Forget Turkey teeth, we now have Trivago teeth. Jurgen Klopp’s gnashers are the only takeaway from the new Trivago advert. Presumably he saved so much on his room he could afford to go to Turkey.
Italy has also ‘discovered’ house hunting shows. We’re not up there on a par with the Property Brothers, or Kirsty and Phil (both freely and endlessly available on digital tv) we now have our home grown talent. The first on the scene was House at First Sight – a clumsy pun (as far as Italians do puns) – and is based in Milan and Rome where there is a housing market.
The Milan gang comprises, Ida, who plays the loveable southern italian lass to within in inch of her life: Gianluca, Milanese aesthete, who only likes Corian and suspended sanitary ware, mangles English terms and thinks he can sing, and Mariana, wafer thin and cast as the catty one, but who is actually the most real and funny of the lot. In Rome we have Blasco – known as Marron Blasco as he only shows brown houses, Corrado – the clown and Nadia – ex model and the injection of class the Roman office needed. They show numerous houses to couples who want to be on telly for 15 minutes, who then choose one ‘to buy’ .
Casa a Prima Vista is wildly successful, and inline with Discovery Channels modus operandi, all the agents appear on other discovery shows and advertise nauseating air fresheners and the like.
Not to be outdone TV8 has launched House versus House – not a catchy title – and is hosted by a what we are meant to think of as an eccentric agent with his pulse on luxury living. It is so unremittingly awful, I havent managed to last an entire episode as yet.
At least it’s a new show. On the terrestrial channels we endure rebaked endless runs of shows which would have been put out of their misery years ago in other countries. To give you an idea we’re still on Big Brother season 18 – which lasts for 5 months at a time. Deal or No Deal is now in year 17, but the granddaddy of then all is Striscia la notizia (a horrific Thats Life kind of show but with a Mr Blobby and a man who dresses up as a fart – which is now 36 years old. It describes itself as satire, and is generally hosted by comics who are reaching the end of their careers. It is one of the last outposts of the veline – pretty girls who do a bit of a dance and pose, and who generally go on to advertise mattresses on rarely viewed cable channels.
