The TV people...

Just another day in our road - man beats red sports car with a branch from a tree, two familiar looking women move backwards and forwards behind the windscreen, hands upraised in mock shock (even though the car is static) and a small army of people with clipboards and coffee stand watching them jiggle whilst getting paid ridiculous amounts of dosh.

One curly-headed chap stands for hours holding a boom; wouldn’t a boom stand do the job just as well? It would certainly be a lot cheaper.

Yes, it’s just another ‘lights, camera, action’ day on our road. We haven’t had one of these since Cold Feet was at number 16, or was it that programme with Robson Jerome on the other side of the road?

Yes, for the last week we have had the TV people in again. No, not the ones who live in the TV, but the ones who make the programmes to go inside the TV. Dozens of white vans have lined the pavement, wheels mounting the kerb by a foot or two, best boys, not so best boys and not very good at all boys run hither and thither carrying notes about bacon sandwiches and the 3.30 at Epsom. Large cameras are set up, only to be taken down again without any apparent filming. Men stand around with clipboards, young girls bring coffee, luvvie language abounds (sweetie) and huge black curtains are drawn around scaffolding to create night in bright daylight.

So what goes on?

EXCLUSIVE: ITV and Red Production Company have found the two lead actresses for their upcoming comedy series Cabbage and Pat. My sources tell me that Cherie Lunghi (Secret Diary of a Call Girl and The Manageress) and Barbara Flynn (Cranford and A Very Peculiar Practice) have been cast as the co-leads in the six episode series, with production on Cabbage and Pat currently underway.

Created by Amy Shindler and Beth Chalmers, Cabbage and Pat follows two women, one widowed and one divorced, who together find a new lust for life.

Ah, Cherie Lunghi and Barbara Flynn. Didn’t I meet them both once in a sauna in one of my dreams? If I remember Barbara was dressed in a white nurse’s outfit and Cherie, well let’s just say that Cherie was wearing quite a lot less.

My neighbour’s house has been hired for the week and transformed into hippy home. It’ll all be redecorated when the filming is done and it pays very well apparently, almost a king’s ransom, certainly a small chest of pirate’s treasure. Damn! Why couldn’t they have chosen mine? It badly needs redecorating and I could do with a Caribbean holiday.

Cabbage and Pat, a bit like Cabbage Patch… I wonder which is Cabbage?