Room for improvement

ALEX POLIZZI has met some tricky hoteliers over the past few weeks, including one who didn’t see the problem with having massive cobwebs in his bar.

However, if asked which was her favourite episode of this series, chances are she would say the one featured in tonight’s edition.

“My absolutely favourite gentleman was someone called David who runs a B&B called Brendan Chase in Windermere,” she explains. “I just got on with him very well.

“He seemed rather a curmudgeon when I first met him, and I just thought, ‘Oh my God. What on earth can I do here to help him?’.”

However, as this episode reveals, he soon mellowed. “He became just so charming and so nice and I really enjoyed working with him,” enthuses Polizzi.

“It took me a while to persuade him to ever do anything. He was convinced that everything he was doing was perfect and that every suggestion of mine was ridiculous, but I dragged him along kicking and screaming and do feel like I made him a better owner as a result.”

He has run the 11-bedroom Brendan Chase single-handedly for the past seven years. He keeps a strict, and expansive, set of rules, which are not always popular with guests, especially those with young families.

He’s also eschewed 21st Century technology, with the internet and the credit card largely ignored. He prefers the rather more old-fashioned code of dos and don’ts. Unsurprisingly, the B&B’s profits are woeful, leaving the outdoors enthusiast chained to the business, unable to afford help with his mountain of chores.

Polizzi attempts to break down his defences and try to raise occupancy rates and profits to allow him to start enjoying life once more.

So, what have been the lowlights of this series for her? As usual she does Tonight’sTV By Steve Pratt email: steve.pratt@nne.co.uk not mince her words: “I’m always amazed that there’s so many lunatics out there who decide that they’re going to open B&Bs and hotels with so little experience – and we’re still finding them. You kind of think you’re getting to the bottom of the barrel, but there’s always more.”

“There’s been some very unusual and interesting ones this time and the kind of challenges I haven’t faced before, and some very difficult customers, as I like to call them, as I feel like I try to give them a consultancy.

“Some, obviously, I get on better with than others, and there’s some that I’ve found really, really difficult to deal with this time round.”

She thinks some hoteliers’ problems stem from their personal isolation.

“A lot of the ones that I’ve seen in this series are on their own, and we all know what it’s like when you don’t have a sounding board – no one to bounce ideas off and have no one to tell you to pull your head out of the sand and get moving on – something it’s easy not to do, and it’s easy to keep on in your comfortable little routine and never really look outside for inspiration or help, really.”

THERE must have been times in recent months when Gordon Ramsay felt like getting away from it all in the light of all the stories in the press about him and his family problems.

So here’s Gordon’s Great Escape, in which he goes travellling to some of South-East Asia’s most incredible locations to track down the most authentic food while hoping to master its unique and mouth-watering cuisine.

During the series, he visits Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, but first up is Cambodia, a country torn apart by the Khmer Rouge and now recovering from the devastating famines inflicted on the population.

Trekking thousands of miles across the country, Ramsay tries a host of unusual and delicious foods, including local delicacies fried tarantula, stuffed frog, and raw baby duck eggs.

He also catches frogs in snake-infested water, watches a traditional tribal wedding feast and visits Phnom Penh, where the Friends Cookery School is re-establishing the country’s traditional cuisine as well as helping to feed the many street children who fill the city.

IF you think you can sing, you can always audition for The X Factor.

If you can do impressions, make your eyes bulge out of their sockets or have trained your dog to dance, Britain’s Got Talent would love to hear from you.

But what if your gifts tend more towards more creative and aesthetic pursuits such as painting and sculpting – how do you get your big break?

Well, that’s where new series Show Me The Monet comes in.

The programme gives amateur and professional artists the chance to have their work displayed at the potentially lucrative exhibition and sale at London’s Royal College of Art. But as with all talent shows, first they’ll have to get past the judges, who, in this case, are three renowned art experts.

Tonight, David Cobley faces the panel, and it’s to be hoped they like the look of him, as he’s about to submit 81 self-portraits for scrutiny.

ANEW series of The Apprentice begins this week, and it’s easy to scoff at the candidates when they arrive boasting about their incredible business acumen – and then end up making a loss.

But perhaps we should cut the latest crop of would-be entrepreneurs a bit of a slack, because new series Business Nightmares demonstrates that sometimes even the most experienced bosses and biggest brands can get it spectacularly wrong.

With the help of the likes of Richard Branson, inventor James Dyson and branding expert Rita Clifton, presenter Evan Davis will examine some commercial catastrophes from the Seventies to the present day.

For openers, he focuses on design and manufacturing blunders, including the world-famous soft drink that underestimated customer loyalty to its original flavour, and the washing powder that didn’t just make stains disappear – it also dissolved clothes. There’s also a look at why a seemingly iconic car wasn’t quite the runaway success you might imagine, mainly because it had been priced too cheaply.

CAST your minds back to May 2010, when David Cameron and Nick Clegg stood in the Rose Garden of 10 Downing Street and announced they were forming the first coalition since the National Government during the Second World War.

A year on, the results of the local elections and the AV referendum have given us an insight into what the public think of the Coalition, but this documentary offers a unique insight into how key members feel about their alliance.

Nine cabinet minsters, including Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg, talk to Andrew Rawnsley about how their government works and how they reach compromises on key issues.

The presenter will also assess who are the political winners and losers of the past 12 months and where the cracks are starting to emerge, as well as looking at the ongoing arguments over how foreign policy should be adapted to deal with the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the proposed changes to the NHS.