How I miss QVC's glory years when fun, charismatic people with a bit of 'Oomph' would rock up to the studios in person to set out their stall, heralded at midnight by their brand new TSV. I'm talking the late Joan Rivers, Dennis Basso, Tova Borgnine, even Ralph of the much-missed 'Honora Pearls' was entertaining in the flesh back then!
And there was that hilarious, wonderfully camp clothes designer, a middle-aged, perma-tanned American with glasses, whose wife sometimes appeared with him (he would often go over and tweak the models clothing, then dance with them). Help me out guys - you must remember him, he sadly died quite young?
Aside from the fact many of them are unavailable as they've unavoidably died, Covid has allowed QVC to do everything on the cheap via Zoom. Imagine the savings they made on the likes of Joanie, Dennis and Tova, all of whom insisted on staying at the Dorchester if memory serves (and I bet the room service bills weren't small!)
Back then I would often kick off my stilettos, crack open a bottle of wine and watch QVC for entertainment value alone - it could be especially good at midnight, when Joan Rivers would deliberately say something 'post-watershed naughty' to get Dale Franklin chuckling. It must be so boring for the presenters now, without that smattering of celebrity stardust.
Who do the poor wretches get to bounce-off in the flesh these days? The increasingly face-lifted and terrifying Simon Wilson, with his dreadful cutesie kittens and skulls-with-everything costume jewellery (that man could go 'Trick or Treating' without props)? Or worse, the ever-lengthening queue of ghastly so-called experts - the jewellery ones are the worst. Don't get me started on that dreadful woman with greasy, scraped back hair and dagger-like acrylic nails she laughably claims are real - camera close-ups say different - constantly boasting about her '15 years working with gems worth LITERALLY hundreds of thousands' (there really should be an automatic fine/firing for anyone using the words 'literally' and exactly' more than 10 times in an hour). Her attempts to flirt with Charlie Brooks, laughing close to seizure at his every feeble quip, are 'literally' gag-reflex inducing (and I suspect, hopelessly optimistic).
And there's the brummie, home-dyed blonde who insists on calling lever back earrings 'lever arch earrings (no dear - that's an office file for storing documents). Some expert!
Perhaps the greatest joy of the old, starry days, was the viewer phone calls, when we humble QVC sponsors had the chance to - be still my beating heart - speak direct to the legendary silver fox Dale, or even a real star like Joan Rivers. Why did QVC block the calls? Whatsapp and Twitter quotes read off a screen are no substitute for hearing an elderly lady describe her 20-year-old Diamonique collection, while in the background, a cat yowls to be let out. I must confess, I could be the reason the calls stopped being put through. Never drink and dial a shopping channel - to order goods or speak live on air. Presenters don't like customer feedback that much!
