Made in Chelsea Rehab

The True Story of How I Fell Into Addiction and Nearly Ruined my Domestic Life

Some people will find it hard to believe, but until recently I was a reality TV virgin.  I lived in a France, a media backwater.  One day, on a whim, my husband and I exchanged our television for a rectangular Zen lamp which looked  like a television.  This lasted for seven years.

When we did get a small television, we had no cable, no satellite, and no time to watch it.  When the children started to grow up, still, somehow, watch-for-free internet TV passed me by.

It started after my son installed Ex Pat Shield on my computer.  For 15 years I had not touched English television, I hadn't even wanted to, but now I could finally access English TV channels.   At first it was under control, Young Drs and Houses under the Hammer from time to time, it didn't interfere with my normal life.    But then Channel 4 became available and I could watch a whole range of fly on the wall documentaries and fly on the wall documentary-style comedies.  It wasn't long before I was looking for something stronger, and one evening I decided to try Made in Chelsea.

The rush was immediate:  these people were actually acting out a pantomime of their own lives!  I was immediately hooked on the camera angles at eye level with back-lit champagne glasses, the polished appearances, the sheer, seemless vanity, the savage bitchery under the heading  'obviously I didn't want to hurt you...' and the ultimate condemnation of bad bahaviour:   "not cool.".

Bird of prey

My desire to find out when Caggie and Spencer would get together was enough to keep me going back for 3 seasons.  When they kissed the sheer raw intimacy brought tears to my eyes. ( My person theory is that off-screen they are married with two kids and just pretending to be split up and off the rails).  Soon I could barely manage to hoover the stairs before having 'a little rest' in front of Made in Chelsea and I was buying my husband take-away meals and passing them off as home cooked so I could watch"just one more episode."

It's hard to explain, but when I did tear myself away from the screen, I was still feeling spaced out and rather strange - I  hadn't totally left Chelsea behind.  It was as though my life wasn't real, and Made in Chelsea was, and I know it sounds stupid, but on some level I believed I was part of the show.  I talked to the characters as if I knew them.  When I wasn't actually watching them on TV, their faces and their intimate lives performed upon my inward eye.  In my own personal Inner Reality Show, I had 'feelings for', 'fancied' or was 'really gud friends yah' with all the boys.  The bit where Fredrik was 'hanging out in the park' topless was the thrill highlight of my year.  I imagined that my hair was long and glossy, my legs were long and limp, that I too could catwalk hanging on the arm of an expensive handbag.   (This has even resulted in some rather inappropriate wardrobe additions).  I half expected to be texted the details of a date on my (non-existant) mobile phone, or to be invited to join the girls as they trailed the rails of the Glamour Magazine fashion cupboard in search of 'something to wear' for an exciting event.  My accent went up a couple of notches on the social scale.  The truth is I'm nearly fifty, overweight, married with two children and have not been invited to a party since 1998. I had to face it;  I was living vicariously through this show.

It was for me utterly spellbinding to see what happens to people with the money influence and the leisure time to do what they want, buying themselves out of their problems and failing to learn from them, and I'm beginning to realise that similar people are running the country.

Please don't wax your chests

I'm pretty certain that by the time they are 35 the lifestyle of drink and indolence will have wrecked their looks.  I see the beginnings of noses and necks thickened and red,  mouths and bellies slack, eyes pouchy and  faces bitter, and I know that even the most expensive surgical intervention couldn't put them back together again, but still I'm a believer.  I'm still consumed by questions such as:   why do they tell their secrets and bitch about their friends, in front of the camera, and then seem genuinely shocked that their secret is out?

Nowadays I do realise I have a problem and I have cut down.  I've started cooking again and the stairs are clean.  But I know that now I've tried it, the temptation will always be there.  I try not to think about it, but I'm asking myself:  what will I do when I reach the end of season 4?

It's a bit awkward.

It's lame.