Castles in the Air

Hooray, new Grand Designs tonight. The Radio Times online says:

" Francis and Karen love castles so much that they had a castle-shaped wedding cake. So it's an obvious step for them to sink all their money into buying and restoring a ruined medieval castle in the Yorkshire Dales. But boy, oh boy, the problems. The couple need ancient monument approval - the "grandaddy of planning permissions" according to presenter Kevin McCloud - as well as hugely expensive archaeological surveys. Then a crucial wall falls down, it starts to snow and it looks as if all is lost. Francis and Karen's heroic task swallows money at every turn, yet they never give up hope. Soon you'll be willing them on in the classic Grand Designs tradition. It's a brilliant television formula that works every time - the doom and desperation when things start badly, the almost coquettish teasing when things pick up, then . . . well, you know the rest. In its own quiet way, this is as gripping as any Hollywood disaster movie."

Splendid. I shall have to miss the Ally McBeal re-runs on TMF. One of these days I will do a Grand Design. And if you think I'm mad, it looks fairly likely that my brother really is going to do so, despite the reasonings of his siblings and siblings-in-law, unless his long-suffering wife pulls the plug.

I spent most of today on a train to Leeds and back. There are worse ways to earn a crust when you have a dose of flu.

ETA: bad signs: when they're admitting to naivité and thinking about selling the place shortly after the first advert break. Before they've even obtained permissions, let alone done any work, but after contracting the stonemasons...

ETFA: and then it fell down. Or at least, a lot of it did.

Final thoughts: wow. What a building. And what a budget overrun...