Homing in on perfection

YOU might feel we already have enough shows like KIRSTIE AND PHIL’S LOVE IT OR LIST IT (C4, 8pm). But I disagree. Maybe you’re mixing it up with a different programme, possibly Newsnight with Kirsty Wark. I do agree we already have enough shows with the word “news” in the title and I’d like them to stop. Maybe we should start a campaign.

No, the reason we need more programmes like Kirstie and Phil’s is because every so often they do a catch-up episode, and TV needs more of those.

Usually a lifestyle show will just burst into people’s lives, work some apparent miracle that we’re meant to assume will bring them everlasting joy and then, excuse my language, blinking well swan off back to tellyland, patting itself on the back for having been so darned clever.

For having built these folk an extension, say, or turned their garden Japanese, even though it’s in Croydon.

With catch-up episodes, there’s always the risk the programme will return to find its intervention wasn’t a success.The house may have caved in, for example.The koi pond may have turned khaki. Or, in the case of Kirstie and Phil’s catch-ups, the homeowners may have ignored every scrap of their advice, almost as if they only really sought it in the first place so they could be on the telly.

But the thing is, Kirstie and Phil never seem to mind if that’s happened. Rare for this type of show, I actually get the impression they’re quite invested in these people’s happiness, and if that means their expertise gets snubbed, well, so be it.

It’s an attitude which earns them the right, I’d say, to be really quite smug when it isn’t. Tonight’s is one of their Brilliant Builds episodes, where they celebrate their successes, in this case when faced with homes awash with clutter.

There’s a trip they made to Somersham, for instance, where Kirstie actually dissuaded a couple from extending – and this isn’t a woman, remember, who’s afraid to demolish a wall or three – and instead helped them embark on a huge clearout.

Over the years, I must say I’ve grown awfully fond of Kirstie and Phil. I love the rapport they’ve developed with each other, having been quite straight-laced at first. It’s not flirtatious, nothing yucky like that.

They’re more like mildly squabbling siblings.

One day I’d like them to do a Love It Or List It on our own place, advising on whether we should spruce it up or move.We have no intention of doing either of those things, but they don’t need to know that.

We do have some bits that need taking to the tip, mind you, so if Kirstie has room in her boot, that would be lovely.