To find these episodes of Location Location Location very funny

[Summerbreezing]

The ones where the couple want a house 'full of character', so Kirstie shows them a quirky cottage, a cleverly restored barn, and an old mellow farmhouse; which are all rejected on the grounds of 'too near the road', 'not enough garden', 'nowhere to store our six racing bikes' etc.

The couple then go off and 'discover' a three bedroom semi in a gated development at the edge of the village, put in a 'cheeky offer' and buy it. A few months later Kirstie has to go around for a visit and ooh and aah at their John Lewis sofa and homebase cushions and decking out the back and tell them how 'clever' they've been and how the made 'the decision that was right for them', and all the time you can almost see the bubble over her head thinking "WTF? . That lovely cottage was twenty grand less that this boring box".

Disclaimer: Can't afford to live in beautiful old farmhouse with antique furniture myself so not mocking semis and homebase. But I just saw a repeat of one of those programmes and it made me smile.

The American Kitchen Nightmares ones are the best.

I was watching one the other day with a couple. Pretty much everything was sent back to the kitchen as inedible but the man was too scared to tell his wife so the staff sneaked it all into the bin behind her back so she thought her food was amazing. She just wouldn't accept criticism.

Gordon mentioned that they'd had something like 50 staff members through the doors in 6 months and she was like no, no, that's not true and her husband piped up, well actually, it's more like 100

It was fabulous telly.

was that the one they chucked gordon out in the end or was that a bakery they asked him to leave

Yes to all of these. I'm also a bit at grand designs.

It's always someone wanting an old barn/mill/lighthouse. Which they want to rip one side out of and install floor to ceiling windows so they can 'feel like they're part of the landscape'

And get rid of the original beams so they can replace them with metal girders to get that 'modern industrial meets rustic aesthetic'.

I feel really sorry for the poor listed buildings.

Grand designs goes like this:

Couple have a large amount of money to build a house
Start building house but plans get delayed and it starts raining before they've got the roof on.
Couple fall out with builder
Couple run out of money
Couple have a baby (despite having no money)
Couple find another builder and plans get going again
Conveniently borrow large amounts of money from family
House is finished
Kevin McCloud says how much he likes it despite hating it previously

Happens in real life too. Some people are scared of anything but a concrete box with poky square rooms and a postage stamp garden cheaply built by a big developer. Low maintenance, you see...

Mrsjayy it was this one

Not a location fan. It's too scripted, fake tension and a need to create a story. I prefer escape to the country because no judgements are made about the homebuyers, they just show them property.
What I hate hate are the fillers and precaps. I don't wantto see clips of the houses until that part of the programme.

I'm convinced that a large number of people on those relocation shows aren't seriously house hunting, they just want to be on TV. In fact I'm pretty sure I have seen one or two people appear on a couple of different shows looking for different things.

I love Grand Designs too. The people on it come out with all this gobble-de-gook about innovation and cutting edge techniques and then build a white box with 1 glass wall.

And I love George "I'm worried" Clarke

I'm convinced that Kevin is up to no good with the Grand designs wives and he's running around making an army of mini Kevs with his super sperm.

My husband loves grand designs so he can slate them cottage at the front office block at the back is his favourite saying what is with all the floor to ceilin g glass does it not got hot oh and the streakyness when they are not washed properly I can't bare watching it they are so pretentious, and up to their eyeballs in debt till their grandchildren are having their own babies

thats the one Stinkie she was a loon and very scary

oh about the streaky windows maybe that is just mine and folk are able to wash their windows properly

I think Kirstie is quite adept at sussing out who is really up for a 'project' and who has just seen a few interior design programmes and thinks 'renovation' just means turning a fusty old 1970s dining room into a funky family room by taking up carpets, stripping wallpaper and changing the curtains.

