British TV is entering that phase where it sheds off old shows and wraps itself up in an extra thick layer TV Duvet heaven. Big Brother ends, Top Gear starts. Channel 4 pulls out a sure winner in the shape of Skins, and the BBC ploughs on with Casualty and the like.
As I have said before here, apart from a slight tear shed at Dirk ‘Starbuck’ Benedict missing out on his rightful second coming in the hearts of the UK public, British TV is offering nothing as sexy and as bloody brilliant as the US is.
Once again it’s down to 24 – the show that continues to rewrite rule books – to show us how exciting and thrilling a simple 45 minutes can be.
Season six of 24 kicked off in the States a few weeks ago, followed with impressive speed by Sky One here in the UK. I don’t want to spoil it for you if you haven’t already watched it… OK, then, I will.
Jack’s been in a Chinese prison for almost two years. In laymen’s terms that's from the moment he finished Season five to the very start of Season six. The man hasn’t had a good night’s kip a decent bonk or cup of tea in all that time. From the outset it’s obvious it can go one of two ways. Either Jack’s fine and the show throws away things like ‘realism’, ‘understanding’ and any thread of believability it still has. Or, he’s not fine and he’s a mess.
I'm pleased to say, it’s the latter. I love him. Really.
More than that, though, I love good TV. And 24 has been good from the outset. It’s good - no, it’s excellent - because it continues to push its boundaries. Where as most TV shows strive to keep a status quo, a constant with characters and relationships to maintain a familiarity with the audience so they always come back, 24 sacrifices all of that for roller-coaster drama. You just don’t know who’s going to die next, or, more crucially, how. 24 is only four episodes in and season six has done just that.
24 rewards viewers who stay the course and, as far as I'm concerned, it’s not a chore. I'm rewarded with heart-pounding tension, psychological intrigue, moments that force me to lift my jaw off the floor, question how true to life it might be and how the hell these actors do their jobs with such conviction, most of all Kiefer Sutherland.
Sutherland’s performance in season six of 24 has so far been exemplary. It has to be as it's his Jack that drives the show every year. Behind him, the rest of the cast get on with the inter-personal relationships, back stabbing, cock ups and the doughy-eyed gawping. A welcome addition this year is Alexander Siddig who plays the leader of an Islamic Arab terrorist cell apparently now dedicated to peace, the presence of whom has already caused our Jack to break down and cry, though we won’t tell you why exactly.
The first four episodes of season six were broadcast in one fell swoop in the States, (though were more staggered here in Britain) for explosive effect. Now we, along with the billion other 24 fans, wait with baited breath to see how this latest series of TV’s most honed show continues. Now join us. Go on.
What do you mean you don’t watch 24? Get over it. Steal a box set, any of the five that are already out, and bloody well join in.
What a Furore!! Grace Dent sums it up for us. Thank god for her...
So another Celebrity Big Brother is over. Shilpa Shetty is crowned queen. Jermaine Jackson and Dirk Benedict are second and third.
What a relief it's finally over. I was compelled by Big Brother as I've always been, but feel-good telly this was definitely not.
Big Brother feels like escapism less and less these days. It's not like the daily double edition of Friends on E4, which, after a hard day at work, is the televisual equivalent of a warm bath, half a valium and snuggling up on the fluffy tummy of Sesame Street's Mr Snuffleupagus.
No, Big Brother isn't happy telly. It's not satisfying. It doesn't send us off feeling like we've achieved anything. It chucks up hundreds of questions but no answers, makes us revisit childhood traumas and relationship woes and makes us confront our own prejudices and hypocrises.
It has us drumming our fists with fury, calling Ofcom, despairing the fabric of British society and arguing with our friends. It leaves us swivel-eyed and knackered in a lump on our sofas shouting, "I hate you! You're rubbish these days! Mmm…errr, when does BB8 begin? I need to set my Sky+…" Let's face it, we're all hooked.
That aside, the fact that Shilpa, Jermaine and Dirk, the non-British contingent took the top places pleases me greatly. OK, pleases and amuses. Here we are, good old Blighty, the land where every woman is free to pole-dance, binge-drink and reverberate our own bare bum cheeks merrily on CCTV in Basildon Cocoloco Niteclub (just as Emiline Pankhurst dreamed). Hurray - girl power! Then along comes Shilpa Shetty: a teetotal Hindu girl who lives with her mum, likes cooking, early nights and praying and we give her first prize for possessing the characteristics we Brits admire.
Next along, Britain's second most-adored housemate is Jermaine Jackson, an African-American Muslim bloke admired for keeping the house unified with his softly spoken lessons in peace and tolerance.
"Kindness is a strength," Jermaine would whisper, "Use this to build a strong foundation." Having used up his 14-word quota for the day, Jermaine would tootle off back to the bedroom, unfurl his blue matt and begin praying.
"Hee! Hee! You should put all your little mantras into a book!" squeaks Davina. Erm, Davina, Jermaine doesn't need to. It's called the Koran, it's available in bookshops already.
In fact, stop press: the attributes of Jermaine, who Britain has warmed to so greatly, could be summed up neatly as "peacefully following Islam". Crikey, could someone tip off Sky News? I think this might warrant one of their big crash, bang, wallop red alerts and Kay Burley pulling a face like Chicken Licken waiting for the sky to fall in.
To add to the melee, third place in popularity goes to Dirk Benedict, an American bear-hunting conservative who thinks women should stay at home and look after their own babies, do the cooking and cover up their middle-aged cleavages.
How Dirk's views fit in with ten years of New Labour rule I can't quite figure, but I do know that Britain seems to have found a place in its heart for someone who likes blasting critters then turning them into fancy hats.
Damn you, Big Brother, for making me think about all of this socio-political nonsense. Thank heavens I can go back to watching Friends again. The one where Phoebe changes her name to Princess Consuela Banana-Hammock makes me feel nothing but fluffy numbness.
The evictions of Jo, Cleo, Danielle, Ian and Jack all flew by for me in a blur. Jo clearly wasn't that bothered by the accusations against her. In her heart, Jo doesn't believe she is a racist and she truly didn't seem to think that she'd been nasty to Shilpa. She simply refused to feel the requisite amount of pain we all wanted her to, no matter how much Davina did her Mrs Doubtfire face and flapped her cards.
To be quite honest, the more Davina showed the contestants the footage of what had been going on in the outside world and pulled a face like she was on a War Crimes tribunal, the more it all looked like a huge, stupid storm in a teacup and the more vindicated Jo and Danielle became.
Especially when one housemate after another queued up to say, "Yes, there was an incident last week, but no, it wasn't racist and everyone had moved on from there and they'd been getting on fine this week and erm, that's it."
"But why didn't you step in?!" Davina quacked at Cleo, Dirk and Ian. No, Davina, more importantly why didn't you step in? The housemates are sensory-deprived, brain-addled people in a vacuum, making mountains out of molehills down to sheer boredom. The TV crew in charge were the people with the power to step in and stop anything.
