There’s been a lot of brouhaha about property shows of late. People have been saying “HOW DARE THESE PEOPLE TALK ABOUT HOUSES?!? THE GREAT LUMPEN GRIEF MONGERS!” I’ve poked fun at the whole thing too… but by and large, the reaction to TV property shows has been a little hysterical. I mean, it’s not like TV property peeps have been going around setting fire to dogs and laughing at poor people is it? So with that, I tuned into Location, Location, Location (Channel 4, Monday, 17 November, 9pm) to see what a post credit crunch property show looked like… and it was really weird.

Related: More Location Location Location

Before you even started watching the show, you were warned. The fact is was called ‘A Survival Guide’ as opposed to ‘Making The Most of a £100k Budget’ or ‘Buying Abroad’ or whatever. This, from the off, was a defensive stroke to prove that Kirstie and Phil are not evil at all (which of course, we all know).

Then, things got even weirder. I could give you the useful advice and all that, but it would be pointless as this is a TV site, not a mortgage comparison thingy. Fact is, the rest of the show saw Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer stumbling around in a daze, wounded. Normally, we’ve seen Kirstie being brash and pleasantly gobby… but this time she nursed a broken wing.

Throughout, she mentioned the fact that she’d been checking the internet for some of the things that people had written about the pair… “and some of it is pretty strong I can tell you.” Where she once would’ve thrown her head back and laughed, she now looked like genuinely upset, almost like everyone has been blaming them for the market fuck-up.

The pair then went on to justify the entire premise of buying houses. Phil was at pains to point out that “the housing market has been around a lot longer than we have”. All this made for really weird telly. Of course, there is an element of these people enjoying the fruits of housing, something that has bitten so many people on the ass… but really, for most of us, they’ve just been two reasonably entertaining people off the telly.

Seeing them all upset and hurt, I have to say I felt incredibly sorry for them indeed. However, sorry enough to lay off them if they irritate me in the future? Not likely. Still, for now at least, I’m all “Awwww… Kirstie and Phil… c’mere and I’ll give you a cuddle!”