Grand Designs

Kevin McCloud brought us the series about people who build their own houses from scratch, where he'd hover like a doom-mongering Cassandra, saying, 'You've got a long way to go.' Or 'That's a very tight budget.'

But it did dispel the glamour of building and offer some sensible tips.

This new series, which is less ambitious - doing up an already existing house from scratch - is equally pessimistic but just as inspiring, since it does all prove to be worth it.

Nick and Ann Curtis have £55,000 to transform a Forties electricity substation, a sort of mini Tate Modern, into a Moroccan retreat - bearing in mind this is Sunderland, not the Sahara, and Nick and Ann have never been near Marrakesh.

It's amazing how interior design speak is now the new psycho-babble. Ann thinks her Moroccan style will 'bring a lovely warmth to what is a utilitarian space'. Nick drags them to various restaurants and the Morocco 2000 exhibition at Olympia for inspiration (when Ann says, 'I can empathise with this pot,' she means the earthenware variety), and a potentially naff concept is transformed into something chic.

Later in the series, Damien Hirst creates a Shaker retreat in his backyard.

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