Some of us love to fantasise about how the other half lives and one TV show allows families to experience just that.
While I personally only remember Horrible Histories' wife swap, which was a parody of the long-running show House Swap, it turns out that Channel 5 has a programme which allows rich and poor families to swap their living arrangements for a whole week - almost like The Holiday but where one side gets a far better deal.
There's a lot that can be said about the class divide in the UK right now, as the cost of living continues to take its toll on working class people while the elite in the country no doubt have the time of their lives, but it was actually the 'poorer' couple in a recent episode who upset the apple cart by breaking a huge rule.
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Naturally, the whole premise of the show is that they have to live each other's lives for a week and while you might think that it was the owners of the millionaire home who struggled to adapt to a new standard of living which included £79 a week on food and travel, the change proved too much for John, Ann and their three children.
During Sunday’s (April 19) episode, millionaire hotel owners Gez and Rosy Chetal swapped with the Bloor family, a bus driver and care home cook living in Norfolk, which saw them move into the family home, while the Bloor's headed to the £1.7 million hotel home.
Although they had amenities such as a wine cellar, large dining room and private chef available to them, the Bloor's made the important point that the hotel simply didn't feel like a home and with the kids feeling uncomfortable to be so far away in the 11-bedroom abode, they opted to break rule number one and leave.
Ann told John: “The children are really uncomfortable. They can’t be in their pyjamas because it’s a hotel, they can’t just go and get a drink, they can’t just go and get a sandwich.”
John jumped in and added: “It’s not a home is it?”
Ann said: “It’s nothing about the hotel. If it was just me and you.. I’d absolutely love it but actually to me we can’t really stay in the hotel.”
Instead, they used some of the £1800 weekly budget that they'd been given to stay inside a luxury Airbnb, that cost a whopping £1,200.
At the end of the show, the two couples met and shared their different experiences.
Ann said: “We loved the hotel, unfortunately the children didn’t. They felt very separated from us.” Gez added: “It’s just a big house really, with 11 rooms.”
So, perhaps this should be a lesson to everyone who dreams of winning the lottery and buying a mansion, because it seems as if such a dramatic change might take some getting used to.
James Moorhouse