Poundland is a symbol of the real Notting Hill

Sebastian Shakespeare
5 Feb 2010

My heart sank this week when I heard that Channel 4's Big Brother is set to be replaced by new docu-soap Notting Hill. While we may all be glad to see the back of Big Brother, the new programme only filled me with dread.

Maybe it is because I am a local. The show plans to follow about 10 "highly engaging" members of the public as they go about their ordinary lives in W11 and it will be a "real-life" soap in weekly instalments.

Tens of thousands of people will also appear as extras, promise the producers. Help! Lock up your daughters! Batten down the hatches! I live on the shabby fringes of Notting Hill and I don't want to appear in a docu-soap, thank you very much.

It will bear no relation to reality. Anybody who participates in a TV documentary, let alone a docu-soap, knows how contrived the whole business is: the camera inevitably distorts people's behaviour.

"Not only can the camera lie: it always lies," as Malcolm Muggeridge warned. Witness the television deceptions that have taken place in the past decade.

As if poor Notting Hill hasn't suffered enough from fictional misrepresentation. The most laughable aspect of Richard Curtis's 1995 film, Notting Hill, was that it didn't feature any black people (nor did it feature the Notting Hill carnival). Hugh Grant fell in love with Julia Roberts among a cast of all-white professionals.

So much for verisimilitude! This was a romantic fantasy. But, in its favour, at least it didn't claim to be a docu-soap.

Notting Hill has become a symbol rather than a postcode. Just as Islington came to be seen as the spiritual home of guacamole-loving New Labourites, so Notting Hill is perceived (abroad at least) as the funky heart of brash, trendy, ethnically diverse, metropolitan London. Oh yes, and it's often cited as the home of achingly trendy Tory leader David Cameron.

The truth, of course, is rather different. It was home to the 21 July bombers - and Dave doesn't even live in Notting Hill, but resides in North Kensington.

When asked why he lived in Notting Hill all those years ago, Richard Curtis replied, because it had a good branch of Woolworths. Not any more, it doesn't. Woolies in Portobello Road has been replaced by Poundland.

That tells you more about Notting Hill than any docusoap will. There's Poundland and million-pound land - and the gap between the two is as wide as ever.

When it comes, treat the new Channel 4 docu-soap as entertainment but don't be deceived into thinking it's the real thing. Cos it ain't. It could prove to be just as artificial in its own way as Big Brother.

The perfect poet for Oxford

Africa's first Nobel literary laureate, Wole Soyinka, has this week described England as "a cesspit" and a breeding ground for fundamentalist Muslims. You may or may not agree with his sentiments but surely he is the perfect candidate for the Oxford professorship of poetry?

Ever since last May, when Nobel laureate Derek Walcott withdrew his candidacy after sexual harassment claims and replacement Ruth Padel resigned after just 10 days, having admitting tainting her rival, there has been a dearth of suitable volunteers for the post.

Soyinka is a splendid poet, a connoisseur of fine wine and he has the funkiest hair in the literary establishment. He's got my vote. Now all we have to do is persuade him to stand.

Enough gush, get Bragg back with the Beeb

The final South Bank Show Awards ceremony, broadcast last Sunday, was the apotheosis of luvviedom. Who should walk off with the outstanding achievement award but, er, Lord Bragg himself, amid gushing tributes from his celebrity chums. I yield to nobody in my admiration for Lord Bragg but this spectacle did no one any favours.

It was all rather too cosy and played right into ITV's hands. Celebrity after celebrity queued up to denounce ITV on air for dropping the show but nobody, as far as I recall, thanked the broadcaster for sticking with the SBS for more than 32 years.

I would personally like Lord Bragg - and his show - to be airlifted to the BBC, if only Alan Yentob could stomach it. At least that would make amends for dumping him as the presenter of Radio 4's Start the Week. That job was deemed incompatible with his Labour peerage. Yet Lord Sugar, the Government's enterprise tsar, is perfectly at liberty to carry on presenting BBC1's The Apprentice. What is the Apprentice if not politics in action?

The gym is my true indulgence

Hooray! Exercise is a waste of time, according to a new report. About 20 per cent of the population gain no significant benefit from regular exercise: researchers claim that the health benefits of aerobic exercise are determined by our genes.

Does this mean I will now cancel my (expensive) Virgin Active gym membership pronto? Hell, no. I manage to get to the gym only once a week as it is, so going to the gym now will be less a boring chore and even more of an indulgence.