IF there’s one area where all TV channels agree, it’s that Britain wants to see a familiar face with an enviable lifestyle get a free holiday. These bellends always fly business class:
Ben Fogle
The strawberry blonde Bear Grylls has spent his life visiting exotic locations on the basis that women who keep biscuits in tins would enjoy seeing him wear a jumper there. Irritatingly, this belief has proven completely correct. So secure is he as number one in his absurd profession, he does not even drive a signature car.
James May
May’s career highlight cast him as a tepid shadow of a man between an imp and a vainglorious dick. Still, it was the ideal low-lift vehicle for new shows where he gets pissed in exotic locations, gets toured around Japan, plays with toys and flies fighter jets. All for being a middle-aged pervert for horsepower.
Jane McDonald
Trading the arse-end of a professional singing career for an easy life going on cruises and holidays while playing a bawdy Northern caricature who loves Tories? Who wouldn’t? Because what you might not realise is that McDonald, for many, is an aspirational figure.
Michael Palin
Palin always gets a pass for being a Python, even though he’s spent a quarter of a century swanning around the globe as one-sixth of a cultural icon. As with his comedy, he spawned a host of followers keen to get paid for nine weeks pissing about among other cultures who do not care about them.
Helen Skelton
When the after-school kids’ club of Blue Peter wasn’t enough dossing around, Helen traded her annoying am-dram energy to snooze her way through occasional animal sightings on Countryfile. Now cuddles newborn lambs because she’s the only presenter available who’s actually from bloody Cumbria.
Jasmine Harman
Technically an estate agent, but unlike the rest of her profession found the box on the application form that said ‘Prefers only to work in exotic locations during summer months’ and firmly ticked it. Has spent 20 years showing buyers around sun-kissed Mediterranean locations with no real financial stake in the outcome, but lots of sun dresses.
