Throw in the towel now
ACOUPLE of years ago, during one of my more extravagant phases, I treated myself to a towel I’d seen on DRAGONS’ DEN. Obviously it wasn’t just an ordinary towel. If some chancer had strutted into the Den with just an ordinary towel and gone: “Look what I’ve invented, guys! I’m calling it a ‘towel’. Now give me money,” I suspect he’d have been given short shrift.
No, this was a towel made from a special material, designed to dry you extra quickly. It wasn’t entirely dissimilar to the towels with which I dry my dog. But I’m afraid, once I got it, I was far from impressed with its performance. Rather than the towel drying me quickly, it felt as if it was sticking to my skin, more like cling film.
Maybe, I concluded, my skin’s simply not the right kind. Maybe I need to be more furry.
Anyway, the point I’m trying to make, ahead of the show starting a new run tonight – and in a new home (Thursdays on BBC1 at 8pm, no less) – is that Dragons’ Den surely ought to tweak its format a little, allowing for a bit of public feedback.
What do customers actually think of these products the Dragons invest in?What are their own personal experiences?
I can’t believe that a report from me about my disappointing towel experience wouldn’t be warmly welcomed by Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden and whoever the other three are this week.
For now, though, the show’s format remains very much the same, other than a bit of social distancing and a ban on the deal-sealing handshake.
Those seeking investment tonight include a couple of blokes “on a mission to bring innovations to the tea market” – or, to put it another way, a couple of blokes selling tea.
Also, can a former City banker interest the Dragons in her “mindful painting experience”? And how about the man who’s showing them some special clips he’s invented, to put on your glasses and cut out the glare from the sun?
“They don’t look great,” remarks Peter. “Mine’s broken,” remarks one of the other Dragons whose name I’m still pretending I can’t remember.
Elsewhere, tonight’s the night the Cornish town of Padstow gets its weekly visit from a TV film crew, in this case for the new series of MADE IN BRITAIN (ITV4, 8pm, 9pm).This one has come to see how pasties are made, even though GreggWallace told us months ago. And the place it’s visiting, funnily enough, is the very place I buy my own whenever I’m there, namely Chough Bakery.
Come on, you must know the place I mean – just over the road from where my father-in-law tripped and fell into the harbour. I believe there’s a plaque.