But with Jade and Jo now long gone into hiding, Danielle took the full flack of Davina's annoyance. Spat out of the house through jeers and howls, down a catwalk, into a chair, called a racist, showed footage of the world calling her a racist, grumped at by Davina, hissed at by the audience. If this was justice, then why didn't it feel more satisfying?
"It's only a game show!" Davina quipped at the start of the finale, which felt like a two-finger salute to everyone who complained.
Because that's all it is after all, isn't it? It's only a game show: only a few careers and livelihoods ruined. Only a few relationships shattered, a few contestants' families heartbroken, only a few safehouses booked and kids living without mum while she's in hiding, and only a few psychologists on standby and contestants said to be near-suicidal.
This is totally normal on game shows, isn't it? You should see the drama on Countdown when they run low on pens. Carnage, emotional fall-out, safehouses being booked everywhere.
Thank you so much for all of your emails during the Celebrity Big Brother blog. I read every single one and they're continually hilarious, thoughtful and outraged (usually all at once). Thanks so much for writing. It's good to know it's not just me going quietly berserk.
I hope you all come back on Friday for my regular TV OD column, where I'll be discussing Skins, Dancing on Ice and all sorts of other stuff.
I asked you last week what they should do to make BB8 better. You mailed me lots of good suggestions, but one was very popular:
"Bring back the chickens. And make them all do the gardening. Give them something to love and look after."
For some reason I like the idea of the BB8 going back to basics. Feeding chickens. Mowing lawns. Clipping topiary. Maybe the odd minor argument in a house meeting due to one housemate sneaking in a contraband pencil.
It wouldn't be that exciting but I'd still be there on my sofa. Day in, day out, sighing, saying this is crap, not as good as it was, moaning about the state of Britain today and saying I'm going to stop watching soon. But I'd still keep on watching. I always will.
After a week of making a noise like a vaguely racist chainsaw, Jade Goody was evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house on Friday to discover that she was bigger news than the announcement that we're on the brink of actual nuclear Armageddon.
Jade Goody left the Celebrity Big Brother house to a deafening wall of audienceless silence, largely because the inevitable booing marking her departure would have knocked all the planet's satellites out of orbit and plunged Earth into a second Stone Age. From then on it was Celebrity Big Brother eviction business as usual; Jade Goody cried enough tears to single-handedly end the drought in Africa and Davina McCall embarked upon a breathtakingly inept exit interview which bizarrely saw her telling viewers "If you want to be a part of this summer's Big Brother…" as if people watching at home would see Jade sobbing and wailing and helplessly apologising for all the international diplomatic unease she'd caused and think "Yeah, that looks like fun, where's the application form?"
But now that Jade Goody has been evicted, Celebrity Big Brother can get back to being the bone-crushingly dull reality TV show we know and love. So how do we get rid of the remaining "racialists" ?
Jack Tweed - Now that Jade Goody has traded life as a Celebrity Big Brother housemate for life as the "Escapegoat" for all of society's problems, this leaves Jack Tweed in a tricky predicament. Since he's been inside the Celebrity Big Brother house, Jack has only said five words - almost half of them used to describe Shilpa as a "w##ker" and a "c##t" - but they were all said to Jade. Now Jack is all alone on Celebrity Big Brother, there's every chance that he'll either shrivel up and die without anyone actually noticing, or he'll come out of his shell, show his real personality off and spill his fluids off all over someone else's leg for a change. Which of these is most likely?
Danielle Lloyd - Lucky old Danielle Lloyd. Thanks to her not having a voice like twenty tectonic plates smashing into each other at a million miles and hour in an echo chamber, she managed to avoid the bulk of the Celebrity Big Brother racism row despite being about a billion times more racist-seeming than Jade Goody. Handily this hasn't gone unnoticed by the public, who now see Danielle Lloyd as the second-least favourite to win Celebrity Big Brother even though the big old racist flap has sort of died down now. What this means is that when Danielle Lloyd is eventually evicted from Celebrity Big Brother it'll be in front of a massive crowd. A massive booing crowd. A massive booing crowd of angry Indians holding burning effigies of Danielle Lloyd!
Jo O'Meara - All of the above goes equally for Jo "Are all Indians thin because they're sick all the time?" O'Meara. During Celebrity Big Brother Jo has changed from a mardy old sourballs to a mardy old sourballs with a nifty side-career as a sneering racist sidekick. Jo O'Meara was conspicuously the only member of The Celebrity Big Brother Bitches Of Elstree (copyright every bloody newspaper ever) not to apologise to Shilpa Shetty for being a bit of an arsehole to her. On the plus side, Jo O'Meara seems to be completely oblivious to all the crap that's going on outside of the Celebrity Big Brother house to the extent that she's actually given a Diary Room speech about how proud she is of her time in the house.
I would think the least Endemol can do is have evictions every night this week with MASSIVE audiences booing and braying for blood and making these plebs face their deeds head on.
On the shreddies front, things were getting desperate for Leo Sayer. Staring forlornly at a suitcase full of grubby keks, Leo prays for the arrival of the special laundry fairy who replenishes his pant supply back home. "Washing powder is provided, Leo," says Big Brother.
Leo is very vexed. "I do not wash my own clothes!" he snaps. Washing his own underwear is clearly below Leo. Surely some Endemol work experience flunkie should be dispatched with a box of Dreft for a merry afternoon gratefully scrubbing the royal gusset? "This is unsanitary! And unhygienic!" rails Leo, "If you won't provide me with fresh pants I'm out of here. Let me out!"
At least this incident offers us a new reading of Leo's recent remastered hit Thunder in My Heart. "There's a storm raging deep inside my soul/There's a howling wind that I can't control/There's a fire inside that I can't explain," sings Leo, "I feel thunder in my heart and I can't explain!"
Until recently, I thought the track was about woman troubles. Now, I realise it was written in the 70s on the bleak day when the Sunset Strip Hyatt hotel couldn't assure Leo a same-day under-garment laundering service.
"Right, f****** let me out!" Leo yells. Eventually he levers open a door with a shovel and makes his escape, reaching the security fence before being flanked by two hulking security guards who prevent him going any further. Whether you like Leo or not, there's something about this final part of the drama that I find slightly unnerving.
"We've got him!" one guard shouts into his walkie-talkie. They then physically detain the flailing, shouting Leo until a producer and a camera crew can get there.
In seriousness, what sort of contract do housemates sign when they enter Big Brother? This is a TV studio in Elstree, not one of Her Majesty's detention facilities. How are Endemol employees allowed to use brute force to stop you leaving when you're shouting, "Let me out! Let me out! I want to leave!" at the top of your voice?
Of course, before anyone launches a human rights appeal on Leo Sayer's behalf it should be mentioned that when Leo is permitted to leave "this stupid f****** TV show" and "this stupid f****** country", he doesn't go at all. He hangs around to do an exclusive Friday-night interview, watch his best bits, talk about himself and cram his face on TV a little more. So much for hating Big Brother.
Leo's departure plays havoc with the Friday-night eviction. In a head-to-head between a columnist and Face from the A-Team, it's little surprise when Carole is spewn down the steps receiving the same muddy carpet of boos and cheers that almost everyone leaving and entering the house receives these days.
