Tired of the car crash tv 'reality' shows? Are you screaming at your TV sets when the best philosophical questions between two people are whether the moon and the sun are the same planet? Made in Chelsea, The Only Way is Essex (TOWIE) and now, Desperate Scousewives. With the lack of substance and the screaming desire for nothing but 15 seconds of fame, can we get back to the real Britain? The quaint Britain, the one with a bit of va va voom? These shows might be a guilty pleasure, but why do I feel like chewing on my hand when I've finished watching them?
Might I make a suggestion of showing the different side of the British people? Welcome to my new TV pitch Stamford: Amid Its Ancient Charm. Based on the historical town in Lincolnshire, filled with culture, style and diction.
Where tweed becomes the new spray tan and the jagerbomb is changed for 1975 bottle of Chateau Neuf du Pap. The series would involve real trauma - a domestic breakout over an incorrect answer at Trivial Pursuit. The only love triangle would involve two Mallard ducks and a guinea pig, named Lorenzo. A typical day would begin with a coffee shop crawl x15, a dog walk, followed by a quick jaunt to Burghley House to take a frosty photo of our beloved stately home.
Off to an antiques centre for a quick valuation on the same ring you bought from there a week earlier. A small but stoic fight over a parking space. Lunch - probably al fresco in sub zero temperatures (us Brits can do the cold quite well thank you). Then afternoon tea, 3pm, 4pm and 5pm (we have a lot of friends). A quick scuffle into another antiques centre - 'did they value that ring correctly?'. Quick Tweed change. We'd pretend to work at some point, but this will of course require a latte, a newspaper (not heat) and perhaps a round of golf. Followed by a quick file and paint in one of 236 beauty salons. Dinner, at one of our fine restaurants, serenaded by someone who can actually sing. Another kerfuffle over a parking space (the tension mounts). To find our inner sanctum, we tell a couple of youths on the meadows to "go scuttle off somewhere else". Fourth meal of the day - a picnic in sub-sub zero temperatures, at Tolethorpe - carrying of course our 15 tog duvets, sorrel boots, Canadian goose jackets, heated hand warmers, hip flasks and our hot water bottles. Sitting in the open air theatre, we see our fellow thespians - Ted, Jack, a small dog called Hamlet and the theatre resident - the 14th century ghost - probably also called Hamlet. During Act II someone will say "sorry about all the feathers" after fluffing their duck down onto the person in front of them. All this, whilst the actors are battling against the noise from the bleeting sheep in the surrounding fields.
Don't tell me Mr Producer, this isn't real life, because it is. This stuff throws your tiny-dress-wearing - females into small screen oblivion. Whilst the characters of TOWIE are fighting an inner battle to get out a constructive sentence, we're reciting Chaucer, Chekov and Alan Bennett. E4 - whilst you give us a battle of lovers, curious glances off someone's nan and incredible hair extensions. We give you, architecture, the English language ('nuh-uh' is not in the dictionary) and gold-framed pictures of Daniel Lambert.
Maybe the above isn't the reality of Britain, but secretly, deep down within our lust and desire, we all want it to be.
If TOWIE won a BAFTA - then I've just won Amid Its Ancient Charm 10 Oscars....Surely?