The premise of One of These Days couldn’t be more American if it tried: once a year, the local car dealership organises Hands-On. This is an endurance contest based on one simple rule: participants must at all times – except for short, infrequent breaks – keep their hands on the pickup truck they wish to win. Meanwhile, spectators drink beers, eat hot dogs and watch the spectacle (if you wish to call it that), which ends up looking like a gruelling, torturous slog for the contestants and boring for the people watching. Who’d put themselves through several full days of this, standing outside, hands on a pickup? And why? Or has the gameshow aspect seeped into the minds of participants trying to become marginally less poor to such an extent that they actually think they’re doing this for fun as much as for profit?

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