Words Dept.: entry

Having spent the last two days off work while having “work done on the house”, I have been exposed to daytime repeats of Homes Under the Hammer and, specifically, presenter Martin Roberts. He’s my new hero.

Never has the phrase “What’s with this guy?” been more apposite than when watching The Blessed Martin. He’s the only television presenter of our age to pepper his voiceover with girlish laughter, often at his own quips. He really is quite at the top of his game.

Each episode of the programme is prefaced with a formulaic introduction about how “more and more people are buying at auction”. I have no idea if it’s true but you get the sense it doesn’t really matter.

Then Roberts, whom I think may have been on television at some point during the 1980s, possibly on That’s Life or something equally dissable, does a little routine where he inspects the property room-by-room. He will conclude the piece by doing something like going to the sink, and then saying: “So let’s see who’ll be sinking their cash into this place, when we go to auction.” You get it, don’t you? You do get it?

They also have an endlessly irritating section in which an estate agent comes to value the shit hole. The song Express Yourself by Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band plays in the background during this part, which seems to occur about twice an episode. It’s not the most obvious selection of music. Whenever I think of estate agents, they don’t necessarily conjure an image of early 1970s funk. Is it because the berks in pinstripes  are “expressing themselves”? Is that the premise? If so, you might as well play it during Question Time.

Aside from the dicky musical selections, there is a fundamental falsehood at the heart of the programme, which is to do with the real-life ordering of events and how they are presented on screen. We are expected to believe that after the Martin Segment, the production team, with its outside broadcast paraphernalia, shuffles off en masse to the auction house, then returns to the property some hours or days or weeks later with the buyer in tow, to film a second piece with Dear Martin.

When, what has obviously really happened, is that the auction is filmed first. They then ask the purchaser to sign a release. Then they go to the property for the Martin Segment. After which they instantly bring in the buyer for their bit. It’s CLEARLY YET MORE TV FAKERY but unlike Ant and Dec and the Blue Peter cat and the rest, nobody has been fired or had to apologise.

Yet I, for one, am disgusted. And alone. Disgusted and alone. That’s me these past couple of days. Well, alone except for Phil and Ray, who are fitting the bathroom.