OPERATION BATTLE OF THE BULGE
Did a bit of hanky panky help in Paul’s fight to lose weight?
THERE are times I wonder about RTÉ’s scheduling policy. You wait nine months for an architecture and interiors show and then, like the 46A in the old days, two come along at once. Hot on the heels of Dermot Bannon’s Incredible Homes, which continued last week with another spectacular episode from Australia, came Home Of The Year, featuring the first three of 21 homes that will feature in this series.
They were a mixed bag, from a very modern five-storey with great views across Belfast Lough, to a horseshoe-shaped former stables in Dublin, to the eventual winner, a truly beautiful cottage in Co. Galway, where owner Dee Noone and her husband, Evan, decided to do something decidedly un-Irish and abandon magnolia for proper colours that literally zinged with freshness and life – and more power to them.
Old reliables Deirdre Whelan and Hugh Wallace were back as judges (ever anxious to avoid catching his death from a chill to the neck, Hugh’s trademark look of woolly jumper draped over shoulders was ever present), along with newcomer Peter Crowley, who we were introduced to in Celebrity Home of the Year just after Christmas.
Peter is a good addition, being unsentimental and brutally honest, though Hugh also definitely got it right in the Northern Irish house where, despite what seemed like acres of space to play with, the almost galley-style kitchen was cramped, and the living area had those IKEA side tables that cost about six quid. Look, we all probably have one or two, but in our very ordinary houses – a place like that needed something just a little more individual to soar.
The great thing about Home Of The Year is that it doesn’t linger for too long, despatching three houses in half an hour, while still poking into the nooks and crannies and vicariously leaving us, unlike Incredible Homes, thinking that maybe our own refuges aren’t so bad after all. Certainly, much as I love light, I wouldn’t like to live in a glass box, and the cosy cottage, perhaps because it’s the right time of year for one, ended up looking so enticing it really had to win.
Talking of Northern Ireland, cheeky Jack Whitehall hosted the
BRIT Awards for the second time and made me laugh when he said: ‘Westlife announced they were back in the studio and suddenly a hard border with Ireland doesn’t sound so bad.’ I like Whitehall – he’s fearless, even to people’s faces, as we later saw when he made sly digs at Shawn Mendes and Little Mix.
There was a time when you watched the BRITs only to see what went wrong. Many of us of an age still are traumatised by the legendary series of gaffes in the show presented by Samantha Fox and Mick Fleetwood, so it perhaps was a little annoying that this year’s event was the most polished ever, opening with a stunning performance of a tune from The Greatest Showman by Hugh Jackman (I know I’ll get hate mail for this, but is it only me who thinks he can’t really sing, but nonetheless is a great, well, showman?) followed by a brilliant set from Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa, Sam Smith and Rag’n’Bone Man, and a dazzling finale from Pink.
Like thousands of others, I’m a little obsessed with Paul, one of the team leaders on Operation Transformation, who is so trapped in a gruelling routine running his own business, he can’t seem to find a way out of the maze. On this week’s episode, Paul and his wife managed to get away for a Valentine’s Day break and he was left a little redfaced when exercise guru Karl Henry told him that sex was great exercise and he should have lots more of it.
Despite the presumption that there was any hanky-panky at all, Karl’s suggestion might have struck a wider chord; I’d certainly love to see a seismographic chart for the hour after the show to check if all of Ireland decided it was time for the Earth to move. It’s all very well telling people not to have that second Hobnob, but decent, practical advice will win out every time.
There was no romance for Tallafornia’s Phil, back on First Dates Ireland in a bid to redeem himself after coming across as what my late dad would have called a total flute in the last series and asked his date if her breasts were real. You can’t buy class like that, because it’s not classy at all.
Phil’s date this year, Rachel from New Ross, had the measure of him from the off, and realised he was being overly nice in a bid for redemption; his mammy, along with the entire country, told him he made an idiot of himself last time out.
At one point, the waiting staff discussed whether or not a leopard could change its spots, and the answer proved to be a resounding no. When Rachel said she didn’t want to see Phil again, the real person bubbling beneath the veneer of civility burst forth. ‘Screw her,’ Phil said. ‘She’s not going to find a f***ing better bloke in New Ross.’
As a Dubliner who now lives in Co. Wexford, I found it embarrassingly cocksure, a reminder why the rest of the country often looks at Dubs with disdain.
Amazingly, since the show was filmed, Phil and his ex-girlfriend got back together and are expecting a baby. So let us give thanks for small mercies – at least he won’t be on the show a third time.