"DECISIONS, DECISIONS..." DRACULA'S INTERIOR DECORATOR.

HELP! MY PATIENCE IS WEARING THIN...

So now there has been (another) boom and bust in the housing market, the television programmes about houses have changed.  Gone are the heady days of  "Property Ladder " - where people bought houses to tart up and sell for a massive profit, and " A Place in the Sun" - where rich Brits pretend they want to buy a house on the continent in order to  enjoy a tv jaunt abroad.  Sarah Beeny's new programme is entitled "Help! My house is falling down!"

A simple concept, fuelled by the actions of simple people. Every week the programme begins with the following declaration: "Mr. and Mrs. X bought a house, unseen, without having a proper survey done".  Now, I'm no genius, but the point of having an expensive survey done is that potential buyers do not need to have even more expensive work done on their house once it actually is in their possession.  Once owned, it is very difficult to offload a problem house onto another buyer, because other people aren't that stupid...

The voice-over then proceeds to state the bleedin' obvious in very a slow and menacing manner, restating the terrible problems over and over, and underlining the mountain of money needed to put them right every two minutes, attempting to build the tension until a) you switch off, or, b) you actually begin to care about the twittering fools and the albatross around their collective neck.

Just in case you are thinking about switching off, the producers of the programme introduce some  fascinating science bit half-way through, where the hapless Mr.and Mrs. are taken to a lab somewhere and shown that their house is/isn't about to fall down with the help of some fabulous gadgets!

Frankly, the programme should be re-titled: "If  You're a Retard, Don't Buy a House".