Did anyone watch Grand Designs last night?

And then they conned her out of £300000.

Very poor.

Did anyone else see that "How To Rescue A House" on BBC2 earlier in the evening? THat was even sadder? It was supposed to be about buying and restoring derelict listed properties. And in the end, the couple missed out on the house they fell in love with because it was sold to a developer who was going to use the land to build TEN NEW HOUSES and not bother with restoring the listed house.

Did Kevin look supercilliously at them, and point this out?

they also seemed to have dumbed the program down a lot. in the first series they'd've explaned how the laser guided plumbline thing worked. see also: scrapheap challenge.

i dont get it

they also had a space age staircase of glass planks poking out of the wall (cantilevered) and it looked like they were going to have no banister for a while. in the end they had a glass wall boxing the stairs in in place of a banister and (hopefully) stopping young children from falling off the sides and caving their heads in.

the aquarium was impressive.

and the laser plumbline was more of a laser measuring thing complete with it's own tripod, for locating walls and beams and stuff to within a 3mm tolerance (which sounded low but which is quite high for this kind of stuff)

The staircase without a ballustrade I find more worrying, though. I'm an adult, and I'd have THE FEAR walking up one.

saw the second of the Castleford regeneration programs last night (missed the first). was depressing. people not listening to people, vandalism, bribery, ugly monoliths...

http://www.channel4.com/4homes/on-tv/kevin-s-big-town-plan/?intcmp=docpage_box3

this motherfucker tonight made my blood boil, i fervently hope he's penniless, miserable alone and itchy tonight wherever the fuck he is

just awful. kevin mcloud is a better man than me.

awful awful awful, right down to the martyred siege mentality so prevalent amongst the most shining examples of celtic tiger idiocy. I couldn't even enjoy the inevitable, seething as i was in a mental red mist of 'I'M PAYING FOR THIS YOU PRICK I'M PAYING FOR THIS YOU PRICK' i may write to the producers demanding a less sympathetic summation from a finnish economist

the irish guy was a bit ridic - basically eschewing plans and drawings in favour of blarney.

i did like the plywood box house, specifically the way they had a laser cutter on site and could tweak things as required (fortunately given that they'd overlooked stuff. lol, fine art students...)

his sunday night show is a bit of fluff though, the kind of thing dick strawbridge would present...

otm the plywood was neat

sunday night show is increasingly icky. dogshit and deer brains tonight.

horrible woman

dreadful! And the place looked like an orgy of mobile homes.

a must-see huh?

I kind of applaud them for sticking to their contemporary guns int eh face of all the old white privilege "though shalt not enter the 20th century" bullshit, but at the same time I wish they'd just built something a litte more subtle: so many of the contemporary / modernist boxes they build on GD are so bloody large that they don't ever seem clever or imbued with personality. I'm always far more impressed by the ones they build on tiny, awkward plots - and whilst this was a relatively awkward plot, they still stuck a 3-storey mobile-home-orgy (great description!) on it.

what got me is how the neighbours hated the idea of anything new but seemed to be ok with the rotting carcass that was there before. and the new one seemed to overhang the river less - better for the neighbours.

am guessing the feelings around that neck of the woods are running a bit higher after the program has aired...

also, lol at ex-husband demolishing the old house and then moving away

How have I never posted on this thread before? I love GD. We had a fridge magnet of Kevin for about 4 years ffs. I own one of his books.

i agree, SM, it's not that the riverfront didn't need relief from the stuffy archetype, i just didn't think the couple did it with any grace nor flair. The build wouldn't have fitted in anywhere, really.

Think that kevin has been cheerleading increasingly indefensible projects this series, which might make for better 'tv' but hasn't improved the show imo

It was an interesting build, but only for the difficulty of the plot and the little elements of teutonic perfection in the execution of eg fired clay exterior (not enough of this vs 'let's interview another dreadful entitled rich person')

this programme is turning me into a marxist

steady on

i mean i'm having visions of a higher rate of tax of i dunno 90%

it was good enough for my parents

spent 380k on tower, quotes on build brings it over a million

a friend let them half a mil

what do the ppl on grand designs do? we need to be told. roscommon cunt still has me clenching in rage

> what do the ppl on grand designs do?

"property portfolio"

hmm yeah

i mean gluck to him but really let's have a proper 'ten years on' follow up on these ppl where they live in the bahamas having given up the house to the bank with 2m arrears owed, kvetching about how the suits just 'didn't understand their vision, the brutes'

last two have both been loads of money with disappointing (imo) results. yes, the view was nice in that first one, but the rooms were all smaller than average - throw a party for more than 30 people and it'll have to spread over at least 2 floors.

what's more interesting, to me, is George Clarke's Amazing Spaces on tuesdays where people are doing small things on 4 or 5 figure budgets, not 7. (that said, programme itself is a bit of a mongrel - following one project, highlighting others and doing one himself - so you end up with not much detail on anything)

i think that the new turn gd has taken is somewhat samey, offputting and boring- unlimited cash budgets funding 'i'm so individual' brats.

Last night's turned out better than expected, but tbh it was like clocking a game on cheat mode with all the money involved. And kevin was just trolling in overemphasising the lighting aspects throughout, coming over all amazed at the end when they solved it by putting in.....lights. Seriously, didn't see that coming?

These people are spending huge money on vanity projects, which, fair enough, has almost always been the MO of the programme. But they are all booooring, identikit superprivileged who want to get on grand designs.

and SO MANY lights. i'd hate their lecky bills.

unpleasant and unnecessary? kevin mccloud?

i have seen it now. yikes.

i like the new afters show that goes into more detail. and the prefab build was nice and smooth, to the point of being uninteresting.

new presenter on GD Australia not as good though.