Reality Check

I am a sucker for those makeover reality programmes like Brat camp,Supernanny,You are WhatYou eat with that mad Scottish woman harranguing hectoring and baiting her victims to change their diet -and latest addition the marvellous Victoria Stillwell with her dog owner training programme on ch 4.Because of course it is really all about the dog owners,not the dog;the parents,not the children.

There is a lingering suspicion in my mind that when the cameras leave all the participants revert back to type:the children start acting up and the dogs start shitting on the carpet, but that is the cynic in me.

In Brat camp the miscreant females are flown out to Utah and after a while in the dessert slowly appear to undergo a miraculous transformation -or at least some of them.When they get back to Blighty,they become subject to the old temptations,the pull of environment and go back into drugs and smoking.Recognising this two of them elected to go back to Utah to that safer envirinment without all the temptations their immature selves are subject to.One mother was even selling her house to pay for her daughter's return.No more touching committment than that.

Most of these young girls are stoned,abusive,violent and most shocking of all from 'respectable'middle class homes.Apparently thousands of parents have put their children forward as future candidates for this experiment.What is going on in our society?The middleclasses are descending into Chavery.