Thursday Night's TV (16/2/06)

My dumb was thoroughly founded in the early hours of this morning when I caught a repeat of Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife on BBC3. This programme pits two female slobs (they'll probably do an episode with token househusbands if it's not cancelled within a fortnight) who do not know the value of a hoover against each other, to see who has responded best to Anthea's housekeeping tips following a few days chez Turner. During their riveting stay they completed exercises in stain removal (Anthea: "There's nothing worse than a ballpoint pen"), recycling (Anthea: "If you can compartmentalise your rubbish, you can compartmentalise your life"), and throwing an imaginary tea party for Elizabeth II (Anthea: "The Queen would NOT eat sausage rolls"). While I appreciated the notion of a rolled-up newspaper inserted into boots for purposes of storage, the rest of Anthea's tips revealed that she is utterly demented. She cleans her metal-fronted kitchen units with baby oil. She does not have one drawer of odds and ends in her entire house. She clearly needs meds. The women didn't have a clue how to react to her fascistic approach to domesticity. When her back was turned they were giggling as if they were waiting outside a classroom to be rebuked by the teacher. The programme also didn't know how to take itself; whether to present Anthea as camply authoritarian, in the same vein as Trinny and Susannah or the How Clean Is Your House duo, or as mortally offended by her tutees' sluttery, a Gillian McKeith-type figure. It straddled the self-improvement genres of fashion, food and housekeeping in a confused and confusing way. My initial hilarity was replaced by open-mouthed senselessness at about the 40 minute mark, but, by then, I was resigned to sticking with it to the end, like a bad book. If BBC1 is the disease-addled auntie you once loved, then BBC3 is her Italian-funded mutant IVF baby, leeching the last dregs of her life before she slips from you forever. I don't even know if it is that, but it is certainly the cable channel producing the most regressive, conservative, condescending, idiotic and pointless crap on telly. If your finger stops on BBC3 as you scroll through the channels, be sure to summon up whatever strength lies within you to keep on pressing ahead. There's nothing for you here.