Oh, the Shame ...

Once again I am gripped by febrile guilty interest in something I know I shouldn't be watching. This one is called "Vanity Lair" and it is on T4 Sunday at lunchtime (when people of my age should be serving up crispy roasts to ungrateful oiky children of their own genetic stamp.)

There are ten self-selected "beautiful people" who sit around wanting to shag each other in a mild sort of way, but are prevented by their own all-absorbing narcissism, a series of "tests" of their attractiveness, and the fact that each week they have two new auditionees, of whom one will stay, duly choosing who to evict to make room for them. So either they shag everyone or no one.

The show claims it will test "what is most attractive", and advertises a hope that qualities other than the skindeep will emerge victorious. What currently looks like it will emerge victorious is having a penis. Already the group has chosen to take in a man, and he has chosen to evict a woman, leaving the group 6:4 male. The boys and the girls like men - boys because they're the elite, like themselves, girls because they dislike other girls for being shallow and vain, like themselves. Within a very few weeks, that will be a very boy heavy house.


When I first stumbled across it, I thought it was a remake of that film where nobody can leave the dinner party; they are rather creepy. My impression was not altered by the fact that when their faces were tested for symmetry the boy whose face was least symmetrical left the dinner table for the toilet and retched. It was the most extraordinary display of distress. Not for the first time, I wondered if Channel 4 has Gone Too Far. Obviously the person concerned is vapid beyond the wildest wet-dreams of Heat magazine, but the fact that he was genuinely upset fascinated me. He has no sense of self beyond his floppy hair. He doesn't even realise it. I genuinely wondered if he should be on show, because surely believing you are only as good as your hair-do indicates that the balance of your mind is disturbed.

Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I am eccentric because I don't think my value as a human is dependent on the floppiness of my hair. Maybe I shall be watching next week.