Holiday showdown
Stuck in last night with only five tv channels (Sky+ is arrive today...thank god) I found myself watching 'Holiday Showdown'. This was a dreadful programme in which one family took another on their favourite holiday and then they swapped places. If you didn't watch it there is much point in reading on but I feel like ranting.It was made worse by the unfortunate (or fortunate for the producers) fact that one family, the Theodores, came across (I am aware that TV can, and probably did, misrepresent them) as some of the most obnoxious people you could ever meet.
Labelled the 'posh' family, and clearly thinking themselves a cut above the rest of population, they usually holidayed in luxury holiday resorts in places like Borneo. The Glass family, the 'working-class' family took them camping in Newquay.
For Mr Theodore nothing was good enough. Bizarrely given he had chosen to be on this programme he began moaning from the off and never stopped, saying they would not enjoy themselves which became self-fulfilling. Holidays in Britain were beneath him and his terribly Mary Archer-esque stuck-up wife (who I think bought caviar in Safeway -- does anyone do that?). Newquay was 'a horrible place'. On a walk along beautiful coastal scenery his children could only manage a mile and a half.
For the second half of the holiday Mr Theodore flew them to a resort complex in Borneo. Here is pretensions to class became ever more apparent as he warbled on about 'this is what holidays should be like -- luxury'. Sadly the holiday appeared to be 1) fly 28 hours to an exotic foreign country, 2) hadly ever leave the resort. Even more sad was how desperately the Theodores wished to appear classy when everything they did suggested the opposite.
Meanwhile the Glass familiy came out of it rather well (except for one unfortunate incident) -- clearly saying that they liked the Theodore's kind of a holiday but then again as it was costing £500 a day, they would, wouldn't they?
posted by Matthew @ 11/07/2003 10:37:00 AM
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