goggle box – The Indecisive Eejit

i-want-to-tie-you-up-in-bed-so-i-can-watch-what-i-want-on-tv-2454e

I have a guilty pleasure…hmm actually I have a few, so let me rephrase that…I have only one guilty pleasure that I feel comfortable about sharing with you..yes, that’s much better, lets carry on. I have a guilty pleasure, for Trash TV. I know you’re going to find that hard to believe, me being so cultured and all, but it’s true. There is nothing like sitting down with a nice cup of rosie lee, fluffy slippers keeping the feet warm, curlers in setting the ‘do’ for tomorrow and some good old trash TV on the Goggle box!

I have a special fondness for Made in Chelsea even though most of the time I am fighting an overwhelming urge to jump into the TV and slap them all senseless. For those of you who have no clue what I am talking about let me simplify it, think an area of London where all the beautiful young people talk with marbles in their mouths and basically date each other, oh and argue, lots and lots of arguing. It’s one of the few programs I watch that can actually make me cringe, but I’m hooked.

A new favourite at the minute is Ching’s Restaurant Redemption where basically Ching, as a chef, walk’s into someone’s ailing restaurant and informs them the food is shit, rips their restaurant to shreds, tells them what to cook and basically saves day. She’s ballsy and to be fair I’d be doing whatever she told me for fear of getting a meat cleaver in the forehead. The main problem with watching this program late at night is the food she cooks always looks amazing and makes me hungry and after a visit to the fridge I have to trundle back to the sofa with a couple of slices of raw carrot inside a slice of bread, my version of a spring roll.

Last, but by no means least is Mystery Diners. I used to love Cheaters, but I can no longer find it on the free channels damn it, so MD has ably filled the void. Restaurant owners bring in a crack team of spy’s who bug their establishment in the hope of catching the tea leaf who has been having it away with the takings, food or other things that are not suitably nailed down. It’s amazing how lucky they are, I mean they always manage to catch the culprit in 30 minutes, the length of the show. Lots of shouting and tears ensue and more often that not the offender is thrown into the street without a second thought despite their pleas on innocence. Eh see that person on camera, well that’s you dickhead, I saw you thieving. Oh it’s great, but it’s also quite amazing to see the lengths some people will go to in order to hoodwink their boss.

What’s your guilty TV pleasure?

1950s-television-set-006 — Image by Hulton Getty

I don’t watch a lot of TV, a mixture of not having a lot of spare time so choosing to do others things with it, and also there being not too many appealing programs. Every week I scan the TV book in the hope of something exciting, but I am usually left disappointed.

My guilty pleasure would be ‘Hollyoaks’, the only soap opera I watch. It’s dinner time viewing, as in something to do when I eat, well that’s what I tell myself anyway. The truth is I hate missing it and will flee to the catch up channel on the few occasions that it happens.

Then you have the hard hitters that keep me hooked week after week, like Grey’s Anatomy. I was a late starter to the joy that is this program, but many late nights spent on Lovefilm ensured I got caught up, so much so that I am currenly watching the latest season as it airs on Sky.

Lately though I have found a secret pleasure in programs containing ‘The Great British’ in the title. Like ‘The Great British Bakeoff’ and more recently ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’. I have no interest or knowledge of sewing, bar running away from people who wish to sew my lips shut, but strangely I am finding this program both entertaining and enlightening. I love how over the course of the program we see ordinary people grow and flourish in their chosen craft, while learning about them as a person at the same time.

Also top of the list has been a 6 week run of a programme called ‘Hair’, same kind of idea, amateur hairdressers are pitted against each other in order to find an overall champion. Believe me there were some weird and wacky styles on display, but also some rather amazing ones.

On hindsight, perhaps I do like the old google box after all!

What shows make you oooh and ahhhh? and what would be your guilty pleasure?