F
ew television programmes can be as depressingly upbeat as Homes under the Hammer. It’s not the dated music, formulaic structure or the cheesy, lobotomised chirpiness of its presenters.
It’s the fact that, every weekday morning, for 1,000 episodes now, it has nonchalantly exposed the glaring absurdity at the heart of UK economy, apparently without even realising.
I’m not suggesting that a daytime TV show is responsible for the housing crisis. But Homes under the Hammer did start in 2003, which, coincidentally, was roughly when the UK property market finally ceased contact with objective reality, consigning a generation to insecure renting.