Wife Swap anyone?

Let's all laugh at poor people and their funny little ways. Yep! Wife Swap is back. We (the 'one up from house' resolutely middle class brigade) watch this and other programmes like it and kid ourselves that we are fascinated by them as intriguing social experiments. We observe that maybe we will learn something about our own prejudices, reflect on them and change for the better.

Change my arse ... WE don't need to change. It's THEM who need to change. We watch it in the faint hope that these people will also be sitting in watching it and thinking 'How could I have said that'. But we know that they will actually be cheering so loudly in support of their own meaningless twaddle and ludicrous behaviour that they won't actually hear anything they said at all.

We despair as they grapple desperatly to find the words to articulate how they feel and somehow end up finding the word 'fuck' every time. We sigh as their 'urchin' offspring desribe mum as 'more like a friend than a parent' and reel in horror as they support their incredulously weak arguments with 'I read it in the daily mail'.

Like most in the middle class I consider myself better than these people, more tolerant, more open minded, more intelligent, more articulate. Am I? well....no...we both see the world in terms of 'them' and 'us' only for me, they are 'them' and for them 'they' are....well...maybe us, but then again maybe just anyone born outside the shores of 'our' green and pleasent land!

In the words of George Orwell "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" (I read that in a book)
Channel 4 Tuesday 9pm - watch, laugh and feel good about yourself....after all, your accident of birth earned you that right...right!