It's been a tough few weeks for the digital TV industry here in the UK. Firstly, the 'ring and win' channel ITV Play was heavily censured for misleading viewers. Basically, they pose a query - in this case 'Name an item commonly found in a woman's handbag', and you phone in to guess the answers, some of which will win cash prizes. The example they gave was 'mobile phone' - and viewers started to add their guesses - at 75p a time - along the lines of keys, makeup, diary etc. Trouble was, the answers turned out to be 'plane tickets, ibuprofen, dog, mittens, driving licence, contact lenses, umbrella, elastic band, false teeth, dog biscuits, directions, balaclava, and Rawlplugs'. Amazingly the first seven of these were guessed correctly, but miffed viewers complained to the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, who ruled that ITV’s solutions “were not reasonable answers to what appeared to be a straightforward question”.
Then last week customers of the newly hyped Virgin Media service had some of their channels blanked from their (paid) subscriptions, because of a long-running feud between Virgin and Sky. Licensing agreements couldn't be reached, so Sky took their ball home with them and removed the content from Virgin's cable package - effectively pulling the plug on thousands of households who had already forked out money for a guaranteed service. However, this was soon brushed aside as a few days later another TV storm broke, when several leading premium rate phone ins were taken off the air as it was revealed some channels ran 'live' competitions that had been pre-recorded, so viewers calling in their answers were competing in competitions that didn't exist. One of the guilty parties was ITV Play, which was hurriedly pulled off the air.
So what's going on with digital telly? Surely this never happened in the days of only four channels. Back then, you actually had to change programmes by physically getting up and walking over to the telly to push the button. Apart from my Uncle Pete, who bought a ten foot length of cane from a garden centre, pushed a cork on the end, and used it to prod the telly from across the room (it was also perfect for prodding my brother). Today, the 'original four' - or three if you remember prior to 1982 when C4 started - have spread into dozens of others - BBC3, BBC4, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, ITV Play (although not at the time of writing), E4, E4+1 (E5?), More 4, More 4+1 (More 5?). Not to mention the new competition, the channels from other providers that languish at the higher end of the Freeview listings (we don't have cable, or anything fancy). Are any of these actually worth watching?
A few days ago I conducted a small experiment. Between 8-9pm I randomly chose a high numbered channel, and sat through an entire hour of primetime television output, to see if really there was anything to grab the attention. I don't know what I was expecting, but if the TV producers out there are regularly chucking out the standard of programme I watched, then I can only salute them, as it was truly brilliant. I chose number 22, which turned out to be the 'Ideal World Channel', of which I had never heard. For a solid hour of open-mouthed amazement, I observed 'Ironing Solutions with Laura Star, hosted by Dean Wilson'. It was sixty minutes (plus commercials - all of which were about Ideal World's products) of two men trying to flog irons.
But no ordinary iron! (which was pretty much their prime selling point) - the LauraStar Steamax G2, with 3.5bar Swiss steam generator, multi-directional soleplate (with optional pressing soleplate), and a whopping 0.8dl boiler. Yours for a penny under £190. The show was hosted by an incredibly cheerful ironing fetishist called Dean Wilson - his bio on the official Ideal World website (yes, I looked it up) says 'Dean has been presenting live TV for 12 years and, with his unique style and cheeky approach to life, he likes to bring a smile to the faces of the viewers.' Indeed. His job was to coax us smiling viewers to parting with the cash by prompting the 'expert' into demonstrations of the iron's stunning performance. That particular expert was a bloke called Ray - and if Dean quite liked ironing, let's just say Ray probably has prefect pleats in his sexual organs.*
"I'm ex-army and I'm ex-navy and I want creases down my shirts," he said at one point, causing me to hestitate in poking fun at him. Do the armed forces have a laundry division? I suppose navy uniforms can get heavily stained.** Ray quickly got to work, steaming a selection of creased garments, some of which were crumpled by the able Dean beforehand - like when an escapologist gets a punter to check that the padlocks are real before slipping them off. In one instance, he held up a blue shirt, saying "When you get off a plane, this is what your clothes look like," before swiftly skimming the iron over a garment that looked like it had been trampled by a herd of elephants. He solemnly explained how the Steamax G2 tackled the 'three D's of ironing' - Dark (it avoids the unwanted shine effect), Delicates (causing Dean to squawk 'You can't iron that!' as he brought out a spangly chiffon sari - which of them it belonged to was never revealed), and Don't Know (as in 'I don't know if I can iron this').
It was a revelation. With this product, no longer do you have to turn things inside out to iron them. The reason being, the steam is cold - which Ray demonstrated by pointing the thing at his face and calmly blasting a jet of vapour at himself, as Dean hurriedly shouted "Do not try this at home, folks!!!". He also became something of the philosopher - "You've got to iron for the rest of your life whether you like it or not," - obviously his dual-service combat laundry experience has given him a reflective outlook. My response to that point would be 'not if the iron stays in the cupboard', but it was Dean who continually nudged us along into thinking our lives couldn't possibly be complete without this product. "I'm really passionate about this - I usually spend an hour a week at my ironing board, it took me fifteen minutes to do these jeans!", he explained, probably trying to curry favour with Ray.
For a solid hour they badgered away with this, steaming creases into pillowcases while admonishing the UK for their lax ironing standards - "Some people don't iron their duvet covers, Ray!" "I know, Dean. I know." The stock flew off the unseen shelves, in fact at one point they added extra stock - strictly against Ideal World regulations! "I don't normally do this, you know," said Dean, almost believably. They shifted the lot (although it was never revealed how many they originally had), even when at one hilarious moment, Dean pointed out to Ray that he had missed a bit and left a lapel wrinkled - "Yes, yes - but I'm doing it quickly, aren't I?" he snapped, tossing the jacket off-screen before they could get a closeup of it. So did I ring up and order one? No, of course not. But then I was busy on the phone anyway. I've got to keep my place in the queue for when ITV Play comes back on the air. I'm going to answer Rawlplugs to every question...
* or rather, Ray allegedly has prefect pleats in his sexual organs.
** Feel free to add your own joke at this point.
Idealworld.tv
Laura Star UK
