The F***ing Fulfords (C4): IF you thought that people living on country estates were rolling in money and only had to worry about which of the family silver to use at dinner then think again.

The Fulfords are skint. They have a 50-room mansion and 3,000 acres of land but there is absolutely no money in the bank.

The house is falling down around their ears but rather than looking for grants, bank loans or even selling off land, the eccentric Fulfords have more unusual ideas about raising cash.

Kishanda Fulford spends her spare time looking through holes in the wall trying to find hidden treasures or heirlooms to sell. Meanwhile her husband Francis has forked out £99 to buy a metal detector - when it beeps he digs a hole in his drive only to find a 1p piece - hardly the fortune the family needs.

This kind of eccentric behaviour would be endearing if the Fulfords were not the most dysfunctional family on the planet - the Osbournes look like the Waltons in comparison to this lot.

Francis swears like a trooper and his outrageous views on homosexuality, foreigners and the disabled are far too offensive to repeat (not that I would want to).

His wife is the unpaid skivvy who has a secret love of gambling but when she wins £1,000 she doesn't put the money into her home but heads off to London for a pampering weekend.

Then there are the horrible children who run riot, being rude to their parents and disrespectful of everything and everyone around them.

I can't believe the Fulfords really live their lives they way we were shown last night. Surely they were playing up to the camera to get maximum coverage for the second-rate tours of their home?

It was hilarious watching Kishanda throw the TV in the lake because her children refused to turn it off but would she really have carried on like that if the cameras had stopped rolling (and would the kids have behaved so badly in the first place?)

Francis admitted that if the family wasn't in dire straits the camera crew wouldn't even be in his house so it's not hard to see why they wanted to put on a bit of a show.

If this one-off programme proves a success, imagine the income the foul-mouthed family could raise from a series, merchandise and star appearances.

Published: 11/08/2004