To celebrate the release of her new book Killer Affair, Rebecca Chance what effect too much reality TV can have on us. 

Rebecca Chance

Rebecca Chance

  • You are so desperate to get on a Big Brother-type show that you’ve applied to everything like it for the last five years. When you see a Google car drive past with cameras on the roof, you immediately pick a fight with the person you’re talking to for dramatic effect, hoping you’ll be spotted by a TV producer and catapulted to stardom.
  • When someone says “I like your shoes”, you launch into a long speech about how they can ‘Get The Look For Less’, calling up multiple links on your phone while instructing them on every single celebrity you know who has advertised them on Instagram.
  • You insist on having sex under the duvet, as you’ve seen so many shows where drunk people forget there are cameras in the bedroom and go for it anyway
  • Whenever you show a photo of yourself to someone, you say: “There are two beautiful women standing before me but I only have one photo in my hand” in your best imitation of Tyra Banks from America’s Next Top Model
  • You call work colleagues “fucking muppets” in your best Gordon Ramsey voice when they make a mistake. Until HR calls you in and tells you very firmly not to use that kind of language any more. You explain why you are doing it and they tell you that you just need to cut it out.
  • You don’t cook any more, if you ever did. You microwave Lean Cuisine or eat takeaways in front of Masterchef, Hell’s Kitchen and The Great British Bake-Off, commenting as knowledgeably as if you know what duxelles, sofrittos and bisques are or as if you just whipped up a light-as-air Victoria sponge last Sunday.
  • Every time you see Nigella’s cherry-coloured Kitchenaid mixer, which costs £400, you seethe with envy, even though secretly you know you would never use it if you got one. (see above)
  • You spend ages trying to get your kitchen as smart and sleek as the ones on the chef shows, despite the fact that you know perfectly well that those aren’t the chefs’ own kitchens but ones in houses owned by interior designers who have done them up to be exactly the kind of set on which TV producers like to film. Also despite the fact that you will never use it for more than heating up your takeaways (see above).