Room 101: Stuart Hooper – Bath captain

1. Liquorice
I went Trick or Treating with my kids for the first time last month and they ended up with a good stash of sweets. Once the kids went to bed I helped myself to a few – as any good parent would in the interests of keeping down their children’s sugar intake. I picked out what I thought was a lovely-looking blackcurrant sweet and bit into it with relish only to discover, to my horror, that it contained liquorice inside. Yuck! I can’t stand the stuff: never have, never will. One, liquorice doesn’t taste very nice and two, it makes your mouth go black. Hard liquorice is the worst because it gets stuck between your teeth.
TRP verdict: Marketing a kids’ product with liquor in its title makes it wrong on another level. You’re in.
2. Celebrity-hungry kids
When we go on school visits most of the kids say they want to be a celebrity like the people they see on the telly. I don’t want to sound like I’m old and boring, because I am young at heart, but I find it both sad and lazy that many kids want to be famous without actually being good at anything in particular.
TRP verdict: Yep, it’s time for a reality check all round. C’mon in!
3. Conversations about the weather
If the first thing people talk to me about is the weather I know that they have got nothing to say and a five-minute conversation will effectively feel like a lifetime. I get this all the time when you’re having your haircut. You know the sort of thing … “is it still raining outside?” “Not bad for this time of year, is it?” I know it is a very British thing to do but surely people can come up with something more original and interesting than that? Matt Garvey has some rubbish banter but even he doesn’t resort to raining on anyone’s parade with inane weather chat.
TRP verdict: You’re a right little ray of sunshine, aren’t you!? That’s 3 out of 3.