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The Bloke: My guilty pleasure
Some time ago my mate Dan’s wife let slip the identity of his favourite TV show.
It wasn’t Top Gear, Match of the Day or something else suitably in keeping with his fairly macho image.
Oh no, Dan’s favourite telly programme was none other than House Doctor.
Now, to the uninitiated, let me explain why this precious crumb of knowledge was nothing less than pure gold in the hands of people with a cruel sense of humour perfectly suited to exploiting the smallest chink in another person’s armour. In other words, me and Dan’s other ‘mates’.
You see House Doctor is one of those programmes men are really not meant to like. It basically involves a sour-faced American woman called Ann something or other going round random people’s houses telling them how rubbish they look.
The premise is that these people are struggling to flog their homes and it’s her job to spruce them up a bit (a process that usually involves binning dubious collections of hideous ornamental figurines) and get them sold.
What it’s really about though is the joy of watching someone tell someone else that their taste in interior design is, quite frankly, an embarrassment.
But I too have a confession. I like property makeover programmes just as much as Dan.
For me it started with Changing Rooms rather than House Doctor (I blame Handy Andy and his charismatic way with carpentry and Carol Smillie for looking so alluring in paint-spattered capri pants) but I’m just as obsessed as he is.
So much so that I can spend hours scouring Zoopla and Right Move, not to look at potential houses to buy, but to nosey inside people’s homes and console myself with the fact that although the owners of a particular property may have oodles more money than me, their taste in interior design would be enough to give that House Doctor woman post traumatic stress disorder.
I’ve even been known to buy the occasional magazine. My favourite is one my sister gets called Elle Decor, which I love for its winning blend of pomposity and pretentiousness.
This month, for instance, it has a section on ‘Slumber Solutions’ in which it explains that lots of us are struggling to get a good night’s kip these days because the rubbish economy means ‘we are having to do much more with less’.
The solution? ‘Philip Stein’s new wellbeing watch’ of course. A mere ‘£484 for the Pashmina Pearl Calf model.’ That or a £45 eye mask the mag refers to as ‘a personal blackout blind’.
Seriously, you couldn’t make this stuff up and yet I can’t get enough of it.
But don’t tell anyone. Especially Dan.
* Follow The Bloke on Twitter @theblokeyep
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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