...you're sure of a big surprise...
Well.
That was an eye opener.
If you are a Twitter user (and if you're reading this you probably are) you will have more than likely have seen your time line last night (Thurs 4 April) filled with a mixture of shock, disbelief , pity and even amusement.
No, we're not talking about the reactions to Gideon 'George' Osborne eating his Happy Meal in a poorly parked 4X4, but Dogging Tales (C4 10pm).
It opened with a night-time woodland scene, all starry skies through the bare branches and swirling mists; like something from a sci-fi movie, before the mother ship lands. And then - a handprint against a steamed up car window. No, not George Osborne in the front seat with a hot cup of coffee , but Rose from Titanic style, the Doggers were At It. In various erm, ways.
I once got lost at High Beeches with my boyfriend (now my husband). We couldn't find the car and walked in circles for ages. He put his foot on a dead hedgehog and scared a lot of flies. I never knew it was a dogging spot. But apparently, it is,and a pretty popular one. The Man in the Owl Mask started his 'hobby' there.
Joking aside, Owl Man Les's girlfriend Sue was a sad figure. Shy and apparently emotionally abused - she loves to wear make up because it covers up her past, she says - she considers going dogging a way of taking control. It has bolstered her self esteem.
"Once I've got my make up on," she says as she expertly applies the eye shadow, the mascara (and also that awful mask) ,"I don't see the cracks any more." Sue thinks she's prettier, more interesting even, because she has sex in damp dark woodlands with strangers.
There must be better ways of feeling good about yourself, I inwardly scream, and wonder where her friends are to tell her that. To extrapolate, it's Anna Karenina jumping in front of the train. She needed a friend too.
Then we're back to Les, whose preparations for the evening ahead seems to be simply a spray of aerosol under the T-shirt he's worn all day.
"Got to be Lynx," he says. "That and Joop. Brilliant."
It was more than easy to laugh at these people in their silly masks and with their delusions that participating in these shenanigans makes them -and Les actually says this- 'important'. He's putting on a show, he says. It's all about 'free sex that don't cost you nothing'.
I don't think even Channel 5 will be buying the format for this one any time soon though.
Fox masked lorry driver man was far more sinister, referring to women as 'females' as if they were feral, and insisting that 70% of all lorry drivers go dogging. You'll never look at a parked up lorry in a lay by at night in the same way again, will you? Lorry man had no family, and claimed he did not want one.
Toffee guzzling cat masked girl has been dogging with her boyfriend Terry for just three weeks, she says, as she snuggles in her duvet watching X-Factor. But I am desperately sorry for her; this life is her escape from a dead end job ("I work twelve hours a day, seven days a week in a factory") and a boyfriend who clearly loves her, but bores her, and whom she has openly cheated on, but who will try anything to keep her by his side. In a telling moment, he explains that he thinks it's all exciting; she emits a loud yawn.
Dogging Tales was ultimately the stories of unfulfilled people with grim, grey lives , trying to find a way to make themselves feel special. Even the dark haired girl with the great figure, admitted, "I've never ever felt secure in myself, ever, ever, have I ?" and admits she was anorexic (itself a condition linked to self esteem, not skinny models).
It was Terry I felt most sorry for.
Enter Anne. No pun intended. Who has been watching TV for a week at home with toffee -woman while he's at work. Toffee woman thinks another woman will spice up their lives. Terry sits between them like a little guy sandwich, looking terrified even under the mask. And with good reason.
"We can't do much in Terry's car," says Anne, "because it's quite small."
Terry thinks of himself as 'just the driver' and despite being ill with tonsillitis is hauled out in to cold dark woodland and mocked by the women - he has apparently forgotten his viagra today. They stroll out into the woodlands, get surprised by a judgemental fox, and basically fail at the whole dogging thing.
Terry isn't comfortable.
Run, Terry, run like the wind.
Yes, we all had a good laugh at the silly people in the badly home made papier mache masks , and I think some of the local wild life might need counselling, but this was telling the stories of some very deeply unhappy people and beyond the mocking it was a poignant piece of dull lives on a treadmill, desperately seeking something beyond the drudgery.
I'm left with the vision of little Terry dressing a pathetic plastic Christmas tree, the glimpse of a dented bauble, and a sorry KFC dinner, just being grateful that he has a girlfriend.
Ultimately, very sad.
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