A Place in the Sun or How I became a TV presenter

For those of you who watch TV, there is a new series of “A Place in the Sun” on offer on Channel 4. If you don’t have a TV or don’t watch this programme, I have attached below a companion guide to the current (and past and future programmes) so that, should you decide that your current life is boring and you need a new challenge, you will be able to apply for a job as a presenter, with all the up-to-date skills.

Rule 1: Describe any area you are in, as an “undiscovered part of France”. No matter that you may be standing in the middle of the main drag in uptown Marseille, it is imperative that you give the viewer that, Livingstone-like, you are standing in a part of France to which no English person has ever before journied.

Rule 2: You will already know of Estate Agent language-speak, (bijou = poky etc) but you will need to add more words to your vocabulary, if you are to succeed in France. Every property is a “jewel in the landscape” and is more often than not “nestled” into the “delightful French countryside”. That kitchen, which is 2 metres square and contains 2 units propped up on bricks, a 1 burner stove and a dripping cold water tap, is not, as you may have thought, an appalling health hazard, but a delightfully quaint French cuisine, which will be the envy of all of your friends from back home in Blighty, when they descend on you in the summer.

Rule 3: When showing potential purchasers round a barn, which is within hours of falling down around your ears, describe it as having huge potential. The costs of renovating a massive barn are not (as you always thought) going to run into hundreds of thousands; Oh No! You can modernise a barn to Louvre-like standards for under £25,000 and should you be unfortunate enough to over-run by a thousand or so, fear not. You will be able to let out your mansion as a gite for almost 52 weeks a year for an exorbitant sum and recover your investment in a couple of years.

Rule 4: Wherever you are in France, the people are inevitably happy and friendly and can’t wait to share with you, their house, food, wine, wife, mistress and whatever other chattels they may have, because, believe it or not, you have inadvertently stumbled across a little piece of Paradise, where living is ridiculously cheap, everyone knows (and loves) everyone else, the local maire can’t wait to embrace you and welcome you to the fold and nobody minds that you can’t speak a word of French, because they are just so happy that you have deigned to live in their humble village.

Rule 5: It is essential, if you have designs of being a presenter, that you practice mispronouncing French names. You may be an expert on all things French but don’t make the fundamental mistake of being able to speak it…..apart from calling Paris Pareee, which will give you endless amounts of kudos with your customers and mark you out as someone who has certainly been “down & out in la belle France”. It will also give you that gravitas, that seriousness, that “Je ne sais quoi” of a person who is French in all but name.

Follow these rules and you, too, could be on the TV next year…..I bet you can’t wait.

  

Its years since I saw one of those programmes but can SO relate to the rules. That certaily made me laugh. The sad thing is that so many people still believe this.

Tradzoner wrote:  

Its years since I saw one of those programmes but can SO relate to the rules. That certaily made me laugh. The sad thing is that so many people still believe this.

Hi Tradzoner. Isn't it nice to know that some things never change  

I actually can't watch that programme, or any of the similar type that appear regularly. I find myself shouting at the TV, which is annoying to everyone... For a start I can't understand how any of the participants / contestants would volunteer to be on it in the first place? But horses for courses I guess...

According to our daughter the presenter (always female)tends to wear an "inappropriate" dress. Looks OK to me......

Well, it would, wouldn't it! 

tocyvi you should write a book I really enjoy reading your posts other than the political ones  

lady of leisure wrote:tocyvi you should write a book I really enjoy reading your posts other than the political ones  

Curiously enough, I was just about to write one.......entitled "How I Stopped Being a TV Presenter and Became a Political Commentator" but I suppose you wouldn't be interested. 

I must read minds  

I actually like the programme but I do think they should revisit people who have bought abroad and see how they got on.
I also like seeing how much property has gon up over the years, and now down.....
The dress sence of the presenters is dreadfull and we often say ' whats she got on' or 'what does she look like'.

tocyvi wrote: Curiously enough, I was just about to write one.......entitled "How I Stopped Being a TV Presenter and Became a Political Commentator" but I suppose you wouldn't be interested. 

 

Actually know of two couples who got houses through these programmes in the Correze. One couple loved house, did it up and were well settled in, but returned to UK because of health problems. Other couple had the "this will make a lovely B & B with a roof on it" spiel....last time I was in their town they had split, but one seemed to have a successful restaurant business.

DC wrote:Actually know of two couples who got houses through these programmes in the Correze.

I wonder what it is about some people that makes it impossible for them to undertake the basic task of looking in estate agents windows or searching on the internet, in order to purchase their biggest single investment of their lives. Instead, they put their future lives in the hands of semi-skilled property searchers who..........well, they look in estate agents windows and search on the internet, I suppose.

I realise that my original post could be construed as highly sceptical (it was meant to be!) but consider the following story that was aired recently:

"We'd only just arrived and our car broke down. We went into the local café and explained our predicament and the next morning, there were two cars parked on our drive"

Now, call me Mr Suspicious, but I just don't believe it. If things were that simple, all you'd have to do to a) get your weekly shopping done, b) pay your electric bill or c) simply get shed loads of money, is to pop into your local bar, explain you have a problem with a), b) or c) and then sit back and wait for a) the equivalent of the Tesco van to pull up outside your door, b) get the electric re-connected or c) watch the locals making their way down the down with wheelbarrows full 50€ notes, which they duly shove through your door.

The only time these sorts of things happen is after 5 pints of Tetleys, 4 Double Tequilas, 3 pints of Beaujolais, 2 Triple Bennys and a partridge in a pear tree.....and then you wake up and realise that it's all been a lovely dream; you've got no shopping in, the lights won't come on and you're boracic.

DC, I pesume they had researched and visited before they chose the area and then the tv prog funded the trip etc. I also enjoyed the prog ' no going back', and the grand designes especially 'doug and deni'.
People have dreams and its nice to share in them.