Sometimes you wonder how the middle classes have the nerve

For over 41 years we Brits have been intoxicated with a programme called the "Antiques Road Show". It started in a modest way with friendly, rather dowdy experts of fine porcelain or late 15th century glass ware and has grown into a monster.

The show's genius was to get together desperate people with dusty heirlooms hidden in the attic for years with experts in their field who'd value these objet d'art.

In the old days it was frankly amateurish. There would be some toothless villein holding in a paper bag something they might have dragged out of their cess pit  and an "expert" who looked equally woebegone suggesting the object might be worth the price of a pint of ale. It might have been bargain basement but it was authentic.

Over the years the middle classes with their fine china and handsome family portraits have encamped on this quaint idea of a programme. There's been an arms race between the public and their gems and the experts. Each has become more and more middle class and precious.

Now it's all about what's the most valuable and close ups of astonished punters when they're told their pair of old slippers are worth more than the national debt or when some supercilious grandee draped in Gucci is told their family vault is worth piss all.

For me the exemplar of this wholesale capture by the entitled middle classes is the current presenter Fiona Bruce. She's bright, good looking in a jagged jaw sort of way and she totally gets my goat. She is so condescending. If Fiona were presented to the Queen she'd expect HRH to kiss her arse.

The problem is this. The programme premise is greed. These heirlooms are there to be weighed on the gold scales in spite of all the protestations of the punters that despite a piece of junk being worth a king's ransom it won't be sold. Mistakenly the Beeb believe that having the diamond hard Bruce fronting the show will fool viewers into thinking it's an exercise in searching out human stories behind the bits of tat. Well it doesn't work for me.

A spin off from this show "Flog It" is much more honest. You bring stuff along to be valued and you sell at auction. None of  the middle classes cosying up to their art dealers.