Let's hope in time for BB8 they find a totally new way of putting people in and out of the house. For me, the moment it became totally standard for people to be booed and abused on their way into the house, eviction nights lost their pizazz.
I'll miss Carole. She was dry, witty, calm-headed and at least led the conversation into some intelligent places. I sat watching live feed Jade and Danielle over the weekend, with added percussion by Jack. To say that an eight-year-old child could run rings around them all intellectually would be vastly unfair to Tony Blair's educational legacy.
How has Danielle got all those GCSEs? Was she dating the exam-board supervisor? Whatever, listening to Jade and Danielle even try to agree where they met and how they know each other puts me in mind of that Larson cartoon "Midvale School for the Gifted".
Last night on the live feed, Jade sat moaning at Shilpa about the way she acted during Carole's nomination. Six minutes into "the conversation", having endured Jade's singular point ten times, I decided to watch World Darts. I'm still truly disappointed that Celebrity Big Brother contains Jade Goody.
I'm not interested in hearing any more of the inarticulate ramblings of her Malteser-sized mind. She's had half a dozen other reality shows already. I'm not bothered about her, or her silly little lapdog boypal in his ridiculous Steptoe braces and Top Shop porkpie hat mooching about like a Lidl Justin Timberlake, either.
How long before Jermaine, Shilpa and Dirk walk out too? In the face of so much stupidity, bitching and bad feeling, I'm very impressed with Shilpa Shetty for having the stoic determination to stay. She's the best advert for converting to Hinduism I've ever seen. If Shilpa's faith could help me retreat to a fluttery place in my head where the tedious little triumvirate of fishwife Danielle, Fenella the Kettle Witch Jo and Jade plc became even worth reasoning with, I'd give it a shot.
With almost two weeks to go, I need divine intervention from somewhere.
Jermaine Jackson wanders the Celebrity Big Brother house clad in his typical morning ensemble: unpleasant long johns and one of Noel Edmond's Christmas day jumpers. His expression is blank. He speaks very rarely apart from when he's praying.
If Jermaine's six days in the Big Brother house have achieved anything, they've brought him closer to God. Despite growing up in a house full of diamanté-shoulder-padded, surgery-obsessed fruitcakes, Jermaine has never quite met anything like Jackiey Budden. God is his only salvation.
"I wannedeggs! Not a nana! Nah, I don't want nish now! Nah, nuffing!" Jackiey is shouting, getting confused, upset, then angry about breakfast. Next there will be crying, then more yelling. Jade will need to step in and smooth things out again. Frequently this only makes things worse as Jade isn't very good at speaking either. Jade's eyes are hollow. She's exhausted with trying to keep the peace.
The day wears on, Jackiey charges around the house with her klaxon voice, wonky eye, flappy arm and cheese-and-chive breath, farting a lot, talking loudly about her days as a thief and drooling over Jo from S Club (who isn't gay, just a big fan of Joan "The Freak" Ferguson from Cell Block's look).
H and Cleo treat Jackiey with compassion, as if she were a backwards child. Later, Jackiey pulls out a bag of QVC-shopping-channel jewellery, then begins to dispense it to her "friends". "Dat Shirpal, Shippal, whatever her name is, ain't gettin' nish, though!" she says.
"I want to go home," Jade says sadly to Jack in the garden. To be honest, I can't muster up much sympathy for her. The acute discomfort of knowing the entire house is cringing and withdrawing from her own mum must be unbearable, but it certainly can't be a shock. When the phone call came from Jade's agent requesting the entire Goody family to go on Celebrity Big Brother, Jade knew her mother, being the stuff of Chris Morris Jam-style nightmares, would be the "star" of the show.
In all of Jade's numerous reality-TV shows, Jade has been dogged by her mother Jackiey's behaviour. The difference here being that instead of allowing us to see bite-sized chunks of Jade and Jackiey's comedy bickering, what Jade sold this time was the rights to 24-hour scrutiny of her hilarious dysfunctional, intellectually limited mum for us all to pick at. Which we all are, thank you very much.
"I feel terrible. I can't take this any more," sobs Jade following another Jackiey outburst about menus. Never mind, Jade, buy yourself another big car with the pay cheque, you'll get over it.
Ken left over an argument involving cheese and biscuits. I'll remember him for two quotes. On Jackiey: "At best she's a joke…at worst she's an evil woman." Then, as the producers opened the door to let him leave, Ken announced airily, "My slippers are under the chaise longue…will someone fetch them?" Goodbye, Ken, you'll be missed.
Despite Celebrity Big Brother being totally fun-free right now, there's still a fish hook through my gob dragging me back each day to watch. I suppose one of the most captivating things about Big Brother is that it's eternally different. This isn't I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! or Strictly Come Dancing, where you know what's in store from the off. It's a different type of drama each time.
Right now, CBB isn't especially witty, bitchy, surreal or youthful, like last year's CBB was with Preston, Chantelle, Pete, Maggot, Traci etc. Instead, this year's show is slow, dark and compelling, albeit in a depressing way. Instead of belly laughs, this CBB is an examination of snobbery, unravelling egos and, above all, the meaning of celebrity itself.
Leo Sayer cannot bear the concept of Jade Goody. According to Leo, he is a proper celebrity and she is nothing, because Leo has a talent and a 30-year recording career and Jade is just bloody Jade.
Aggravatingly for Leo, Jade Goody plc fascinates millions of people, while nobody gives a stuff about Leo any more. It's just not fair. The rules have all changed in celebrity world and no amount of swearing or sulking can do anything to alter it.
And what's left of Leo's career he's dismantling anyhow by behaving worse than Ricky Gervais would have asked him to for a cameo role in Extras. Until a week ago, cheeky, good time, upbeat Leo held a place in the nation's hearts as he always seemed such a nice bloke. Within 24 hours of entering the house it was clear that Leo had a touch of The Fast Show's Colin Hunt about him with his catchphrases, inane wittering, bad single entendres and mucky comments.
Leo spends most days mooching about the house, hands in pockets, seeking out people to talk at about himself. "I fancy a w***," he announced to Carole and Danielle recently, while they both set aside their breakfasts in horror trying to blitz the image of Leo wrestling with his own luncheon-truncheon from their minds.
Leo's anger with Big Brother has spilled into venomous fury of late because of the "conditions" he has to live in. "It should not be worse in here than we're accustomed to!" Leo huffs as Carole tries to explain that as a fee-paid celeb who is supposedly used to luxury, the name of the Celebrity Big Brother game is to see him fall from grace (subtext: shut your gob and get on with it).
This just makes Leo more furious. Back to the diary room Leo trots for more swearing, flicking of V's and offers to show his genitals. "F*** off. Give me my contract. I want to see my contract! Bring it to me now!" Leo shouts, thus creating the funniest moment of Celebrity Big Brother so far. Leo's contract is presented to him and he sets about reading it with the boggle-eyed intensity that he should have done the first time.
