Property porn – the only alternative to penalties

TV Watch with Dave O’Connell

You can almost see the tumbleweed crossing the screen in television land, as programmers wait with baited breath for the end of the World Cup – but in the meantime, non-sporting fans will be left to endure more repeats than you’d get after a bad curry.

Still, presumably there’s a few bob in it for those whose programmes are getting a second airing – or, in the case of series like Grand Designs and Location Location Location, a fifteenth screening in the last 12 months.

Those who enjoy what used to be called ‘property porn’ are almost having as good a time as the soccer fans, what with Kevin McCloud revisiting the strangest of houses around the UK, or Phil and Kirstie trying to get harassed couples to buy the home of their dreams.

Grand Designs is so popular that there’s now an Australian version, presented by a guy with more hair than Kevin but with the same sort of strangely endearing sneering approach to anything that it’s rare or pure.

You’ll never get a bloke on Grand Designs doing-up a semi with neutral carpets and magnolia walls, or putting up Woodies shelves at an unusual angle to the floor.

Instead it’s always a couple – ideally with hippy roots – who want to build a monstrosity on the side of a mountain or an eco home dug into the side of a hill and covered with a wild garden so that it looks like the Tellytubbies home adapted for new-age travellers.

Ideally, said couple should be prepared to live on site in a bockety old caravan with leaking windows and heavy condensation.

They should be forced to endure what Kevin always calls ‘the worst Winter in living memory’ as snow and impassable roads mean that the Danes coming with the prefabricated panels from Odense are stuck on a side road for weeks on end.

There must be budgetary problems – a point in the build where the couple sell the family car or borrow money from their elderly parents – but these are always ultimately overcome to the point that there’s a state-of-the-art log burner to put the tin hat on the underfloor heating and the heat system that draws on cow dung for inner warmth.

The Australian version is presented by a blokey bloke called Peter Madisson, who follows the template to a tee. In his case, there are couples in touch with their inner soul who want to live in the Bush or the wood, ideally in a tree house on stilts.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.