Security first as shopping channels fight The Fear

As the economy falters and bunker mentality sets in, Antonia Quirke finds solace in the cosy world of home shopping

FIRST POSTED JANUARY 23, 2009

Trust me, at present nobody is more concerned with our security than our shopping channels. On high alert, they think of little else but ways to diminish The Fear.

Bid TV, for example, has begun to operate as though we were three minutes from a pogrom. It knows that to trust in sterling in the present climate is to wander into the fog proffering our children to oncoming strangers.

"This really does look like 24 carat gold," said presenter Peter Simon, holding up a large bracelet during their jewellery clearance sale the other night. "It's 22 grams, it's Italian, it's the best of the gold we have."

Earlier in the evening he'd had trouble shifting a Swarovsky crystal arm clasp. It was a statement piece, and very pretty too, but he had to get it down from £299 to £22 before people would bite. But what can a person forced to leave their house at a moment's notice do with crystals? Sure, they can be squashed into bread and swallowed whilst other members of the family stuff firearms into their garters, but remember what happened to Lawrence Olivier in Marathon Man – his life-saving diamonds falling like dust from his briefcase, light on the breeze, too easily lost.

Peter is like King Ferdinand watching Columbus sail away to rip off the Aztecs

"Just think what you might do with all that gold at a time like this…" crooned Peter, holding the bracelet up to the light. "But then that's the Italians all over isn't it? They'd go and make a profit selling this by the gram weight alone." I'd love to have seen Yorkshireman Peter's face the day of Gordon Brown's clearance sale of 400 tons of British gold bullion back in 1999, when the price was at a 20-year low. And then his face when the Chinese snapped it up and made a billion.

Peter is peeved at the best of times: pereptually someone who's had the plate removed before they've finished eating. But tonight he's utterly magnificent, electric. He's King Ferdinand of Spain standing on the shore rubbing his hands as Columbus set sail for the New World to rip off the Aztecs. "Treat yourself!" Peter shouts. "Think of it as security!" His manner suddenly softens. "I imagine an Italian woman wearing this with her long dark hair saying, 'Ciao, mwah, mwah' like that. She's all in white. Can't you just see her? A handbag on her arm. It's a very heavy piece, this. Buy it: get it valued. You can't lose with gold."

Peter often looks like someone who's had the plate removed before they've finished eating. But sometimes he is electric.

Meanwhile, over on Ideal World, presenter Shaun Ryan was selling a portable internet device. He's a nice chap, Shaun, lives a quiet life, is always talking about his mother. He recently turned forty and it's rattled him to the quick. There has been talk of golf. Maybe he'll get into pilates too, I don't know, but something's got to give.

The other day when he was selling memory foam mattresses he mentioned the one he'd bought last year for his spare room rather too many times, quietly, as though any dates he gets back to the house tend to end up there instead of in with him.

"I don't know about you," he said on Thursday, holding up the palm-sized device to Ideal World's technology expert Janice, "but