Leo sighs and tuts a bit, finally finding a paragraph of small print that I like to imagine said something like:
"Sub-clause 7896q: Dearest Leo, in your frothy-mouthed frenzy to get your little face back on British TV, you have NOT read this small-print paragraph. We at Big Brother reserve the right to treat you pretty much however we want during the next 25 days, stopping just short of actually killing you.
"If you're such a fool that you didn't think to visit YouTube and watch clips of last year's Celebrity Big Brother before signing up then sorry, mate, we can't help you. But believe us, stop wittering on about 'your rights', you fuzzy-headed little Fraggle.
"So do run along and stop waffling on about the air con, hygiene and diet not being "all you're accustomed to" and we'll be along with your economy baked beans in a moment.
"Yours, baring our bum cheeks in your general direction, love and kisses, everyone at Big Brother. XXXXX"
"I've read my contract," huffs Leo to Carole, stomping out of the diary room in a dark and brooding fug. "Oh…right," sighs Carole, "What did it say?" Leo fumes for a bit, his "real celebrity" bottom lip jutting out like a petulant child's. "It says they can do what they want."
How did a former dental nurse rise from obscurity to earn a £4m fortune as a 'celebrity'? Why has she become such a ubiquitous presence on british television screens? What does her success say about the cultural life of the nation?
Published: 09 January 2007
The first time she was mentioned in the national press, Jade Goody was a "pretty dental nurse, 20, from London". It was 25 May 2002 and the car crash that was Big Brother 3 had only just begun.
By the end of the summer, Jade had been described as a nasty slapper, public enemy number one, the most hated woman in Britain and a monster. Big Brother message boards had received "burn the pig" death threats and Channel 4 bosses were urged to smuggle her out and rush her to a secret location abroad (maybe in "East Angular") for her own safety.
Four-and-a-half years later, Jade is, by her own account, "the most 25th inferlential [sic] person in the world". She is worth up to £4m; it is impossible to switch on a television without her featuring on some satellite channel somewhere; she is never out of the red-tops. She even has her own best-selling perfume.
So how did this remarkable transformation come about? And what does it say about all of us?
For when Jade walked back into the Big Brother house last Friday night it was, she was keen to point out, as a bona fide celebrity. Not that the other celebrities agreed. Within a day, Donny Tourette, the Sid Vicious-wannabe with unforeseen Spiderman tendencies, had scaled the wall of the Big Brother compound, declaring manfully: "I'm out of here. I'm not fucking waiting on some moron and her family."
Next to succumb was the film director Ken Russell. Not someone who has led a sheltered life, he branded her "demented" and realised that he had to get away. As he hurriedly packed his bags on Sunday, the director of The Devils and Revenge of the Elephant Man explained that he could not tolerate being in a quite large house with a small Essex girl and her enormous mouth. "I don't want to live in a society riddled with evil and hatred," he whispered. It was more than he had said all week in the house.
Last night, Ladbrokes had odds of 2 to 1 on another celebrity getting a bad case of Goody-itis and legging it out of the house. The Jade magic is working again, just like it did in 2002. But Jade should not be downhearted: she has learnt that being an "escape goat", as she so memorably described her position, is big business.
It started the day after she walked into the house first time around alongside contestants such as Adele, Kate and Alex - now long forgotten. After 24 hours of Jade, The People wrote an astonished attack, entitled: "Why we must lob the gob". The next day, Coral suspended betting on Jade being the first to be voted out after a flood of bets including one of £5,900.
Whatever they said about Jade, she was worse. The Daily Mail asked, "Are these the 12 most awful people in Britain?" So Jade celebrated her 21st birthday, declaring: "I'm going to make myself so drunk that I'll make myself sick, and then I'll start all over again." Dominik Diamond called her a "nasty slapper" with a face like a pig. She found herself in bed with her housemate, PJ, who denied their under-the-sheets fumble and ran from her, shrieking. For perhaps the first time in living memory, The Sun and The Mirror were in full agreement: this was the most hated woman in Britain. The Daily Star decided she was a "monster".
Then Jade threatened to "deck" Adele for pointing out that Jade had a verruca. It was rumoured that even Germaine Greer was struggling to find a sense of sisterhood and had muttered in the Newsnight green room that "the fat slag deserves all she gets". She was more unpopular than Saddam Hussein. Who was a boxer, according to Jade.
Such was the passion behind the new national sport that some grew wary. Big Brother's producers were warned by Dr Cynthia McVey, a leading psychologist and expert in reality TV show ethics, who announced her fears for Jade's safety and sanity. "My real worries are for Jade," she said. "Every bit of her character has been attacked. She has been called ugly, stupid and nasty."
Channel 4 insiders revealed that Jade had a long chat with the show's psychologist and been recommended for 24-hour protection the minute the show was over. Her mum begged programme-makers to smuggle her out via a back door, for fear that she would be lynched. Then Jade emerged in fourth place, in a pink satin dress two sizes too small, and all hell broke loose. Was she upset my all the criticism? Was she bollocks, she said.
Years later, Dr McVey is still certain that she was right to voice her concerns. "I have a theory that, after I'd said that, some people felt that they had gone too far, and they turned around and supported her," she said yesterday. "You'd expect her to be demoralised. But what happened may have enabled her future career."
Was she referring to The Mirror, which announced triumphantly that its anti-Jade campaign was "a brilliantly conceived clandestine campaign to drum up sympathy for the divine Ms Jade Goody"? Or The Sun, which decided to back her as a worthy winner? Whatever it was, Jade's fortunes took a turn for the better.
Dr McVey shrugs. "Maybe she was less sensitive than other people would have been. She may have thought that it was a fair trade off - the price of fame. Still, I am a little surprised that she agreed to go back into the house. The first time may have been a good move in the long term but it was not a pleasant experience in the short term. I'm surprised she didn't say to herself that it might not be the best move."
Whatever the short-term pain, you can forgive Jade for wanting some more of that long-term action. She is estimated to be worth between £2m and £4m. She owns three houses with giant plasma TV screens and chandeliers and a £60,000 turbo-charged Range Rover. Her autobiography, cunningly titled My Autobiography, has sold 113,000 copies, not bad for someone who admits that she can have trouble signing her own name. And her perfume, Shh... Jade Goody, is the third most popular in the country, after Kylie's and Victoria Beckham's.
Jade's agent, who also represents Davina McCall, Tess Daly, Mariella Frostrup and Sadie Frost is very shy about talking money. A representative from John Noel Management was willing to reveal that she is paid for TV appearances on the likes of The Weakest Link and The Friday Night Project, and for reality TV projects such as Celebrity Driving School, What Jade Goody Did Next and Jade's PA. They are also willing to reveal that she has just released her third fitness DVD. But they are notably cagey about what she actually does for a living. Apart, that is, from fight with her boyfriends, make up with her boyfriends, and have an apparently continual series of cancer scares. "They camp outside my door," she told her fellow "celebrities" at the weekend. And she always delivers.
"When she first left the house there were, um, concerns, about how her life would be," says a spokeswoman. "We were approached by Endemol to advise her on how to deal with all the media requests." Jade may not be "the sharpest tool in the sandwich box", but she has some working for her, according to the PR guru Max Clifford.
