The humourless hero with bad table manners

During the numerous and lengthy ad breaks in MasterChef Australia I have time to ponder the qualities I want in the hero in the book I'm writing and what I don't want.

Using MasterChef as a research tool I've learnt I don't want my hero to be like one of the three judges, chef George Calombaris.

For a start, he has an ego the size of a small African country.

He also eats like a pig - this has been well documented so I won't go into detail here, except that he holds his fork and knife like a four-year-old, shovels in the food and chews like a toothless hobo.

But the worst thing about GC is he's humourless.

When a situation is funny, Georgie Porgie Puddin' and Pie doesn't crack a smile. I don't think he knows how to.

The show has its lighter moments, like tonight when four of the contestants had disastrous results with Adriano Zumbo's amazing macaron tree recipe. I must digress - these macarons are bright pink (with a beetroot and raspberry filling) and purple (with a kalamata olive and bergamot filling).

The contestants macarons were variously squished and cracked and couldn't match Zumbo's masterpiece. But rather than see the humour in their less than perfect results as the other judges did - including Zumbo - George remained poker-faced.

One day I might have a place for George as a minor character in a book, but never as the hero.

Unless he loses the attitude. And learns to eat properly.

Writing in June is over and I didn't make the word count but I've got the lowdown on MasterChef

I could have told me so. When I committed to the *RWA's June writing challenge I didn't expect to reach my 30,000-word goal.

I'm pleased I managed to write almost 11,000 words considering I work, have needy children, a dog, my partner Spanner (he takes some looking after) and a house to keep in order.

Then there's the other commitments, like MasterChef. I have to have something to talk about with my friends.

Talking of MasterChef, I was walking through the city the other day around lunchtime when I heard this office guy say to his office mates, "Yeah, it just wasn't fair to put them all in a shed in the howling wind and expect them to produce **CWA standard cakes and scones. I mean, how can you keep the oven temperature constant in those conditions?"

See what I mean? It's important to watch MasterChef in order to hold a conversation with every other Australian.

At our local organic food market last weekend (it's not really organic, but what a drawcard) I bumped into a woman whose daughter used to be in the same swim squad as Precious Princess.

I haven't seen this woman for at least two years. Yet, we chatted for half-an-hour about, you guessed it, MasterChef. The conversation grew animated as we discussed who we thought would win, the degree of recipe difficulty in this series compared to the last, the contestants we love and those we do not like at all. And so on and so forth.

It's amazing to think that around 2 million Australians sit down to watch this show, which is on the telly every night except Saturday.

I blame MasterChef for my low word count, but I thank it for giving me something in common with my fellow country men and women.

It's a shame my oven is bung (the fuse went again) and Spanner doesn't want to outlay the money for a new one.

How can one live the MasterChef dream in such a hostile environment?

Acronyms explained:

*RWA = Romance Writers of Australia

**CWA = Country Women's Association

Why do we accept older men dating younger women but not the reverse?

Why is an older woman who dates a much younger man dubbed a 'cougar', yet an older man with a young girlfriend is regarded as a lucky bugger?

The word cougar implies the woman is an aggressive feline stalker of young males.

Then there's the term 'toy boy'. Is there an equivalent for the much younger woman with older man? Oh, that's right, she's just a gold digger.

No matter what, women never seem to win.

I am stewing over this, having just seen a story in one of the gossip magazines on the latest celebrity couple Chris, 41, and Julia, 23, from MasterChef Australia. There's 18 years in it.

In the story, MasterChef runner-up Poh says she supports her friends' relationship, the pair have much in common and the critics should bugger off.

It doesn't really bother me, and Chris has one of those strange manchild faces (like Moonface in The Magic Faraway Tree) so you really can't pick his age.

But if it was my daughter, I would be asking, "Darls, are you sure about this?"

My good friend from school married a man 16 years her senior. When their kids grew up, she was 40 and he was 56. He was ready to play golf with his 60-year-old mates. But she wasn't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It can happen to anyone regardless of age. But that's not my point.

If we're cutting Chris some slack because he robbed the cradle, then let's do the same for older women who decide the young boyfriend option is better than some old bloke with man boobs who snores, dribbles and farts in bed.