermark, so people can once again enjoy them. I had almost 100 videos online, so watermarking is going to take me a little while. But I’ll do my best to get it sorted, and I will make up for it with a whole lot of new video recipes. I’ll keep the site updated on the progress.

Another old clip from Jamie on Late Show with David Letterman. I apologize for the annoying presence in the form of Tom Cruise.

From Late Show with David Letterman, May 2nd 2006

I just came across this news article, thought it might be funny to share …

Residents in Limehouse, east London called the police when they spotted a Gordon Ramsay lookalike jumping from a burning pub.

A professional stunt double wearing kitchen whites was seen leaping from a top-floor window at The Grapes inn, while being filmed for a Channel 4+1 advertisement. The Ramsay double deliberately missed a fireman’s safety net - fitting in with the theme of the ads, which warn viewers not to miss their favourite shows.

Michelle Astley, 32, was horrified when she witnessed the scene - fearing that Gordon was involved in a stunt that had gone horribly wrong.

“When he fell, my heart stopped. I was shaking with fear and fumbling around to call 999 to get an ambulance there,” Michelle told the Daily Star. “Another woman was in tears and a little girl was crying hysterically. We all thought Gordon was a gonner.”

A Channel 4 spokesman said: “We’re sorry if anyone was distressed by our filming but we did put up warning posters.”

(link to story)

UPDATE: Here is the TV-ad in question:

Time for my weekly post of a celebrity chef as guest of late night talkshow. I’m very excited about this week’s clip, because I’m a huge fan of Conan. And I know you Nigella fans don’t want to miss out on this one either ;) Enjoy!

From Late Night with Conan O’brien, May 16th 2005

Back in June I wrote a post of how the winner of Hell’s Kitchen season 3 was already known (more or less), and it turns out the prediction was true. Rock is the winner of the third season of Hell’s Kitchen USA, after beating Bonnie in the season finale. He wins the job of executive chef at the Green Valley Ranch resort in Las Vegas, with a salary of $250,000.

While Hell’s Kitchen was certainly entertaining to watch during the summer, I expect a lot more from Ramsay’s upcoming show Kitchen Nightmares. And hopefully we’ll get to enjoy a new series of the F-word next year.

Gordon Ramsay was on the Tonight Show again on Friday, cooking with Jay Leno. This is Gordon’s third appearance on the Tonight Show. His first appearance was featured in this article, his second appearance will be featured on the site in a couple of weeks. This third appearance will be featured on the site too, probably as one of the last videos that are part of my celebrity chefs @ late night talkshows clip reel. (as I said earlier: I will unveil one new video every weekend, of a celebrity chef as guest of a late night talkshow.)

Ramsay talked about the season finale of Hell’s Kitchen, and there was mention of Kitchen Nightmares USA. Luckily they didn’t make pasta this time, because every chef seems to make pasta on these kinda talkshows, it’s getting kind of old. Hopefully we get to see a few more talkshows with Ramsay, as we come closer to the premiere of Kitchen Nightmares. I’ll try to keep you updated!

While I previously reported about the first airdate of Kitchen Nightmares USA, it seems that FOX has already changed its schedule. The show is now scheduled to premiere on FOX on Wednesday, September 19 (instead of Thursday, September 13). The move takes Ramsay’s new show out of the already uber-competitive Thursday night time period that is home to CBS and ABC’s top-rated CSI and Grey’s Anatomy dramas.

According to a previous interview with Gordon, he visited 10 restaurants, of which 4 in Los Angeles. Which means we’ll get to enjoy 10 episodes!

Official website on FOX