"With good management and a bit of luck Jade can last another two or three years as a celebrity," he predicts. And, he thinks, the public deserves the celebrities it gets. "I think the magic is that anybody watching Jade would think, 'I could do that, and I could do that better,'" he says. "More and more young girls and boys want to be famous. And if Jade can be, anyone can be. She makes them feel intelligent.''
Ten thousand people tried to emulate Jade last year and get into the Big Brother house, which is now in 20 countries. When she first appeared, reality TV was in its infancy. Now every second programme seems to be The Apprentice, or Jamie's Kitchen, or Just The Two of Us, or Celebrity Love Island. It seems to have done - or magnifed - something fundamental to the British psyche, an embracing of the vulgar, the lowest common denominator of mediocre, pointless television, according to Paul Watson, whom many credit with the invention of the genre 30 years ago.
Clifford says of Goody's current appearance: "The others resent her because celebrities are generally very insecure and empty vehicles. And let's face it, if they had a career they wouldn't go in this show. You only go on a show like this if you have nothing to lose. And the lucky thing for Jade is that she doesn't have any delusions. When you start taking yourself seriously as a star, that's when the problems start." This time round, though, does Jade risk reminding the public why she was public enemy number one in 2002? "Those around her have had three or four years to prepare her for going back into the house," says Clifford. "A lot of professionals are making a great deal of money out of her, and they'll be shrewd enough to protect their investment. Provided she's sensible there's no reason why this shouldn't be another successful step."
It is difficult to see what more Jade has to throw at us. Almost five years on, the public may think they have acquired an immunity to her peculiar brand of talentless fame. But Jade has a secret weapon: her mum. However stupid, however mean and however intolerable Jade was in 2002, Jackiey is worse by miles. And she has had £125,000 of cosmetic surgery to make her an even more zeitgeist anti-heroine.
As Ken Russell fled the house, he revealed that, while Jade was bad, he simply could not tolerate Jackiey. "She is a disruptive force verging on pure evil," he insisted. "She seems not to have control of her tongue or her brain, if she has one." Jade tried to be loyal, but even she was soon in tears in the diary room. "My mum's doing my head in," she sobbed. "I can't get away from her voice."
Jade Goody, the most hated woman in Britain, has been superseded by an even more invidious evil. She is louder, stupider and more cosmetically enhanced. And she has history. Jackiey may have admired Davina's bottom and lost the use of her left arm in a motorbike accident, but she is not your typical one-armed lesbian. When Jade was interviewed in 2002, she confessed that her mum had given her her first joint aged five, beaten her "because I hadn't fixed my wendy house properly" and once, in a haze of prescription medication, forgotten she had a daughter. "There were times when it was hard," she admitted, sagely.
Having thrown everything she has at us, Jade has brought out her trump card. "You thought I was bad?" she seems to be saying. "You should see my family."
"H, give us a hand here…say goodbye to everyone," said Donny Tourette jumping over the CBB fence on Friday night. "Mate, I'm out of here. I'm not f****** waiting hand and foot on some f****** moron and her family. I'm out."
As exits go from Big Brother, this was possibly the most dignified ever. No threats, no sobbing, no trots back and forth to the diary room or listening to their hokum about needing "24 hours to prepare"; just direct, positive action. If he'd jumped on the night bus from Borehamwood he could've reached Koko in Camden for last orders.
This would be much more fun than an evening trapped in a scullery with Leo Sayer's incessant twaddle or Jo's perma-frown. After expending all of her earthly allocation of joy during a particularly jocund S Club Party in 2000, Jo O'Meara appears to be working on a Pauline Fowler tribute act. "I don't do small talk," she told Donny as they began their 25-day incarceration. You can't blame Donny for walking.
Obviously, the main reason Donny left was the arrival of the multi-millionaire entertainment conglomerate Jade Goody plc. Jade arrived with her mother "Jackiey", (a woman so inherently dim that even her own name is a spelling mistake) and a young boy called Jack who's from the David Beckham/Leona Lewis school of charisma.
Jack's job is to be Jade's boyfriend and wear outfits that complement hers and appear in endless exclusive stories in Hot Celebs! magazine with titles such as: "Our fight over skimmed milk!" "Why I stormed out of the milk aisle!" or "It's a bit annoying when Jade steals the phone pen!"
I've nothing against the Goody clan in general; I'm just surprised and more than a bit dismayed to see them in Celebrity Big Brother.
For me, the point of the show is watching celebs we don't know a great deal about and observing their hidden side as it gently emerges. Back in 2002, I was keen to find out more about Jade Goody. That's why E4's What Jade Did Next was such a success. It was fun to see Jade at home and find out more about her nightmare mother Jackiey.
Then on Channel 4's Celebrity Wife Swap we all got a further look at "the real Jade". And in Five's Back to Reality we saw her returning to a Big Brother-style house for weeks. By this point there was little left to know about Jade's past or present. Nothing that wasn't in her warts-and-all autobiography, anyhow.
If you wanted any more footage of Jade being gobby and her mum being chavvy, you could watch Living TV's Jade's Salon, a reality-TV show about Jade's business. Or Living TV's Jade's PA. Or 60 Minute Makeover or Extreme Makeover where Jade and Jackiey both bickered and acted thick for the cameras.
Prior to Friday night, I refused to believe that it would actually be Jade's family going into Celebrity Big Brother. Largely because I'd found out about it a week beforehand via the serious investigative journalist tactic of walking to my corner shop and buying a newspaper. Everyone in Britain knew. All the celebs knew, too. They'd spent two days in the CBB house talking about Jade arriving. "This is all a smoke screen!" I told everyone, "They'll have someone really brilliant to put in!"
But it wasn't anyone brilliant, it was the Goody clan. Then the house was divided into paltry and luxury quarters. Then Donny Tourette walked. And somewhere inside of me a light for Celebrity Big Brother died. I'd been enjoying watching Donny play I-Spy with Jermaine Jackson and chatting about the music industry. And everyone trying to keep a straight face when he talks about his son "Jermajesty".
I enjoyed watching H from Steps show Jermaine his Bo' Selecta! impression. Or watching little-ray-of-sunshine Danielle hobbling about in her high heels doing her Aveline from Bread "Burrrrrr I'm a modddddel!" sing-song voice. It was starting to be good fun.
By Sunday, the house is a misery to watch. Everyone is playing a master/servant game of which neither the housemates nor the viewers at home understand the rules. Ken's left. Danielle is crying a lot. H looks knackered. Leo has taken a vow of silence. Meanwhile, Jackiey is being exactly like Jackiey always is.
I've seen it all before. Jackiey can't say Shilpa as it's too complicated so she calls her whatever springs to mind. It's an unamusing version of Little Britain's Marjorie Dawes on Fat Club listening to the lady in the sari then shaking her head in confusion and saying "Eh..? Something about curry?"
This is a weird point for me and CBB. I love Big Brother. I've loved it since day one, but right at this precise moment another three weeks feels like a chore. I've also lost any faith in voting after BB7, because let's face it, what is the point in voting out Jackiey if she can be put back in on day 23 in a "twist" and go on to win anyhow?
