Fishing for compliments
DOING up your house can be so stressful, can’t it? Besides all the debris and disruption, every stage of the process takes so much longer than we’ve planned for. And as for sticking to the budget, forget it.
Take, for example, the crippling cost of installing a river in the dining room.
We’ve all done that, right? If it’s koi carp we want swimming in it, those alone will set us back around £1,000 each (unless, of course, we get lucky on the hoopla at a seriously upmarket fairground).
But hold on, I hear you cry.What on earth is this chap banging on about?Why would I want a river in my dining room, filled with koi carp? Or even filled with carp of a more outgoing nature?
To which I reply: you wouldn’t. Not really. I was merely attempting to be amusing – ha ha – by pretending such a scenario was commonplace. That way, you’ll find it all the more startling when you encounter it for real, on BRITAIN’S MOST EXPENSIVE HOME: BUILDING FOR A BILLIONAIRE (C4, 9pm).
The home in question, in London’s Mayfair, is owned by ex-Phones 4u chief John Caudwell. He bought it for £87million, but once he’s had all the refurbishment done (trust me, the indoor river is just the start), it’ll be worth three times that.
This documentary invites us to sit back and watch in bewilderment as Caudwell’s jaw-dropping upgrade takes shape.
Straight afterwards, we have the return of Channel 4’s excellent sitcom HOME (10pm), starring Youssef Kerkour as Syrian asylum seeker Sami.
Many months have passed since Sami smuggled himself into Britain in the boot of a car – specifically, the Audi estate of suburbanites Katy (Rebekah Staton) and Peter (Rufus Jones) – and he still doesn’t know if he’ll be allowed to say.
As he awaits news, Sami is having to stay in temporary accommodation, and even tetchy Peter is feeling sorry for him.
Well, to begin with. Peter is appalled when he discovers it’s a three-star hotel, not the hovel he’d imagined. “Comprehensive tea and coffee making facilities?!” he cries, aghast. “A Twinings collection?!”
Elsewhere, TRUST ME, I’M A DOCTOR (BBC2, 8.30pm) asks how much time we need to spend in nature – just walking or even sitting, rather than doing anything insane such as jogging – before we see measurable improvements in our health.
And the answer? According to an experiment it conducts with a group of office workers, it’s two hours a week.
A quarter of which, of course, I’ve just generously freed up for you, by saving you having to watch the actual programme.