To understand Britain, watch “Homes Under the Hammer”

If the BritishTV dream exists, Dion Dublin has lived it: he is, after all, a former footballer who became a landlord. As a Premier League stalwart, he reached the top of the national sport. As a presenter on “Homes Under the Hammer”, a wildly popular daytime show about the buy-to-let property market and a landlord himself, he is a symbol of the national obsession.“Homes Under the Hammer” celebrates its 20th anniversary this month. It is on its 26th series. Each now consists of 80 hour-long episodes, broadcast every weekday at 11.15am to about 1.5m viewers—a third of all viewers at that time of day. It unites pensioners pondering what to do with their nest-eggs, students seeing if they can recognise their landlord and football fans who wonder what the 1997-98 Premier League golden-boot winner is up to.