Some kids do 'ave 'em

TV REVIEW: Raising ChildrenTV3, Monday, Crunch Time: The Great Property CrashTV3, Tuesday, About the HouseRTÉ1, Tuesday, 1918: And the Red Poppies DanceRTÉ1, Tuesday

'CELEBRITIES AT THE coal-face of parenting," promised the press release accompanying TV3's new six-part series, Raising Children. It's a phrase that perversely evokes images of Michael Jackson dunking his baby over a hotel balcony for a paparazzi baptism, or of Jordan attempting to breast-feed from her silicone bags. But enough of the hyperbole already: TV3 is actually inviting us to listen to the largely asinine anecdotes of a bunch of Irish comedians, the TV3 weatherman and a couple of journos as they chat about their parenting experiences on the dizzying merry-go-round of family life.

Now, maybe the tirelessly buoyant Lorraine Keane, chatting gaily about her pregnancy and the joys of her temporarily voluminous chest, and a spray-tanned Twink urging common sense in all things parental, not to mention comedian Joe Rooney discussing his wife's interim flatulence, is just what you need to get you through the long November nights. Personally, however, I find self-deprecating punditry from the sparsely stocked shelves of Ireland's celebrity cupboard about as entertaining as a cracked nipple - but there you go.

Anyway, back to the press release: apparently, Raising Children is "Me Too Telly". Grumpy Old Men, to take one example, is classified as "Me Too Telly" too, in that it is conversational telly that encourages the audience to identify with the experiences of the contributors ("nurturing resonance" is how TV3 puts it). I'm grateful that I know now what the genre is called (and doubtless I'll soon be bandying the phrase around the column with the wilfulness of a yummy mummy pushing a three-wheeled scarlet buggy); however, there is a significant difference between Arthur Smith discussing his battle with all things technical, and Vanessa Feltz turning up in the middle of this toxic baby shower to advise us bumpkins on the value of giving our children "aspirational names".

Allegra and Saskia (though why not Fuzzy?) were the gems Feltz chose to help her offspring stand out from the crowd, though one was tempted to surmise that with their mother's penchant for publicity, she could have called the children Jill and Jane and they would still have been made to feel the glow of the spotlight.

I have a theory about Vanessa Feltz, based on the fact that I have yet to encounter a single talking-heads show that she has not appeared on: I believe that she is technically unable to stop expressing her emotion. In fact, I think her voicebox is made of titanium, and her jaws, greased by the bad fairy with spawn of newt at the moment of her birth, are forever unable to remain closed. We got the full belt of Feltz on motherhood; so emotional she sobbed at toilet-paper commercials, so hormonal she put her slippers in the freezer. Goodness, I can't wait for next week when she tells us all about sex after pregnancy and the demise of her social life.

On the whole, Raising Children is about as much fun as a colicky infant on Christmas Eve. The exception this week was Fiona Looney, an entertaining contributor, who told a story about a friend whose husband winked at her while she was in the middle of giving birth to their child. "No, that's it," thought the splayed wife with sudden and audacious clarity. "I hate him." Divorce was swift.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, I hear that divorce lawyers these days are sitting around in empty offices looking pretty in their pencil skirts and two-tone shirts. In these property-crash-credit-crunch-wet-tiger-slump times, when selling the family home and dividing up the assets just doesn't have the kind of appeal it used to, it seems that one is obliged to view one's previously lousy relationship with a bit of fiscal objectivity.

TV3's Karen Coleman set about illuminating the country's woes this week with the first in her three-part state-of-the-nation series, Crunch Time, which, according to the publicity, sets out to tell previously untold stories through interviews with people affected by the economic downturn. Whether Coleman's opening salvo, The Great Property Crash, was an untold tale or not is debatable (a recent Prime Time report from Una Smith also highlighted repossessions and the growing number of people unable to keep up with their mortgage payments), but Coleman's articulate tramp over the deflated property balloon made for compelling viewing.

She spoke with blighted families facing repossession; with a sombre Section 23 investor in Co Longford, sitting on a nest of empty, calcifying eggs; with cautious estate agents whose books are dusting over, and, of course, with developers. A year ago, north Co Dublin developer Denis Finn was confidently selling million-euro-plus houses with views of the bay to playfully eager Celtic cubs; now, mired in debt, and with his portfolio of properties being auctioned off by the banks for a fraction of their previous worth, he is signing on the dole.

There is, of course, a certain schadenfreude in all of this, and the question we are all dying to have answered is: how low will property prices continue falling? (Oh, and will I be able to walk down the suburban street again without being run over by some woman with her mobile phone in her bejewelled ear, her tracksuit designer's name on her well-toned bottom, and a set of chrome bull bars on her staggeringly imposing jeep?) Economist Morgan Kelly was unequivocal in his response to Coleman's inquiry: houses previously valued at eight and nine hundred thousand will end up at under €200,000, he predicted, provoking the usual harrumphing from dyspeptic-looking estate agents.

The final words of Coleman's report went to the residents of O'Devaney Gardens near Dublin's Phoenix Park, a broken, almost derelict estate but home to generations of Dubliners. Some years ago, they were moved out of their flats with the promise of a shiny, bright refurbishment under the auspices of a Public-Private Partnership agreement, a promise now dashed on the rocks of the teetering Ireland Inc after the deal with the developer collapsed. Framed by boarded-up flats, broken windows gaping with disappointment, and silent, remorseless concrete studded with broken swings, the displaced residents pointed out that their children haven't got another 10 years to wait for the next PPP to come along. Speaking of the Government and developers, one of them concluded: "They walked away from a community, not a site."

I SPENT A draining afternoon in Hamley's toy shop last weekend, with every six-year-old in the country beating me to a pulp to get their hands on the Playmobil builders. As I looked at these toys, their uncomplaining little plastic faces impassive under their hard-hats, their sturdy little paws pointing at the shiny JCB all spruced up and ready for action, I started thinking that maybe the answer to the property crisis lies in cloning Duncan Stewart. Still busy in his fetching yellow skull-shell after all these years of About the House, Stewart, it appears, is never happier than when he's halfway up a ladder checking air tightness in your passive extension and frowning into your flues. He is an individual apparently undaunted by the prospect of endless graft on picky homeowners' interminable building projects, and, helpfully, he uses the same expression and tone of voice (concern tempered by mild irritation) whether he's talking to his clients about their insulation or their strained marriages.

"Maybe they hadn't been getting on too well, but I hope they enjoy their first night together in their new house!" said Duncan with all the emotional intensity of a pancake.

That kind of grim practicality and adherence to the point is just what the country needs. There's a man who'd have us all on our knees with the insulation rolls, rather than on our smarting backs howling at the moon about how the party was never supposed to end like this.

'THE SUN'S SHINING down on these green fields of France,/The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance." Just time to mention one in a series of excellent programmes on RTÉ this week commemorating the 90th anniversary of the end of the first World War. 1918: And the Red Poppies Dance told the story of the carnage through the music of the period, accompanied by searingly poignant archive of the trenches (and of Gallipoli), dozens of photographs of volunteers, propaganda posters, and images of the ubiquitous unmarked graves, standing like petrified rows of children, in northern France. The soundtrack to the "avalanche of blood", from gung-ho recruitment anthems to songs of weary resignation and fatalism, included John McCormack singing Tipperary and Roses of Picardy and Liam Clancy's emotional rendering of Waltzing Matilda and Green Fields of France. Heartbreaking.

Gives a bit of perspective to our current fiscal disasters, doesn't it?