Grand Designs is back

The Channel 4 programme, presented by Kevin McCloud, is back f0r a new series.  Wednesday evenings will never be the… Sorry, Wednesday  evenings will be exactly the same as they were last series.

McLoud, as ever, never runs out of words to describe new building, sorry that’s “new builds” in McCloud speak. Another example of McCloud speak is the use of the word space. “That’s a dramatic space,” is typical of McCloud.

That is when I start screaming at the telly, “It’s not a space, it’s a room.” When did you last hear someone welcome you into their living space, of have them lead you into their dining space. Never. It is living room and dining room. Room: a word missing from the McCloud dictionary.

There is something in jargon, used wrongly it can get in the way of understanding, words with meanings only known to the in crowd only get understood by the in crows. It excludes people.

But that is not how Grand designs uses jargon. Using space where people would use room does not exclude.

Which is something the church could learn. We have lots of special words: salvation, eucharist, eschatological are just some of them. And there’s nothing wrong with these words, we just have to make sure tht when we use them it is in a way that people can understand rather in a cliquey way.

The church can learn a lot from Grand Designs.

And despite the criticism above, I love watching Grand Designs.