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I'm not going to say that property programmes on daytime television are a stupid idea.
I'm not going to say that they're actually bad at all.
They're just...
...weird.
I mean, have you seen the presenters of these shows?
How is it possible to be that cheery about a subject as painfully dull
as filing your tax returns while having root canal surgery?
Do the BBC keep an emergency stash of methamphetamines to give to the hosts
should their morale fall below the regulation "cheery-as-a-children's-TV-presenter" mark?
And if that's the case, why aren't more people presenters on property programmes?
But seriously now, if you can be serious while discussing presenters of property programmes and their ecstasy habits,
these shows are just strange.
There's one show on at the moment where they look around at some houses, follow them to the auction house,
and then NEVER STOP FOLLOWING the poor sod that has the audacity to step up and buy one of them.
I mean, they follow them really closely - closer than a stalker would - until they're finished with the house
and then they get down to the numbers to see if they sell it for a profit.
That's good, I suppose - I mean, they want to make sure that, once you've finished redecorating,
you do sell or rent for a profit and make more money than you spent redecorating.
The problem is, who watches these shows?!
Who cares?!
These shows, or this one in particular at least, is nature's way of telling you to hunt harder for a job
so that you don't have to be subjected to this rubbish.
It's like watching drying paint.
where Kevin McCloud gets to be all uppity about other people's ridiculous ideas for houses
after which he finally calms down and tells them, by way of telling them who to talk to,
how they can make their idea for a house just slightly more feasible.
I was watching this show recently - accidentally, you understand. Not deliberately. Honestly. Completely accidentally.
And someone was actually building a house... out of straw.
If the Three Little Pigs have taught us anything in life, it's that straw is as good for a house as paper is...
...for a DAM.
The show then goes on to follow the hopeful couple, student with far too much money, best friends, etc.
on the task of actually building, or rather hiring people to build, their ridiculous house,
including proper sad music and monologues to camera when it seems like they're not going to make it.
Because everyone loves a bit of crap drama in everything they watch
that's not the news or Countdown.
What makes this programme vaguely bearable, however, is when they do hire someone
to build their stupid house for them, and the person they've hired to build the stupid house
comments about how stupid the stupid house is, sometimes to camera and sometimes
to the face of the person whose stupid house they're supposed to be building.
I say bearable because it's... bearable. Not funny, just... bearable.
Oh, and, by the way, don't ask me why I didn't name Homes Under the Hammer but did name Grand Designs
although now I've done both that rather defeats the point of not naming the first.
Finally, there's Location, Location, Location. This show is basically Rightmove in a television programme.
Other property moving websites are probably available, I don't know, I don't buy houses.
Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer help a couple or, as it is now, two couples, try and find a house they like
by looking around houses in the local area that they want to buy a house in.
Something that they could achieve by themselves, simply by peeking into the window
of every estate agent they ever happen to come across - the benefit of this being,
they don't have to spend a week or two with Phil Spencer and Kirstie Allsopp.
Or, if they don't fancy peeking into every estate agent's window, I'll say it again -
Rightmove!
...or one of the other websites.
This programme has no discernible purpose. I can achieve the same thing
with a few quick Google searches or a walk down my local high street.
But still it remains on television, as do the other two.
There's something about television shows about houses
that keep the two to three p.m. demographic happy on the BBC,
and the people at the TV channel "Home" employed.
I suppose the BBC need to put something between the antiques programmes
and the CBBC block.
I suppose we should ask where we'd be without property programmes.
Extended Bargain Hunt.
That's where we'd be.
Let's face it. Property programmes are an industry designed to make estate agents
look more likeable, and to give ageing TV presenters something to do to stop them from dying.
It's impossible to make either phenomenon happen so please, as my message
to any broadcaster listening, naming no
Channel 4
names
Please just give up, and put back regular TV between two and three p.m.
that doesn't make me want to put my foot through the television.
Because my television was expensive.
Subtitles by Chris Chapman