There’s a sub-genre of reality TV shows I enjoy in a cringe making sort of way where an undisputed expert, normally someone who has made a lot of money in their field, gets to go into failing businesses in an attempt to ‘turn them round’.

After a couple of series they become rather tired. How many chaotic kitchens, grubby guesthouses or outmoded outlets can you pass off as ‘entertainment’? What is remarkable about these programmes, about from how astoundingly badly some businesses are run, is how much of the time the business owners fight any against change to their operation. The attitude is, “it might be a money-eating black hole, but it’s MY money-eating black hole”. More to the point they frequently seem surprised that the ‘expert’ finds fault. In common with the other variants of ‘reality tv’ it all begs the question: ‘what did you expect when you applied to go on the show?’ While people might have an excuse in Series 1 (though that excuse is disappearing fast) by the time the second trawl is made you would take the trouble to watch the show. Wouldn’t you?

Clearly not. A friend of mine calls this the ‘arrogance of stupidity’. It works like this. If a person of reasonable intelligence looks at a complex problem for which their skills are unsuited more often than not they will get someone with specialist knowledge to take on the task on their behalf. When a person of limited intelligence approaches the same problem they, depending on their ego, may pile in themselves because they simply can’t get their head round how far out of their depth they are likely to find themselves. Also, we pretty much know that there is not a lot some people will refuse to do to get themselves on the tele.

The Mary Portas series are typical of the ‘get the consultant in, ignore the advice’ format. In her latest effort (Mary Queen of Frocks – C4, Tues) she tries to move things on by setting up her own retail franchise and attempting to show how it should be done. Good for her. I’ve got a lot of time for Ms Portas view of retail and share her irritation with the lousy customer service that seems to be a British disease. Today’s experience was typical and makes an interesting little survey – some names are changed to protect the guilty.

Needing to run a few errands I walked into central Reading – one of the UK’s most successful retail centres. First stop NatWest – the people’s bank! As ever a tortuous experience, I avoid it as much as possible, but having been advised the relatively simple transaction was impossible online I braved the first queue to be placed in a second queue to be asked to take a seat, to be summoned to the desk, to be served by the world’s slowest typist, who couldn’t understand my Northern Eastern English (I’ve been toning down the dialect for more than three decades), who couldn’t multiply by two and who then disappeared for ten minutes to make a photo copy. Presumably this involved popping round to Staples as part of Fred the Shred’s legacy. Banks are the only institutions that could create a fast-track service for businesses that actually takes longer than the general queue. The place feels more like the DHSS than a bank, but then who knows more about state handouts than the RBS group?

Next stop Pret-a-Manger. A cheery enough greeting here, though the clever ‘contactless’ payment device stubbornly refuses to work. Those flume adverts were worth it then? At least they were to The Bellamy Brothers.

On passing Orange I nip into the store for some information on their current contract deals. There is a business brochure, but nothing on consumer contracts. The man behind the counter asks if I need any help. I ask him about information on individual contracts. He looks back blankly and mumbles. I decide to go to the website instead.

Holister to exchange an item. Not mine, I hasten to add, Holister isn’t for me. Despite fitting L or XL sizes in most stores, a 2XL in Holister fails to close is about six inches short of fitting my chest size (44″). 2XL for a hobbit of what? But maybe that explains the bare chested model on the bag – the shirts don’t fit him either. I find my partner in the near darkness about ten back in a queue of Christmas Eve scale. It seems to escape the notice of banks and shops alike that people are likely to drop in on their lunch breaks.

HMV. I’m would be a big fan of HMV’s ’2 CD’s for £10′ if I could find an even number of albums that I actually wanted. For the first time in ages today I’m in luck as are Miles Kane and Bellowhead. The staff in HMV are perfectly pleasant, mainly students doing ‘fill in jobs, I’d guess, but I miss proper music stores where it is possible to spend a Saturday afternoon and where the staff know more about records (as I quaintly insist of calling them) than I do.

Boden next – a ‘pop up’ store just opened for the Christmas season replacing Karen Millen. Karen Millen’s passing is not lamented in these parts. The staff took surly to a new level – if I really want to be sneered at I can drive along to Eton. Boden is bright and half decently designed implementation of the successful on-line/mail order business, even though the sofas (nice idea) were already dirty and their legs had collapsed. Smiling staff, all looking the part and helpful but no stock at all from the men’s, children’s or youth ranges. Not that this worries me much as I find Boden a bit too much of the kind of thing that bloke Cameron wears when he’s trying too hard to be ‘Dave’.

Finally a concession in House of Fraser with a lot of 60s retro and some wildly overpriced bags with uncomfortably large logos. ‘Do you need help?’ Asks to assistant with the horror movie accent and equally scary dye job. It all just screams ‘take fashion advice from me at your own risk’.

Well I suppose it could have been worse, but there was enough grief in the first 40 minutes to make sure you never went out on your lunch hour again. I recently attended a session with local business people all of whom were concerned at the negative attitude to providing good service that they find among their job applicants. In the UK economy there is a strong argument for a recognised qualification in customer service – something that would be useful way beyond the retain sector.

Not all UK service is bad, but I travel to the USA quite a bit and in all my visits poor service has been extremely rare. I have some interesting conversations and when they say ‘have a nice day’ you feel they mean it. Returning to Heathrow is invariably a rapid reminder of what you’ve been missing – monosyllabic grunts and people who’s training amounted to knowing where to find the emergency exits.

Good luck Mary. You’re needed!

PS. I should add that I don’t want to tar everywhere in the UK with the same brush – on a recent visit to Newcastle the service we had in both shops and restaurants was uniformly friendly and stood comparison with anything we find overseas. Perhaps that tells you something.