I should be working on some medical articles for an American client but instead I find myself transfixed by the Channel 4 show 4 in a Bed which follows B&B owners as they judge each other's properties.
It's rare I even have the TV on, especially in the daytime, but it's even more rare that I do any ironing so since ironing was today unavoidable, I switched on to distract myself from the tedium of flattening clothes.
There's very little programming I watch. I don't like soaps ( apart from Holby City) and am only briefly entertained by the likes of Jeremy Kyle. Frankly once I've established that my existence is way less complicated than theirs I lose interest in rows that should by rights happen outside a dodgy pub with onlookers yelling: "Leave it - he/she ain't werf it." not on national TV. Airing your dirty laundry in public my granny would have called it.
Anyway, talking of dirty laundry or rather dirt in general, one programme I love is 4 in a Bed where the contestants seem obsessed with finding dust, dirt and most importantly, hairs.
I mean, don't get me wrong. I expect my B&B to be clean but I wouldn't pull chests of drawers out, reach up to the back of the top of the wardrobe or run my fingers along curtain poles in the hope of producing a grubby finger with the same glee as a toddler displaying what they have found up their nose.
I certainly don't peer closely into the toilet, strip the bed or poke about in plughole looking for stray pubes. Sometimes ignorance is bliss and if I can't spot such things during normal usage then its all OK with me.
I read somewhere on an online commentary about the show that it's only to be expected from a group of people who work very hard and for long hours running their own establishments and don't get out much.
I suppose if you spend your life looking after other people you want your one night of respite to be pretty much perfect. Add to that the strongly held belief that their way is the only way and the fact that it is, after all, a competition and you start to see why perfectly nice people can fall out over sausages. Specifically the lack of them or the quality.
And then you have to factor in the loonies. I hadn't really thought about the hospitality industry attracting loonies but even understanding that Channel 4 will deliberately choose a more eccentric participant over someone less interesting there still seems to be a higher number of nutters than you meet in normal life.
From cat ladies to misanthropist pigs, this show has it all. I do think it's unfair when a beautiful mansion perfect for sophisticated getaways competes with a spit and sawdust pub catering for builders working away from home but it all makes for compelling viewing.
Now where did I put the popcorn.....
It's rare I even have the TV on, especially in the daytime, but it's even more rare that I do any ironing so since ironing was today unavoidable, I switched on to distract myself from the tedium of flattening clothes.
There's very little programming I watch. I don't like soaps ( apart from Holby City) and am only briefly entertained by the likes of Jeremy Kyle. Frankly once I've established that my existence is way less complicated than theirs I lose interest in rows that should by rights happen outside a dodgy pub with onlookers yelling: "Leave it - he/she ain't werf it." not on national TV. Airing your dirty laundry in public my granny would have called it.
Anyway, talking of dirty laundry or rather dirt in general, one programme I love is 4 in a Bed where the contestants seem obsessed with finding dust, dirt and most importantly, hairs.
I mean, don't get me wrong. I expect my B&B to be clean but I wouldn't pull chests of drawers out, reach up to the back of the top of the wardrobe or run my fingers along curtain poles in the hope of producing a grubby finger with the same glee as a toddler displaying what they have found up their nose.
I certainly don't peer closely into the toilet, strip the bed or poke about in plughole looking for stray pubes. Sometimes ignorance is bliss and if I can't spot such things during normal usage then its all OK with me.
I suppose if you spend your life looking after other people you want your one night of respite to be pretty much perfect. Add to that the strongly held belief that their way is the only way and the fact that it is, after all, a competition and you start to see why perfectly nice people can fall out over sausages. Specifically the lack of them or the quality.
And then you have to factor in the loonies. I hadn't really thought about the hospitality industry attracting loonies but even understanding that Channel 4 will deliberately choose a more eccentric participant over someone less interesting there still seems to be a higher number of nutters than you meet in normal life.
From cat ladies to misanthropist pigs, this show has it all. I do think it's unfair when a beautiful mansion perfect for sophisticated getaways competes with a spit and sawdust pub catering for builders working away from home but it all makes for compelling viewing.
Now where did I put the popcorn.....