To be middle-class in this country is to be prey to a few communally held delusions. That your working-class parents secretly feel inadequate for having fewer varieties of olive oil than you. That the Arctic Monkeys would really get on with you and respect you, if you met them. That you will, one day, put something back into the community by being a councillor, or a volunteer, or some kind of caring stuff like that.

The biggest of all these delusions, however, is the belief that one day you will build your own house. A house that will - in its tasteful, ecofriendly, quality-wooden-floors way - incrementally raise the standard of housing design in this country. A house that will make Britain a slightly better place. And all thanks to you, and your lovely, big, smug, custom-built, middle-class self-build in East Sussex. With veranda. And helipad.

It is on this understanding, then, that the millions of fans of Grand Designs on Channel 4 tune in every week. They are not simply watching: (a) some property porn; or (b) the funny people ordering the wrong-sized RSJs, and standing on a building site, in the rain, crying. They are doing research. They are mentally taking notes. They are preparing for their future.

I know all this because I am one of those ciabatta-eating, Ugg-wearing, Fairtrade-coffee-drinking deludoes. In the five-bedroom eco-pod of my mind, I know what windows we're getting (those Norwegian triple-glazed, gas-filled ones), I know what's in my walls (straw, recycled paper and wool. And, presumably, some manner of fire-retardant chemical 5,000 times more powerful than napalm), and I have learnt that £1,000 is not an unreasonable amount to pay for a kitchen mixer tap, so long as it is an “architectural” kitchen mixer tap.

What I haven't yet learnt is what “architectural” actually means, but someone used it to describe a handbag in Grazia last week, and I think it just means “quite square”. I am feeling confident about describing the Wish You Were Here presenter Mark Durden-Smith's head as “architectural” in a conversation quite soon.

Bearing this in mind, then, all hail Grand Designs Live on Channel 4. Pitching itself as some sort of house-based equivalent to the Chelsea Flower Show, Grand Designs Live takes up a whopping nine days of Channel 4's prime-time real estate, showing off the latest housing innovations at the ExCeL Centre in London. There will be “advice clinics”! “Info-hubs”! Bloody millions of log houses with sliding glass patio doors! And all helmed by the inimitable Kevin McCloud.

McCloud - interestingly, not gay; one of those pop-culture facts that surprise, like Norman Wisdom still being alive - could do all this in his sleep by now. After all, with nine years of presenting Grand Designs under his belt, McCloud is well versed in enthusing about huge glass walls, floating staircases, atriums, mezzanines and, of course, architectural taps. Indeed, ardent viewers of Grand Designs will know McCloud's style so well that they will joyously await Kevin's Moment of Doubt - the piece to camera Kevin does, just before the second ad-break of every show, when he has to say something like “and with 25 tonnes of self-levelling concrete arriving in the morning, and those custom-designed shutters still stuck on a cargo ship in Rotterdam, have Yann and Christiana bitten off more than they can chew?”

Like a more sedate version of the shots game people play along to Withnail and I, I have a sip of organic rooibos tea when Kevin says that.

Fellow fans, then, will share my excitement when I reveal that there is to be a huge McCloud innovation during Grand Designs Live. Excitingly enough, over its nine days, the show is going to feature Kevin, and some celebrity mates, in front of the ExCeL Centre building his own house.

This means that, for the first time in broadcasting history, Kevin will be having Kevin's Moment of Doubt about himself - presumably leading to a bit where Kevin will have to say: “But with Janet Street-Porter arriving to mosaic my reed-bed dunny in less than 14 hours, have I bitten off more than I can chew?”

And, if he gets tired, maybe a bit where he goes into his own kitchen, and says: “I like these square taps. Erm, I mean architectural taps. Oh, bollocks.”

I can't wait. I can't wait. For the middle-class self-build deludo, these are heady days indeed.

Grand Designs Live, Sun, C4, 8.05pm, and Mon-Fri, 9pm. Grand Designs Today, Mon-Fri, C4, 5pm

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