I turned over to BBC1 halfway through the CBB highlights show last night and watched Hannah Waterman doing tuneless karaoke on Just the Two of Us instead. When CBB starts losing feeble-minded disciples like me, they need to be worried. I love Big Brother so much I'll put up with anything. I've sat up till 5am before listening to Maggot from Goldie Lookin' Chain explain in loving, intricate detail his favourite parts of the Brecon Beacons.
If I had my way, I'd sweep out all the Goodys, stick in another three rock stars/comedians/whatever, get the house united and laughing again and begin the game afresh.
It was a good point, well made, Donny Tourette. Maybe I shouldn't be wasting my time watching some f****** moron and her family, either.
You may think that I have only one programme stapled into my "must see" folder for January - Big Brother 2007. (I am very excited I'll admit)
But there's another show which has caught my eye - an American import. Regular readers will know already of my enthusiasm for 24 and Boston Legal... and I've always said that Americal TV is SOOOOOO much better than UK TV - I don't care what anyone says about British TV being superior - It simply isn't the case any more. (Just examine Princess Nikki and Midsomer Murders as test cases)
Heroes. Heroes isn't just going to be the best TV show this year, it's going to be one of the best TV shows EVER!! BBC2 have bought the rights, and I promise to poo my pants if they hide it away at midnight like they've done with everything from Arrested Development to The Apprentice USA.
Heroes is a series about a disparate bunch of chancers from all walks of life who slowly figure out they have various super powers and then try to get it together enough to save New York from a nuclear explosion that one of them sees in a premonition. As you know from my Superman Returns tirade, I love super powers. As a child I was conviced I would eventually develop the ability to move things with my mind and used to spend considerable amounts of time in the car with my mum, strapped into the front seat pretending to myself that I was moving the windscreen wipers with my mind.. I never fully gave up on that idea....
Heroes is supposed to have all of the punch that Lost did before it started to settle in for the long-haul. (I love the Bo Selecta version of "Lost", simply entitled "Lost Interest"....) Heroes is far more instant and direct. Heroes has supposedly created one of the enduring TV characters of all time - Hiro, a cuddly Japanese geek who, when he realises he can time-travel and teleport, spends week after week running around yelling "Yatta!" at the top of his lungs. Your money back if you're not hooked by the end of episode two. Here's a trailer you gormless TV freaks!!
Also lest I forget, 24 series six (at least I think it's six - correct me if I'm wrong Smithy...) will also be screening worldwide on Sun Jan 14th - I am not entirely sure what date Sky One bare running with it - the Sky website just says Jan. However I'll keep you posted when I find out! I can't imagine it won't be this date - they usually run with Sunday nights.
Slough fog-horn Jayne Kitt wore "secret support" pants to finale night. Obviously, the point of "secret" support pants is that it's meant to be a secret. No-one's supposed to know that you've dispersed your belly somewhere around your shoulder blades via the use of heavy-duty elastic. Nevertheless, Jayne shared the joy with everyone, shouting, "Look at my big pants!" For the record they were beige.
As I watched the footage of Glyn doing a "sexy photo shoot" with two peroxide dolly birds, it was possible to locate the exact microsecond when Glyn decided to put university on hold for a year. "Here's my phone number!" slavered one of the models who had two ton Pepe Le Pugh hair and silicone boobs you could park a taxi between, "Let's go partying," she purred, "I want to look after you." She didn't expand on how she'd "look after" Glyn, but clearly freshers' week disco at Bangor uni suddenly seemed like a highly moribund prospect.
Nikki made a public appearance in Brighton. She stood on a stage while hundreds of drunks filmed her with mobile phones as she shouted "Spessshhhhhhhel". After ten minutes security asked her to return to her dressing room as she was in danger of getting crushed. Nikki threw a trademark strop. Everyone laughed and said "Oh, isn't she brilliant?!" This included Nathan and Bruce, two of Pete's dog-on-a-string mates, who tagged along to "show support", despite the fact they would most probably have vomited at the mere concept of Nikki ten weeks ago.
George went go-karting for the benefit of the TV crew. George's interview was incredibly articulate. He said he hasn't made a penny from Big Brother and that he wants to be a photographer. For the last month he's been working for an interior design company, bringing joy to corners of Chelsea via the power of scatter cushions and moleskin pouffes.
Grace judged a bikini competition in Devon. Grace gets a lot of stick from the public, which she writes off as "pantomime boos". She displays no remorse for any of her vile actions. Grace and Mikey are very, very in love. Frankly, they deserve each other; at least they're not spoiling any other couples.
Lisa doesn't want to be a celebrity, she wants to be a plumber. Lisa went out on a plumbing job and freaked out all the male builders by being harder, braver, quicker and more potty-mouthed than all of them.
Spiral went home to Finglas, Dublin. His dad made him a big plate of Irish stew. Spiral is promoting his single on which he basically drones on about himself for four minutes, singing stuff like: "I'm Spiral/This is who I am/And if you don't like me/I don't give a damn." This is ironic as when he found out Ash didn't like him he sulked for three weeks. Spiral made a PA at a record shop and was mobbed by 150 squealing 11-year-olds. "I love him! I love him so much!" wept one breathless little girl.
Imogen did a stand-about-in-your-pants-looking-boss-eyed-with-lust shoot for a men's magazine. "All this is for me!" she gushed, "The studio, the stylists, the clothes, everything!" Imogen pouted, licked her lips and perched on all fours. "We're keeping it really classy!" she said.
Lea made a PA in a nightclub in Stoke. Not one person who spoke to her kept their eyes at eye level and off her gargantuan chest. More standing on a stage. More being filmed with mobile phones. More being hugged by drunks. How many nights could you be treated like a mobile freak show before you went utterly loopy?
Jayne met her agent Emma for lunch. Jayne wants her own chat show like Paul O'Grady as she thinks she's a real comic. Emma said that Jayne's celebrity "hook" is her determination to lose weight. Jayne agreed and they talked about launching a work-out video. Twelve days later, Jayne made it to the gym for the first time…then she went for a curry.
Pete went back to Brighton, where a nice, caring girl with blonde dreads and facial piercings seemed to be by his side a lot, rather than Princess Nikki who was shouting "Spessshhhhel" on a stage somewhere. Pete ran around the streets shouting "Eezermannah!" The public shouted "Eezermannah!" back. It felt like for Pete, being inside the Big Brother house was actually the safest place for him, because now, with £100,000 in his pocket, a jam-packed diary, millions of new friends and Nikki Grahame on his back, his problems have only really just begun.
It's an odd time of year don't you think? For a start there seems to be little to get excited about. I don't just mean that the holidays are all over and Christmas is too far away. I'm refering at the moment to your Tellybox.
I mean look at it - Big Brother 7 has come and gone. Our Sky Plus planners have never looked more bleak. Poor Fred has resorted to putting Most Haunted on series link again and apart from a few documentaries about how to raise toddlers or how to claen your bog etc, there is very little to watch during the week. We even taped a programme about the life of a battery chicken shown on BBC4 - I am not joking.
