Swanning into swanky Cliveden ... a very pampered Pomeranian
Ben and Katie, an achingly trendy couple aged 30 or so, who spend an inordinate amount of time on their appearance, enjoy the finer things in life . . . such as sweet-talking their way into free stays at fivestar hotels.
They are not con artists — such a vulgar term. nor are they Seventiesstyle rock ’n’ roll freeloaders.
Ben and Katie are influencers. ‘essentially, we promote our lives to the world,’ Ben told us on A Very British Country House (C4).
With their Youtube lifestyle blogs and Instagram channels, influencers are social media’s new generation of celebrities. Their lives are a non-stop carousel of marketing and advertising, and they measure their fame in ‘followers’ ... or, as we used to call them, mug punters.
Posh hotels love influencers. Cliveden, the ‘country house’ of the show’s title, was once the stately home of the Astor family. Today it is a swanky hotel, trading desperately on its royal connections — Meghan Markle stayed there the night before her wedding to Prince Harry.
Cliveden is so keen to impress the likes of Ben and Katie that it employs a footman to fuss over their every need. Ben and Katie do prove quite needy — as you’d expect of a couple who arrive with a Pomeranian dog in a fleece-lined shoulder bag.
The duo insist they’re happy to work for their freebies. Ben spends ages, deciding which of the suite’s antique chairs will look best in his selfies. Then they swan down to dinner, with Pepe the Pom, who orders a £27 main course off the Doggy Diner menu. On the house, of course.
Why Cliveden panders to these people when it’s getting four weeks of free advertising on Channel Four is anybody’s guess. This documentary was as fawning as any ‘lifestyle blog’. When concierge Michael confided that one extravagant party of guests ran up a £100,000 bar bill, the interviewer almost squealed with excitement.
And though the voiceover hinted that country seat had been the scene of ‘many scandals’, it was careful not to mention the one involving a Russian spy, a prostitute and a Cabinet minister called Profumo, which all started beside the swimming pool at Cliveden.
By far the best documentary of the weekend was based on hundreds of hours of footage shot almost 50 years ago, in the aftermath of the Beatles’ break-up. John and Yoko: Above Us Only Sky (C4) achieved the remarkable coup of telling us something new about Lennon, by showing how and why he became so utterly devoted to an obscure Japanese artist named Yoko Ono. Because of her shrieking stage performances, I’d always imagined she was a rather hysterical personality. In fact, as this film revealed, she could be calm and endlessly patient.
Most of all, she was able to absorb his smothering affections, which would have exhausted most women. John was as needy as a toddler, clinging and pawing, pushing her away then sobbing for attention.
Yoko gained a unique artistic tool. She couldn’t paint, sculpt or dance, but she could feed her half-written poems into John’s music. She tamed a genius, and used him to create songs. He became her art installation.
The film included one chilling scene in which a drug-damaged Vietnam veteran turned up on John’s doorstep, demanding to ‘look him in the eye’. Lennon fearlessly complied.
It was like watching a premonition of the encounter in new York that would cost his life ten years later.