With the latter you can almost see her smiling wickedly to herself as she marches them around neglected, falling apart tips and starts talking about 'vision' and knocking down walls and moving kitchens. The couple go quieter and quieter and eventually Kirstie takes pity on them and says 'you know, I don't really think this is the time for you to be taking on a project. You've got a lot on your plate organising a wedding, blah blah blah', and the relieved couple go 'Hmmm, yes maybe you're right. Maybe in a few years time' .... and leg it to the nearest walk-in-condition- 3 be semi from which they have no intention of ever budging again.

faye you are right if you watch enough of these programmes faces start to appear familiar

nochips, the one with the massively detailed list of requirements and they rejected over a new, invented problem of the house having only one road leading to it was the best one ever. I really wanted Kirstie to go postal.

I suspect sometimes they have found the house that they want to buy in-between applying to go on the show and being on it, hence the silly excuses and random purchases that are revealed in the follow-up.

Although my favourite is the one that has someone I used to fancy when I was at school in it, not repeated enough in my opinion probably because they were both really nice and bought a lovely flat that Kirsty approved of!

Which one was that msmoss?

Does anyone have a youtube link to crazy only one road lady?

It's the wanting to keep chickens that makes me larf. Almost every program of Move To The Country or whatever it's called and one of the tick boxes is somewhere to keep chickens. I keep mine in the freezer where the fox/mink/neighbours dog can't get them.

I saw one where it was 2 posh twats men, wanted something full of architecture and had a 500k budget. They had looked at loads. Phil showed them some including a church that could be converted and the slightly more posh twat man refused to even go near the door saying how he could never desecrate a church etc etc. His partner seemed really keen as well, I felt quite sorry for him.

Then Phil found them a big Victorian and they decided they wanted to buy it, do it up then sell it on. The look on Phil's face was incredulous! You could tell he was thinking "why the fuck have a wasted my time trying to find you a home and now you want to do it up and sell it" I bet he was really pleased when their stupidly low offer was rejected and they had to give up on that town and look somewhere else.

Downsizing in tellyspeak means tons of room and features like a boot room and majestic views yet incredibly private but lacking maybe one attic bedroom they had in their previous property.

Oh, and as a bonus, preferably loads of outbuildings ready to be transformed into buckets-of-cash-generating holiday lets. Perhaps space for a pair of llamas too.

nochips, the one with the massively detailed list of requirements and they rejected over a new, invented problem of the house having only one road leading to it was the best one ever. I really wanted Kirstie to go postal.

Judging by her face I think they probably had to restrain her once the cameras had stopped filming!

I also remember one where a v. fussy couple wanted 'fabulous views' Phil showed them this beautiful house with amazing views over the surrounding fields and the man just said 'Views are a bit boring, just green fields' .Even the ever patient Phil seemed to be having trouble keeping control of his inner Basil Fawlty (What do you expect to see out of a Torquay hotel room? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? )

Great entertainment though.

Yes to all of these! Build a fricking outbuilding for your bikes/cars/pottery hobby!

Don't buy a house you have to stoop in!

My DH was disappointed the other day the GD episode only had a couple of clichés. Obviously it went 100k over budget, the bloke had to do a lot of the work himself, the bespoke measurements were wrong but no one got pregnant, the woman didn't leave her job in something arty to project manage for the first time and no builders got sacked.

Where do people get their huge budgets from? Why does downsizing not actually result in a significantly smaller house? What's the obsession with keeping chickens?

Still watch LLL, Escape to the country & GD though

Do you think these people ever watch themselves afterwards and think "oh my god, I was such a knob, I'll have to leave the country"?

I love LLL / Relocation. I enjoy the relationship between Phil and Kirsty, that they will (especially Kirsty) give the buyers a reality check and the fact that the vast majority of buyers do actually buy.

Escape to the Country / Continent OTOH...aaarrrghhh! I've only ever seen two episodes where someone actually bought one of the properties they were shown. Although I do enjoy the 'mystery house' segment - the sheer wtf-ery of showing them a 3-bed semi-detached converted 18th Century chapel when their brief was a 4-bed detached modern house. I'm all for keeping an open mind but there's challenging what they think they want and ignoring their wish list altogether!