Ordinary Gweilo

I have to admit that I did briefly believe that it was possible that Essex "barrow bay" Dave West really was going to open a private members’ club for the super rich (as he claimed). However after a few minutes of "Trouble at the Top" (a BBC series being shown on Monday nights on ATV World) it became obvious that this was more of a vanity project than a serious business proposition.

His argument was that the super rich were looking for somewhere exclusive to go, so they could mix with their own kind. He teamed up with Jean-Christophe-Novelli (for food) and was in discussion with Nicky Haslam (for interior design), so it seemed as if he was serious.

Well, up to a point. The problem, unsurprisingly, was Dave himself, a man who had his own ideas about what was best. Haslam walked away after Dave played him a Britney Spears video (for inspiration), and Novelli departed when Dave refused to increase the size of the kitchen. It also seemed that he had either neglected to hire an architect or fallen out with him at a very early stage, so he was supervising the building work personally – with predictable results.

There was another fairly obvious problem. Would the "super-rich" really be attracted to a club owned by an archetypal working-class-oik made good? Well, it takes all sorts, but I’d hazard a guess that he was exactly the type of person that most self-respecting millionaires would want to avoid. Dave had worked his way up from a market stall in Romford to running a huge wine and beer warehouse near to Calais (mainly for Brits who were willing to take a day trip across the Channel to pay a bit less for their booze). Money didn’t seem to have changed him at all, and he still seemed at home back at Romford market.  In his chauffeur-driven Roller, naturally.

The opening shot of the documentary was of Dave with Jo, his 24 year-old Polish girlfriend.  The usual comedy pairing of a unattractive bloke (with a ponytail and a paunch) and a slim young girl.  Although the club was named in her honour, Jo was gone long before the club was ready (apparently she had too many ideas of her own), and soon Dave was auditioning a series of equally young and attractive girls from Eastern Europe for the role of his girlfriend. He was at pains to point out that these were not escort girls or anything like that, though he didn’t explain quite how he had arranged for a steady stream of them to arrive at his yacht in St Tropez.  Maybe just a lucky coincidence.

One was chosen (from Moldova or Estonia or somewhere), and posed happily with Dave. Well, he looked happy, but she looked rather apprehensive. It brought to mind the marvellous question that Mrs Merton asked Debbie McGee ("so why did you marry the millionaire Paul Daniels?").

Amazingly, it seems that the club was finally finished a few months after the TV people had gone. Less amazingly, the idea of catering for the super-rich appears to have been dropped, and the place is much more in the image of its owner, serving pizzas to page three girls and young ladies from Poland and Latvia (who, by the way, definitely aren’t escorts).