The Week on the Telly: July 15 2011 by Hannah

This week I watched… Candy Bar Girls, C5

Someone at Channel 5 discovered a lesbian bar in London, and in keeping with their attitude to programming (‘what would a teenage boy do?’), they’ve made a reality show about some of the regulars.
Dani has just moved from Manchester with her passive-aggressive girlfriend of three years, Lucy, after finishing a performing arts degree. They recently decided to move into an open relationship, and despite having initiated this, Lucy is finding the reality difficult to deal with,
‘Well, she kissed one of my friends the other night, and that really pissed me off. I’m trying to teach her about the lesbian code, and incestuous as Lesbians are portrayed to be, we’re all still loyal to each other as friends.’
‘That doesn’t sound like the lesbian code’, I think, as I calculate short odds on them breaking up before the end of the episode, ‘that sounds like the every-relationship-ever-code.’ I am proved correct, and Dani tells Lucy that she thinks they would be better as friends.

‘I feel I may go a little wild now,’ says Dani, ‘as I’m siiinnngle’. Out of shot, the camera men fist-bump.

We also meet Jo, who, worried that her life was becoming spiritually bereft, left her media career for five months of self discovery,

‘Going into this hut with this Mayan family, with their pet that was a spider monkey was just brilliant…some woman just ran up to me in this fit of anguish shouting ‘you have an incredible aura’, anyway, I gave her $8 and we moved on…I just sort of squatted down and a wild boar came and sniffed me…’

The self discovery is over now, as Jo finds herself with no money or job, moving back in with her parents. It is a bitter homecoming, and Jo is forced to live in North London, rather than her preferred area of Shoreditch.

‘All that gourmet food in Paris, and now this. Lovely’, she complains, as her Mother hands her a dish of salmon.

‘Corfu coasters? Lovely,’ she whinges as her Father places a glass of champagne in front of her. These are ignominious times.

Another familiar face around The Candy Bar is former BB contestant Shabby. A sartorial cross between the Artful Dodger and Alex from A Clockwork Orange, free spirited Shabby splits her life between music, DJing and Clothes design. The latter concerns me.

Shabby is getting ready to meet her friend Red. She thinks the time is right for them to move from friendship to relationship, and for their awkward first date, she takes Red to Yo Sushi! in North London. In keeping with the romance of the surroundings, Shabby begins their date with the toast, ‘Here’s to fish all night, raw fish all night long.’

Things are also looking up for Jo, as she has a job interview at the lesbian magazine she used to work for. She is keen to impress on her former colleagues that her travelling days are behind her,

‘I’ve met someone and settled down’

‘Oh, how long have you been seeing them?’

‘Eleven days.’

I give both these relationships very long odds indeed.

I also watched…

The Removal Men, C5

Channel 5’s other new fly-on-the-road documentary, about Pickford’s Removals, has served to quantify one of the universe’s most basic rules; it doesn’t matter how far you have to permeate into a company that employs men driving vans, you will eventually find someone called ‘Big Dave.’ He will be wearing a high visibility vest, and have worked for the company for twenty-five years.
We are introduced to rugby legend Martin Corry, and his family, who have more stuff in one of their outbuildings than I do in my entire flat. Martin is concerned that his irreplaceable rugby trophies will be damaged in the move. They are completely fine. There is further drama when Martin’s giant fridge won’t fit out of the kitchen. They remove the doors, and get it on the lorry. Phew.

Also moving this week is retired theatre director Neil, who has bought a larger house in order to store his huge quantity of papers. He hasn’t thrown a theatre programme out for thirty years, he proudly informs the nation.
Pickford’s employs a seemingly endless supply of cheerful men, who all appear to have worked for the company longer than I’ve been alive. Why do they all love their jobs so?

‘It gets under your skin this job. What other job could you just walk into someone’s house and pack everything up?’

I don’t know *thinks for a moment* Jewel thief, perhaps?

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