What is it with British TV these days? There are no real 'programmes' to speak of but a continuous round of reality shows focusing on: Real Estate, Food, Makeovers, and Crap! Firstly, real estate. From early in the morning to late at night, without any respite on the weekend, we are subjected to homes going under the hammer, people moving to the country, people moving to the coast, people moving to the country on the coast, moving abroad, moving back from abroad, doing up your derelict house, selling your derelict house. Who cares?!?!
Then there's food. Admittedly, I did get addicted to Masterchef on my last trip home; this time, it's the F Word with Gordon Ramsay, the point of the programme seeming to be to see how many times Gordon can say f*** to his celebrity co-hosts and proteges. I was truly scared by a makeover programme we watched the other night; presented by 'Gok Wan' (not a made-up name), How to Look Good Naked, takes regular women and gives them the confidence, clothes, and charisma to then take them all off at the end of the show and reveal themselves in all their natural glory. The programme last week was a mammoth mammary display of tit-anic proportions! Every two minutes, big ones, small ones, saggy ones, pert ones, and frightening ones were thrust onto the TV screen, and if that wasn't enough, full frontals now seem to be de rigeur on British TV! A far cry from India where a kiss still sparks protest!
Finally, there's the crap. My favourite in this category was last week's in-depth analysis of what
it's like to be a ginger man (not gingerbread man, just a red headed bloke) called F*** Off, I'm Ginger. Nowhere else in the world is having ginger hair so reviled, and none moreso than if you are a man. This hour-long in-depth documentary followed one guy in his pursuit of why he was
ginger, where the ginger genes came from, what women thought of ginger guys (not good), perceptions of ginger girls (good) and famous gingers throughout history (Winston Churchill!) Riveting. I can only say that I was very sad to miss the week's before programme, recommended by my friend Sue - Angry Short Men! You genuinely couldn't make this up. But someone did.
But it could only be second to the one hour programme I watched a couple of months ago about people and their storage units (again, someone did make this up) which explored people's relationships with their lock-ups. My favourite was the guy who still lived at home (of course) and went to his lock-up once a week to climb inside his real Dalek and drive around the storage unit car park. Priceless. Why waste time producing award-winning programming when we can - and do - thrive on such mindless drivel! Long live Crap TV!
