Why Matt Preston won’t make a stink about name of new show
Channel 7’s new cooking series Plate Of Origin may have an unfortunate acronym but celebrity chef and host Matt Preston is standing firm against the toilet humour.
Fiona Byrne
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Matt Preston has urged his new bosses at Channel 7 to ignore the stink about the cooking series Plate Of Originand keep its name.
There show’s acronym, POO, along with social media predictably dumping on the name and #poo hashtag, has caused consternation at Seven with talk that it needs to be flushed and new name found.
Preston, however, is standing firm against the toilet humour.
“I know people have been talking about the POO thing,” Preston said.
“Everybody knows Plate Of Origin is POO. I like to call it Seven’s Plate of Origin Now, so it is SPOON.
“It was kind of funny at the beginning, but now we have seen that joke.
“To me it is a question of whether there is a better name out there. I really like the name.
“It is just the hashtag, but we all know that social media has a habit of putting hashtags that are unwelcome on anything.”
Preston said he was keen to get started on the new show.
“We start filming on April 1,” he said.
“With MasterChef they cast me first, then they cast Sarah (Wilson), then they cast Gary (Mehigan) and the final place was between George (Calombaris and Manu Feildel) and they went with George.
“So there is the weird sense of things going full circle and getting to work with Manu again.”
Preston, 58, has been on a fitness kick during his down time between leaving Channel 10 and starting work at Seven. While he has lost a significant amount of weight he is keeping mum about how much.
“I am not talking about weight. It should be about blood sugar, it should be about cholesterol, it should be about whether you can walk over the dunes at Point Lonsdale without panting,” he said.
“I’ve been walking a lot, eating a lot of plants, drinking less, playing golf, and going to the gym.
“Because of the situation I have been in, I have had lots of time in the last six months, I can no longer prevaricate, I can no longer make the excuse that I don’t have any time.”