Callum Hudson

RUNNER UP

I love watching Masterchef: The Professionals and not paying my TV licence

Evelina, a chef de partie from Lithuania, is cooking roasted venison loin on a garlic rye crouton when you realise you are naked. That you are sticky-limbed and chafing and every razor-bump you belong to is rubbing against the duvet - the one you bought when the mouse moved into your flat and was found leaving droppings on your bed.

You are watching her pureé on a dodgy streaming service because you are one of those people that believes in the myth of the TV licence man. You have this fantasy that one day soon, you’ll be watching Death in Paradise on iPlayer with a massive bag of prawn cocktail Discos and he will break down your door with a gap-toothed smile and take you to prison to be left to rot.

Or maybe, instead, you’ll think of inviting him in. (You’re like that aren’t you.) Maybe you will let him climb into bed with you in his outside clothes and watch Monica Galetti rip Joseph, a sous chef from Brighton, to shreds over his cracked peanut emulsion.

Or maybe he will kiss you. 

Or maybe he will have his way with you. And you will perch from the top of your wardrobe and watch him do it.

Either way, you think, he’ll have a hard time asking you for the fine after that.

You have always been aware of your body. When you were 12 and unabashedly ugly, a girl told you in passing,

“You know, you have quite big ears,”

and you have thought about it every day since. You weren’t hurt by it (oh no!), you just had this overwhelmingly validating feeling that somebody had seen you, taken your body into their brain and had thought about it hard enough to say something. 

(This revelation of being perceived isn’t necessarily unique, of course, but you were too busy pretending to be ‘Maria von Trapp’ from ‘The Sound of Music’ in your youth to notice it was happening.) But this time, someone had spoke and you had listened.

You like to think you’ve grown into your ears now. Or even if you haven’t, you’d like someone to tell you that you have. In fact, I think you’d love it. No, I know you’d love it. That feeling of being seen and as a result be beautiful. Or desired. (You still haven't decided whether those two words mean the same thing.)

And anyway, you’re pretty sure that the rest of you makes up for your bubonic lugholes. Your eyes. Your hands. Your hips. Your capacity to laugh at yourself and your uncompromising can-do attitude. 

You almost think all these things make you lovely. It is why, over the past few years, you have let the TV licence man and all of his friends into your bedroom to tell you that you are worthy and good. Or at least to tell you that you will do. 

It dawns on you, as you write, that if there was a round on Masterchef where you’d have to cook nude, ala Jamie Oliver in 1999 that you might consider applying. (You don’t know if he ever actually did that on his telly program, of course, but you’d like to believe he did.) You think getting over the obvious barrier of learning how to cook would prove an insurmountable challenge but it would be worth it for the possibility of all those people eyeing up your budding body over Charlie Bigham ready meals from the comfort of their own burrows. Would they (like you) think that you would look better with that tattoo that says ‘The People’s Princess” above your ass or agree that your nipples are just the right size for your chest? You hope every single one of them would have something to say - that they might see your bones on BBC One and wonder what your neck does when you sneeze or what your stomach does when you eat. The thought of it is thrilling. Thrilling enough to buy a new set of panware and to start watching old videos of Delia Smith. (God aren’t you disgusting.)

‘To be seen is to be loved’ is boring. You want to be wanted. And you can’t pretend that scares you. 

Embarrasses you, sure. Ashames you, most definitely. Makes you feel perverse and sick. But scares you? 

Lend me your eyes and I will let you draw blood.

Or in plainer terms; watch me dance, sicko.

You have this habit of writing to say something. Something profound and real. Original and brilliant. Much like Tom’s pan fried scallops with aubergine relish that won him Series 16 of Masterchef: The Professionals (Jesus, I’m hungry.) But this time (not from lack of trying) you are grossly lost. 

Maybe because your body, and what people think of it, is in itself already profound and real and original and brilliant. 

Maybe because you are sick and perverse and ugly and embarrassed.

Maybe because you are worthy and good and beautiful and lovely.

Or maybe you just love talking about yourself too much to come up with a funny quip to tie everything up.

And you know what the worst part is?

The possibility that you are everything and all of it. 

And if that’s the case, you can’t help but feel overwhelmingly alive.

So look at me.

Say something.

Say anything about me.

Use me and love me and judge me and bury me.

Knock my door down and wipe your feet on my soul.

Or don’t.

(I’m sure I’ll learn to live with it someday.)

Maybe I could start by paying my TV licence.