Snog, marry, avoid

One of the unsung comparative advantages held by the British lies in the production of lowbrow television programs. On my recent visit, I discovered the gem that is "Snog, Marry, Avoid", a show in which working class women with too much makeup, too much hair, too much jewelry and probably too many vajazzles are transformed via a "make-under" into more presentable, and more employable, middle class women, at least on the outside.

The title of the show relates to the results of (surely faux) surveys of British men before and after the transformation wherein the men are shown a picture of the woman and asked whether they would snog (you know ...), marry (are these mutually exclusive in Britain?) or avoid them. Inevitably, prior to the transformation the responses are high on avoidance and after the transformation are high on marriage and snogging.

Tremendous guilty fun and one more reminder, if any was necessary, of how issues of social class are never very far away in Britain.