Playing Too-Hard-To-Get

French TV reality contestants on Temptation Island have won compensation for unfair dismissal and workers rights such as overtime pay and holidays. If that were to be rolled out over here it would be the death knell for 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here' or any show where contestants believe they have been kicked off unfairly and imagine the flood of grievances Gordon Ramsay would have to deal with.

The supreme-court ruling noted: "Tempting a person of the opposite sex requires concentration and attention."

I guess if one plays too hard or in this case too hard-to-get it becomes work.

Is this going too far in blurring the boundaries between work and play? The contestants are voluntary participants and surely acquiesced to the rules governing the show?

In general though, when hobbies and leisure activities are taken seriously that's the time to turn pro and then it becomes another job with all the advantages and disadvantages that entails. One gets paid of course or is entitled to competition winnings but one must also subject oneself to the discipline necessary to be successful.

Sky Arts 1 has a filler slot in between programmes called ‘working spaces’ where painters, sculptors and writers show us how they have gone to great lengths to set up offices or work spaces away from their normal living space in order to re-create the disciplined boundary required for a productive output that will eventually bring in the money.

Perhaps those of us who do the nine-to-five should be thankful that our work spaces are automatically created and we get paid for the time we spend there even if we do spend some of it playing Freecell and surfing the internet.