BBC1 "Antiques Road Trip" fans : ALERT

wtf

Vulture Capitalism at its peerless best.

l saw that alun, quite amazing a bargain buy fetched 20grand!

Incredible! A real heartwarming Del Boy moment.

Got to spare a thought for the poor old shopkeeper though. And the robbing bar stewards who took nearly four grand off Children In Need with their commission. It was a record for a general sale - imagine if it went into a specialist camera sale in London!

One thing puzzles me -- isn't this the same as Bargain Hunt: buy from shops to sell at auction?


Well, it's like this. 'Bargain Hunt' is a bit like League Division 3 of the UK football set-up, whereas 'Antiques Road Trip' is the Champions League.  (Ignore 'Celebrity Antiques Road trip' though at all costs btw).

A few years ago I did publish a helpful 'Cut Out And Keep' guide to the rules of 'Antiques Road Trip' for any newcomers, so this seems like an opportune home to copy and paste here

RULES

1. The competitors are 12 of the UK's leading Highwaymen, but disguised as respectable Antiques Experts/Dealers. 

2. Each Highwayman is given 200 quid working capital by the BBC, cuts or no cuts.

3. They are sent around the country in pairs, to terrorise the owners and staff of Antiques Shops, and bully them into parting with valuable objets d'art, at prices way below market value.

4. If the shop owners refuse to play ball, the Highwaymen are given carte blanche to bully them into selling, or even giving away the items for free.

5.  The bullying process normally starts with bit of verbal GBH, and then maybe a few big vases mysteriously fall off shelves, smashing into a thousand pieces. This is always accompanied by a cheery voiceover.   

6.  If the shop owners still don't get the picture, the normal next step is for the Highwaymen to give the owner a good shoeing in front of their wives and kids.   

7. One other innovation they should perhaps consider in future is to then put the shop owner in the stocks, while his wife and daughters are then in turn bent over a desk, with their nighties lifted up around their waists, to enable the inevitable humiliation to be completed. Maybe they already do that in the Mexican version of the show?         

8.  Particularly stubborn owners are given heavier treatment, starting with having their windows smashed during the night.     

9.  The last resort is for the shop to be burned down, and quite rightly too in my opinion. (This is ALWAYS a popular move with fans of the programme, and also gets a rousing cheer from the locals who turn out in their thousands to watch the fun, sometimes forming a torchlight parade, shouting BURN ! BURN ! BURN !). 

10. Once the shop lies in charred ruins, the owners usually give up, resistance having proved futile. Thankfully the police usually frogmarch them out of town, and warn them to never return.       

11. With the various antiques they have collected on their travels, the Highwaymen then go to an auction to sell their items, trying to make a profit on each item.

12. In an exciting innovation to the 2011 World Championships, the Highwaymen are now also allowed to coerce the punters into bidding for the items in the auction rooms. The usual process involves verbal intimidation, then maybe prodding the punters with pointy sticks, but can escalate further still when the selling action is too slow. I’m encouraged to be able to report that some elderly types with more money than sense have gone home with broken bones.   

13. At the end of the 6 weeks, the total profits are calculated, and eventually we get an overall leader board. The Highwayman making the most profit is declared World Champion. (Tragically, the days of the play-off round are long gone, as the ultra-violence that accompanied it was regrettably deemed unacceptable. It is believed that various sensitive viewers living illegally on Essex campsites, for example, might have taken pretendy offence and calld in the United Nations or simply a few shameless No Win No Fee Human Rights Lawyers).   

Now it's just possible that, through sheer excitement, I have got one or two of the rules mixed up with those of my other current favourite programme ('The Sky's The Limit' starring Hughie Green). I may have even exaggerated a few rules just from being completely drunk on a combination of Stolichnaya, petrol fumes, and the adrenalin rush this exhilarating event always brings. Still, I'm sure you now have a rough idea of how this most dignified and revered of sports spectaculars operates.

Hope this helps. Have a good day.

Alun : Great stuff !
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Is Britain running out of decent old stuff?  Fiona Bruce, is now facing an existential crisis. As she wanders around the country with her team of experts, Bruce is finding that people are turning up with nothing but rubbish. Middle England is emptying its loft of ordure before queueing up outside Blenheim Palace, clutching pointless candlesticks and vases.

“There are definitely fewer really stonkingly good objects on the Roadshow,” says ceramics expert David Battie, “which is inevitable given that we’ve been going for 40 years, sucking them in like a vacuum cleaner.”

The awful truth is that Antiques Roadshow is going to have to take the Simon Cowell route – pad the show out by including long, acidly derisive introductory segments with the no-hopers and the pathetic losers.

Fiona and the team will sit behind a trestle table and roll their eyes, the way Simon, Louis et al once winced as that woman sang YMCA off-key with weird dance moves.

When some retired colonel shows up with his mahogany commode, Fiona is going to have to lay a gentle hand on his shoulder and purr: “Really, colonel? Seriously? There’s only one thing to be done with that item, and I can’t do it on the air before 9pm.”

I'm surprised you managed to save a file 6 years, I usually lose all mine when my computer kicks the bucket.....

....reminds me ....got to do that back up....soon !