Tonight's TV
Heir apparent
Heir Hunters (BBC1, 9.15am);
Sun, Sea And Bargain Spotting
(BBC1, 11.30am);
Good Bid, Good Buy (ITV1, 2pm)
Daily Cooks Challenge (ITV1, 3pm) EVERY Thursday, the Treasury
releases a list of unclaimed
estates, left by people
who've died without
making wills. If there are no
heirs, then the government
takes it all. A nice little earner, with unclaimed
estates of half a million pounds
knocking around.
That's why Neil Fraser is there every
week, to look at the Treasury list. His
company are heir hunters and it becomes
apparent that this heir today, gone tomorrow
business is a good one.
He's competing against other heir
hunters to be first to find family connections
and give the good news to relatives
likely to benefit. For a fee, presumably. I
didn't hear much being made of that aspect,
although there's talk about signing
up the inheritors before the competition
comes knocking.
Heir Hunters can't help but appeal to
the greedy side of people. And with some
family history thrown in, you have an
ideal daytime programme - cheap, cheerful
and mildly informative.
Spinster Rose Lillian Atkins died aged
85, leaving an estate of £33,000, an
amount that falls at the lowest end of
cases Fraser & Fraser handle.
Agents are sent off to Liverpool to collect
birth certificates. Eventually a niece
is found. She stands to inherit a third of
the estate but is reluctant to sign up with
Fraser immediately. A wise woman to
consider all her options. Couldn't she just
cut out the middle man, go to the Treasury
and demand her share of the estate?
There's also the cautionary tale of the
man who left £1m but narrowly avoided
being buried in a pauper's grave. With no
heir apparent, the local council took over
the funeral arrangements and was
preparing to give him an economic funeral
until a relative turned up.
Angela Rippon is very much alive and
kicking (though not those high kicks she
did on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas
Show) and helping people make a
few pennies in Sun, Sea And Bargain
Spotting.
I didn't spot any sea in the edition from
the very pretty Italian town of Correggio
where Angela, two contestants and two
experts travelled to look for bargains in
the marketplace. Lucy and Ginny had
£350 each to spend on ten items or more.
Then they had to try to sell them for a
profit at an antique and collectors market
in Wetherby.
Angela was there, sporting several
catchphrases. "Belt up and let's get buying,"
she instructed after giving the
women bum bags containing the cash.
Later the call was "Let's get selling", although
the Yorkshire market proved a
tough place for bartering. Business was
slow.
When Angela got bored - and I
could sympathise with that
feeling - she went off to view a
prince's house nearby. What
would property experts Michael
Holmes and Clare Reid make of
it, I I wonder?
They present the daily Good
Bid, Good Buy which is my feeling
exactly - I wanted to say goodbye to
them within five minutes of the
programme starting. They're not
Kirstie and Phil.
They're on hand to value
properties and help people buy at
auction, although considering the
current state of the property
market programmes like this are
becoming as welcome as a house
with dry rot or Fred West living
next door. I wouldn't give you
tuppence for the programme.
DAILY Cooks Challenge incites a
similiar feeling of indifference.
Antony Worrall Thompson
presides over a cook-off between two
celebrity chefs. Or "hunks at the
hob" as he called Jean-Christophe
Novelli and Brian Turner.
They compete in three rounds to
tickle the taste buds of a celebrity,
namely Loose Women's Jane
McDonald the day I saw it.
She announced herself as "a
Northern Yorkshirewoman who
likes her meat" which may, or
may not, have been a reference
to the new boyfriend she
mentioned. She reckoned that
if she learnt to cook, she might
be able to hang on to him a
little longer.
"I like anything. I am very
easily pleased," she told
Worrall Thompson.
"You're talking about
food," he asked
ungallantly.
9:41am Friday 4th July 2008
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