Westenders: Notting Hill on a screen near you

The real lives of ten 'contestants' living in Notting Hill, West London are to replace Big Brother in the Channel 4 schedules. The show, uncreatively enough, is to be called Notting Hill.

The gap between commissioning the series and broadcasting the programmes might feel like a victim of the economic crisis. Who will want to be watching the minutiae of a bunch of bankers, rich playboys and trophy wives, except to perhaps through rotten tomatoes at the screen.

Maybe it would be more authentic to film such a series elsewhere? Moss Side, Brixton and Handsworth have a ring to them, especially after the unrest of the 1980s that threatens to return with economic crisis at the present time.

But that would mean camera crews insurance premiums going through the roof, everything would have to be stapled to the ground (even in Notting Hill stuff may go missing) and production company executives would actually have to commute to work rather than roll out of bed to start filming.

Notting Hill could be an El Dorado experience rather than an Eastenders or Coronation Street. In fact, why don't they call it Westenders instead?