Some of my relationships have failed as a result of my interaction with TV.

There we are, she and I, hands entwined, hers around a bar of chocolate and mine around a glass of whiskey . . . and something on TV will be such rubbish that I will have to use a phrase like “Gosh! Never !” or “Geewillikens! Can you believe that!” or “Slap my dog!” And she will sigh, a deep sigh, which has in it all the sorrow and pain of having to have as a companion an engineer man for whom fantasy world is not possible and to have to listen to him.

I cannot help it. I know that fiction is fiction, but the belief I have to suspend when watching so-called ‘reality programmes’ is too much.

TV cooking programmes. These are broadly divided into four categories, with the first being the ‘cook’s tour’ category, where some well-known cooking personali- ties, such as two drunken Englishmen on motorbikes, demonstrate their epicurean knowledge of Mauritania, featuring whole sun-baked sand-stuffed rock lizard and chips. Or we watch Anthony Bourdain puffing his cigarette between bites of some Far East offering. The bikers and Tony are apparently alone, but how do they fit a whole film crew into a 2 × 4 Bedouin cooking tent or a four-tatami-mat washitsu room unobtrusively?

The second category is that of Chef Tells You How To Cook. There is a very wide variety of these, ranging from Jamie Oliver to a South African woman who is twee, flat and colourless, exactly resembling the dishes she prepares.

In the third category, Uber Chef teaches a whole lot of trainee chefs how to cook. It is no exaggeration to say that many of the Uber chefs have the potential to be wife beaters. They shout at their trainees, fling food around, humiliate the trainees, scream food orders that are unintelligible . . . And then they put their arm around the trainees and explain that it is all for their very own good, understand?

Finally there is the competition category: the ultimate braai master, Iron Chef, Chopped and Masterchef.

Cynically, with an engineer’s eye, excepting braai master, these last competitions are the biggest fakes. They all are based on preparing dishes within a set period and then a panel of judges decides the winning offering. The contestants apparently always finish on time (all within tenths of a second of the closing bell). This is practically impossible, so it must be staged. Then there is the tasting. If there are four dishes, it requires no brains to realise that, while the first dish is being tasted, the rest of the dishes are getting cold so that the last dish is at a real disadvantage if it is not a salad. Then there are the camera asides: in the middle of his precious 30 minutes for making a starter, Johnny Flaps Pelican explains to the camera that, to honour his heritage, his starter will be blubber infused bubble gum topped with mint-flavoured krill. Surely, he would rather be cooking to try to get the ten grand than doing camera time?

Also, don’t the judges get, um, full? I know they are only tasting but, still, it is quite a lot of tastes. And yet people will still believe that the moon landing is faked and that this is real.

In all TV cooking shows, the judges have developed a slight twitch, a tic, a pursing of the lips, a slight shake of the head to indicate, after they taste some specific dish, surprise and enjoyment. Reality becomes romance. Surprise.

The twitch, purse and shake remind me of my dog Thomson eating an ice cube. He knows it can be eaten but is not sure why it should. Probably the only exception to the twitch purse/shake school is Chopped SA judge Chef David van Staden: if the food is good, he nods; if not, he says, often with piercing accuracy, what is wrong with it. Reality.

But I watch it. It is entertaining. I try to hold my comments. But be romantic and suspend belief in reality? Oh, no, I am an engineer, after all . . .