The oddest thing is that the only programmes on all week that are worth watching are both on at the SAME TIME on a Saturday night. I refer of course to Pop Stars the Rivals Pop Idol - oops sorry I mean X Factor and my own personal favourite programme ever, "How do you solve a problem like Maria". Why the bloomin bum-hole do they have to be on at the same time???
Our international audience (well OK you have me there, there isn't one apart from our Lisa in NZ) will be saying to themselves, what the hell is "How do you solve a problem like Maria"?
It's a programme where they audition thousands of girls from the UK on live TV before giving one of them the part of Maria Von Trap in "The Sound of Music" at London's West End and paying them huge amounts of money.
Does that sound camp? Well it's even more camp than it sounds. At the end of each show the "evictee" girl who didn't quite have enough jam and bread to get through doh to soh gets a rather amusing send off. The other Maria wannabees all line up and sing "So Long, Farewell, I bid you all Adieu!!" I promise you it is a lot more dramatic than any episode of "The Bill"
But aside from the TV I get the impression that everyone is a bit restless.
So today's question is, what have we all got to look forward to? Please leave your comments - make them nice and positive - about what you are particularly excited about doing. I await your stories with interest....
While surfing I found the following advert. Interested anyone?
Swingles seek bass-baritone
The Swingle Singers are looking for a bass-baritone (vocal percussion skills preferred). The group is a full-time professional 8-piece a cappella ensemble based in London, UK. They are performing mainly jazz and classical repertoire, but also contemporary classical music and pop. The group started over 40 years ago, but consists nowadays of young singers, refreshing the more traditional repertoire. If you are interested in auditioning, please contact musical director Tom Bullard at md@swinglesingers.com
Please send a CV, picture, and demo to:-
Swingles Direct
Suite 111e,
Business Design Centre,
52 Upper Street,
London N1 0QH
United Kingdom
(I immediately wondered if Pete from Big Brother 7 would like to apply?)
Would you do me a favour and knock a vote out for Aisleyne Horgan Wallace?
This is done by texting the word "Aisleyne" to the number 84444 and it will cost you 50p in the UK.
OK, so our girl probably only has still a slim chance of victory at best, as the Big Brother producers have done such a wonderful job of structuring the whole series so Pete wins. But it would still be wonderful to see her do better than Nikki, at least.
Perfectly Preposterous Pete has Endemol, Nikki, his dead friend and apparantly God in his corner so he doesn't need our backing....(didn't Nikki look like an evil cow last night???)
I just hope her hideously mis-spelled name doesn't cost her votes... don't forget it's "AISLEYNE"
Some reasons why you need to vote Aisleen to win BIG BROTHER
» She superseded everyone’s initial expectations of her as another dim promo girl bimbo who’d be evicted on Week 4.
» She assessed Sezer’s bullshitty ‘businessman’ wannabe player cred, having met a million of his type in every club in London, within about ten seconds, and thus proceeded to irritate the shit out of him by just being.
» She had to pinch her nose to stop herself from laughing immediately after Sezer was evicted.
» Being the only person apart from Richard to stick up for Sam, giving her some quiet advice about being overfriendly and telling Nikki to back off with the intrusive gender inquisition.
» In her time in the house, Aisleyne has been called a bitch, slag, fucking slut, wigga, dick, cow, moose, wannabe black girl, hoochie mama, ghetto ho, hood rat, ugly, hideous, vile, revolting, fake, arselicker, drowned rat, easy, and the most evil woman in the entire world (thanks, Lea). In her time in the house, she has called Nikki boring, Lea manipulative, and Grace a bitch after she threw water at Susie.
» Her open and vocal contempt for the alienation Grace et al inflicted on Sam and Susie.
» She was the only person to call out Grace for throwing water on Susie to her face, whilst everyone else waited until she had gone.
» Her scaring the shit out of twatty Lisa post Watergate. Lisa screams in her face. Aisleyne slowly gets up and towers over her. Aisleyne demands to know who she thinks she is pointing at. Lisa’s eyes widen.
» Her enviable inventory of eyebrow manoeuvres.
» Her spectacular sense of humour as displayed in that week when she decided to get very drunk indeed because she kept hearing ‘Aisleyne out’.
» Her and Lea’s impressions of each other. ‘Me name be Aisleeeeeeeeeyne! Me bredrin!’
» ‘You better know yourself before you talk about me, little girl!’
» ‘When I see that girl, you know, I’ma dash water in her face. Nah not really’
» ‘I wish I was a little bit taller, wish I was a baller’
» The fact that she once sang Buffalo Stance in the garden and knew all the words.
» Being the only woman Pete has flirted with, then ignored that has not gone insane over it (Lea, Lisa, Nikki, Jenny…).
» Her ‘I’m sooo sorry babe’ reaction to ‘get Grace out #1’ when immediately prior Grace had been smirking like crazy at the belief the crowd were booing Aisleyne.
» Her ‘bad!’ reaction to ‘get Grace out #2’.
» The cutaway to Grace, Mikey and Lisa (and Sezer?)’s faces when her name is announced as winner would be the best Big Brother moment of all time.
» Davina does not like Aisleyne at all (‘Hahahahahah look at her crying!’). It would be very interesting to see how this would colour a ‘winner’s interview’.
Digging out this four-second clip with just three days of voting to go was quite a low trick when everyone else got off so lightly; but then, as Dermot O'Leary often says without qualification on Big Brother's Little Brother, "Ash is a very unpopular housemate."
Just to let you all know that Freddy and Freddy are now off work on their summer holidays for two weeks starting Monday 14th August.
We are going to RIPON on Friday for a long weekend singing in the cathedral there but apart from that no plans.
Therefore if anyone wants to meet me or fred for breakfast, lunch, dinner, cinema, drinking, monopoly evenings, quiz nights, bingo, tiddlywink competitions, Big Brother watching nights or evenings where we all dress up like ladies, then PLEASE let us know and we will fill our diaries up with you and put your pictures up here when we are done.
In the meantime don't forget that my birthday is the 31st August and this year I don't need pants or socks...
Grace, Nikki, Lea and Mikey are put in the secret house. Now, if we could just turn off all the cameras and leave them there, play-acting their hearts out for nobody's benefit, I'd find that truly entertaining.
On day 67, not long after Nikki was voted out of Big Brother 7, Dermot O'Leary said in an interview with New! magazine: "The show has definitely suffered. There's something unbelievably endearing about the girl. I don't know why she was evicted. We were thinking, 'There's no way she can go, something must be wrong.'"
Dermot continued: "I still haven't met anyone who voted for Nikki. It showed that there's no way the show could be fixed. If they could fix it, I'm sure the programme-makers would have moved heaven and earth to keep her in there."
By eviction night on day 79, heaven and earth duly moved: Nikki is back, along with Grace, Lisa, Lea, Jayne and several other characters whom viewers spent hundreds of thousands of pounds voting out under the silly assumption they were voting them out for good.
