Last week, Big Brother reject Emily Parr was in Heat magazine and this week she’s in Nuts. Seems like nudity cures racism.
Last week, Big Brother reject Emily Parr was in Heat magazine and this week she’s in Nuts. Seems like nudity cures racism.
Charley and Billi’s nominations were not counted because both had been caught discussing nominations.
Charley seems to have more lives than a cat.
And if Billi and Charley’s votes WERE included…
Seány O’Kane has become the second person to be evicted from Channel 4′s Big Brother house, receiving 44.5% of the public vote.
Continue reading ‘Big Brother 8: Seány evicted’
Quite why anyone would film themselves watching telly I don’t know, but here’s a clip of two fans watching the Doctor Who episode that just aired this Saturday, Utopia. It’s hard to tell but I think they liked it.
Warning: Contains spoilers.
Money for nothing (Big Brother, days 19–21) by Grace Dent
The fact that Liam was awarded a £100,000 prize last night for doing absolutely nothing tells us much about the Big Brother experience.
Now let’s be clear here: since Friday, Liam hasn’t contributed much. Aside from wandering around stripped to the waist mumbling, “Shlump, yer naa, aye, it were canny, like! Aye! Well, big trees an’ at. Aye! I luv me mum an me mates an ‘at! Aye, canny! Goin’ owt on the toon an ