After he's reflected, cogitated and digested, Loyd Grossman really only has one option - he should sue. The American presenter with vowels wider than the Atlantic was the creator, the face, voice and heart of the original TV show Masterchef. Loyd was a writing god, who so loved the world of food that he took flesh, and marinaded it live on TV so that we might be saved from bad cooking.

Masterchef was compelling television. And while it was a genuine, pre-X Factor-hype talent show that celebrated amateur expertise, there was never any doubt that the pre-eminent star was the consummate professional - Loyd. His diction, his erudition, his celeb pals and his obvious haute bourgeois, haute cuisine, haute-out-of- ten-for-taste style inspired a thousand imitators. He was to cooking shows what Ralph Lauren was to leisurewear - he defined aspirational accomplishment.

But now, just like Lauren, Loyd has to endure the indignity of pirates passing off their shoddy and inferior work as the equal of his designer classics by shamelessly using his branding. This week we see the culmination of the latest series of the show that calls itself Masterchef, trading on the credit Loyd built up for his brand. But this show not only has no Loyd, it has abandoned all attempts to maintain subtlety and finesse, wit and style.

Where once Loyd ruled, now two decidedly average blokes reprise the all-too-tired “I'm a blokeish chef” routine. The concept of the loveable bruiser who is a whiz with the Sabatier knives (Jamie, Marco, Gordon et al) was already hackneyed when Sweeney Todd was getting the ingredients together for his pies.

But the current Masterchef duo clearly think there's no such thing as a pudding with too many eggs because they turn the macho dial up to 11. They compensate for the familiarity of the geezer-chef concept by drenching their performance in testosterone - acting like Ray Winstone and Robert Carlyle auditioning for Fight Club Two: Let's Get Physical. Seeing the two capering in the ruins of Loyd's noble concept is like seeing Visigoths using the broken marble of the Roman Forum for target practice - the tragic triumph of brute machismo over grace.

Scene-stealer

There is clearly only one explanation for the survival of Masterchef in the schedules. There has to be a market for cooking programmes, no matter how crudely presented, because people never tire of looking at delicious food. Perhaps we could hand over the schedules to M&S's marketing department and have done with it.

But in that revelation lies the key to much of what gets commissioned on television today. It's very often not the script or the stars that matter - but the scenery. In Masterchef it's what dresses the set that matters - the food is the hero. And in a surprising array of other shows the backdrop is the main attraction. From Monarch of the Glen (the Highlands) to Kingdom (Norfolk), Doc Martin (Cornwall) to Heartbeat (North York Moors) the principal joy of watching is a succession of panoramic sweeps and majestic pans across sumptuous countryside.

I've come to the conclusion that I too can be a TV Masterchef - I know the ingredients to assemble to ensure a riotously successful confection for Sunday-night TV. First take a well-seasoned professional (Stephen Fryish solicitor, Martin Clunesian doctor, Robert Hardyesque vet). Then add a young sprig of a thing, a quirky old dame, an accident-prone toff and several rude mechanicals. Mix them all up in an unlikely plot. Throw the plot out after half an hour - it's only getting in the way. And drizzle them gently in British rain while the camera goes soft-focus over lovely hills and beaches.

All we need is to cast, say, Loyd Grossman as a successful American poet who seeks seclusion in the beautiful fell country of the Lake District only to find himself caught up in a web of mystery and intrigue with unexpectedly hilarious complications and we're away. Call it Lonely as a Cloud and just wait for ITV to ask if Billie Piper can play the love interest...

‘Special' delivery

One of the many malign consequences of the Royal Mail's continuing insistence that the morning postal delivery take place around dusk is the impossibility of receiving registered post. Special delivery, as it is hilariously called, is the only way to guarantee a letter posted one day is received the next. Except it doesn't. If you're reckless enough to want to work during the day then the post arrives while you're out. The poor postie needs a signature to hand the letter over, but given that most of us don't employ a butler to keep house for such an eventuality, there's rarely someone to sign so the letter then gets sent back to a sorting office.

All we get is a little red card telling us where to collect this urgent communication. And also telling us not to bother calling for the next 24 hours because it won't be there. And, worst of all, not to call after noon or 1pm, because the office will be closed. Short of hiding the letter in a pyramid guarded by ancient Pharaonic curses and SS troopers, it is hard to see how it can be made more inaccessible. Why does our postal service force us to go through the trials of Indiana Jones just to get a special delivery letter from Penge?

Michael Gove is Conservative MP for Surrey Heath

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