And now we're invited to spend even more money voting four ex-housemates back in. One of these evicted housemates is now eligible for the £100,000 prize money. I suppose there are two ways of looking at this.
The first is to see it as a brilliant, satisfying twist. Just imagine the vile, antisocial behaviour we can enjoy if Nikki, Grace, Lisa and Lea are given more telly time? On Friday's Big Brother's Big Mouth, the ex-contestants pleaded to re-enter the house, exuding that same "I'll say anything, me, to get on telly" desperation employed in their intro VTs.
"I'll be swearing and smoking…and I'll beat Ash up!" grunts Lisa, as Grace and Nikki snigger beside her. "Cuh! I'll bring out Ash's true colours!" promises Spiral. "Yeah! Someone needs to knock the tiara off the ghetto princess's head!" gurgles some random member of the audience, clearly struggling to remain coherent amid so many F-list celebs. "Don't worry, I'll do it for you!" brags Grace, wrapping an arm around Nikki. "She can do it 'erself!" crows Jayne.
As the dismal little clique chuckle and boast about committing GBH on Ash, I'm sure there were people all over Britain thinking, "This is the best telly evvva! Gimme that mobile, now! Let's text in dat orange one who looks like Justin Lee Collins wivvout a beard. She's nasty! And that one who acts like a six-year-old and calls people sluts and squeals all the time! Me likey nasty people. They make my head feel fizzy and gud!"
A lot of people, quite sadly, do think like this. That's why Grace and Nikki will most probably return on Tuesday.
The alternative way to look at the "twist" is with a certain amount of anger. Well, anger ebbing slowly to resigned bemusement at the bizarre way Big Brother 7 has gone.
Obviously, it's true that Big Brother over the past seven years has weathered multiple twists and turns. I know that all too well; I've watched every single series.
But crucially, during the past seven years, the one constant, basic rule that has kept the show alive is that Big Brother is a test of popularity and endurance. The winner can be a timid goody-goody or a noisy prat, but their skill is to stay popular. If you're not popular in or out of the house on Big Brother, you'll be voted out eventually and then it's game over for good, leaving the ultimate winner. Week after week, it gets harder to stay popular as the homesickness and cabin fever affects your persona; but if you can endure this longer than everybody else then the £100,000 is yours.
What makes finale night so goosebumpy is the expression on the last, triumphant, sensory-deprived soul as they climb the white stairs and find themselves rocketed back to reality in an explosion of fireworks and flashing cameras. Whether your personal favourite wins or not, it's a curiously satisfying end.
To meddle with this basic fundamental rule and let Nikki, Grace or Lisa etc back in to win feels quite wrong to me. Big Brother can experiment with fake evictions, golden tickets and secret houses, but the moment they change the rules, the whole concept feels utterly pointless. Not only were they were turfed out by a majority vote because of their unpopular behaviour; since then, they've all been home to their families, slept well and recharged their batteries. They've eaten nice food, been down the gym, seen all their mates and had their hair coloured and cut. They've bought some new clothes, had a good look through all of their tabloid clippings, and now they're allowed back into the house once again - fresh as they were on day 1.
Meanwhile Pete, Richard, Ash, Imogen, Jennie and Glyn sit in the house feeling addled, flabby, homesick and slightly deranged.
Big Brother can experiment with fake evictions, golden tickets, secret houses and secret gardens, but the moment they simply just change the rules so they can re-instate Nikki, Grace and Lisa, whose deranged behaviour wins ratings, and then give them the chance of winning £100,000, the whole concept of Big Brother begins to feel utterly pointless.
If nobody at Big Brother gives a hoot about the last ten weeks of texts that everyone has spent money on, then why are we still lining their pockets by voting at all? It's just a thought, but why not just stop voting? Then the producers can decide among themselves who wins and why, while at least we enjoy the ongoing antics for free.
I can't see the point in voting any more for Big Brother 7.
Susie Verrico v Davina McCall was all rather amusing. Beforehand, Davina interviewed Mikey, telling him several times he's been a "brilliant housemate". "When you see your best bits, Mikey, you'll know why!" says Davina. Mikey's "best bits" VT is several clips of him waving his hands or occasionally dancing. The absolute highlight of Mikey's tape is the time he jumped into a big pile of cushions. "Wow!" gushes Davina, "Mikey! You were such a brilliant housemate!"
Susie's interview is starkly different in tone. Evidently, Susie has been a bad housemate. Actually, not just bad as in boring, but bad as in nasty. Evil, in fact. They've made a compilation VT of Susie complaining about chewing gum and the kitchen mess where they've slowed down bits of her speech to a growl and made slow-motion shots of her scowling so she looks quasi-Satanic. Susie takes it all in with calm aplomb.
"Your boobs are enormous!" hoots Davina out of the blue, pointing at Susie's chest. "They're not that big really," replies Susie. "Yes they are!" giggles Davina. Susie looks at Davina with an expression that appears to say: "Davina, you're almost the same age as me. Why are you suddenly acting like an hysterical 16-year-old?"
"Now, let me get this straight," says Davina, "You auditioned three times? You were a stand-in. And your husband bought 800 chocolate bars. You were desperate, weren't you?!" Everyone in the crowd smirks at the word desperate. "Well, to be honest, you have to be desperate to do Big Brother," replies Susie, "Everyone is desperate who gets through the auditions. You have to stand in the rain and cold for hours on end." Davina looks at her notes, ignoring the answer.
"So why didn't you do anything when you were in there?" asks Davina. Susie fixes her with one of her looks, then says, "What did you want me to do?" There's a small, awkward silence. Quick, Davina, stick on Mikey's best bits tape! Show her the cushion jump! "Erm…well…I don't know," stutters Davina, "My feeling was that you wanted to be there so badly…and then you didn't embrace it or even let your hair down!"
"I don't let my hair down like that," says Susie plainly, "I don't get drunk. I didn't want to have sex on TV. I didn't want to play Spin the Bott…" "Well, why did you go in there?!" shouts Davina, who is famously teetotal. "Exposure," replies Susie, with refreshing honesty. "Exposure?" Davina sneers at her. Clearly the years that Davina spent running around the streets of Britain like a headless chicken doing Streetmate and MTV's Most Wanted were simply for the good of her own health.
"So do you want to go back into the house?!" shouts Davina. "Yes, OK," says Susie, who we now have firmly established was an exceedingly bad, boring, shallow, and disappointing housemate. Susie skips off to join the queue of "brilliant housemates", such as Nikki and Grace who have come back tonight just for "the experience" and not for increased exposure whatsoever.
"Keep texting to vote who you want to go back in!" screams Davina, "The numbers are coming up now! This week's money is going to charity!" Wow! Charidee. Isn't that big of them?!
Maybe if millions and millions of us had known months ago that our next ten weeks of voting money was all to be for nothing, we could have put that cash to a worthy cause, too.
Ash and Jennie are then told to keep the nomination secret. They do this by wandering out of the diary room looking wobbly lipped and bereft, then lying in foetal positions around the house, weeping and moaning.
See Channel 4 official website - exciting!!
