Married at First Sight: Strangers get hitched in new Channel 4 show
There was outrage in some quarters when Channel 4 announced plans to broadcast a new reality show in which six complete strangers get married. 'Tacky' and 'tasteless' were two i nsults hurled at the channel, who achieved their highest ratings in two years recently with another contentious factual series, Benefits Street, which was a portrait of life in a midlands street where most residents were unemployed.
In Married at First Sight, the 'finalists' (well, I can't think of any other way to describe them) will be selected from a pool of 200 long-term singletons, matched by experts, including psychologists, anthropologists and theologists. After the ceremony, cameras will follow the happy couples for the first six weeks of their new life together. Tasteless? Or a practical solution to a serious problem?
There are a record 15.7 million single adults in the UK and we are the divorce capital of the EU - the increase is mostly down to 'silver splitters' who decide once the kids have left home there's no point in staying together.
Marriage has never been less popular, with more of us than ever choosing to live together - even thoug h we are unprotected in law if our relationship ends. The government still hasn't come up with new laws to protect long-term unmarried couples.
I started thinking about the benefits of arranged marriages - my matrimonial track record is dismal - but one of my most successful marriages (number 3) was to someone the previous husband (number 2) had suggested - not a man I met by myself, randomly. Ex-husband number 2 arranged for me to meet this new chap, and we got on very well. So well, that a year later we got married and he became number 3.
Channel 4's show is based on a Danish format, which was heavily criticised - and none of the three marriages they televised lasted a year. 
We dismiss problems as part of the inevitable ups and downs of any relationship (Rex)
There are no statistics for arranged marriages in the UK - but they are common in India, Pakistan and amongst Orthodox Jews, where families carefully work out suitable matches based on family wealth, common interests and life goals.
Normally, we make our choices based on physical attraction and sense of humour - it's all about lust and having a laugh. We take more risks with our love lives than we do buying a car, a flat, or even a household gadget.
Research shows that couples in arranged marriages say they feel more deeply in love as time goes by, whereas in a conventional 'love match' our feelings for the other pe rson can diminish over the years (I can vouch for that!).
[Isn't it time we all got a little more comfortable with the idea of dying?]
When we let our hearts rule our choice of spouse, we tend to gloss over the details about the other person that might be negative, and when we encounter problems, we dismiss them as part of the inevitable ups and downs of any relationship. Arranged marriages seem to operate on a more even keel.
A professor at Harvard interviewed couples in over 100 arranged marriages and found they set other values higher than passion- loyalty and reliability. They had a more pragmatic attitude, saying they 'worked' at getting on. So, although these couples don't sound romantic, many arranged marriages are highly successful life-long partnerships.
Of course, there are forced liaisons- about 10,000 in the UK, when parents marry off young girls to boys they've never met. That is not only cruel, but inhuman.
But before we dismiss Channel 4's show as superficial trash, perhaps we should be considering the benefits of marrying som eone others have selected for us. We might be pleasantly surprised.
Room with a view
When you are prepared to pay £450 a night for a hotel room, there are lots of things you'd expect - fine bed linen, lovely toiletries, gorgeous towels, flattering lighting and ace room service. But most of all, you would expect privacy.
But some guests at the new Shangri-La hotel, in London's Shard - one of the tallest buildings in Europe - have discovered that privacy is not necessarily guaranteed.
[Modern parents need to grow up and stop defining themselves through their children]
Owing to something described as a 'design quirk' (which I would rename design fault), guests in some of the corner rooms have found they can see right into other rooms and enjoy naked people in their free standing baths. 
Some guests at the Shangri-La hotel discovered that privacy is not necessarily guaranteed. (Rex)
Glass panels reflect the light and act as mirrors - a hotel spokesman said that guests could easily just 'draw their blinds' to avoid embarrassment - not something you expect to do in a skyscraper.
Mind you, architects are often very lacklustre at practical details - I've lost count of the hotel rooms I've stayed in where the bedside light is too feeble to read by, or the bath and shower taps so high tech that it's impossible to work out how to turn them on.
My kitchen in London was architect designed - the cutlery drawer opens and blocks access to the sink. There's nowhere for a litter bin and the extract fan isn't over the cooker. Architects aren't always the best people to design practical living spaces.
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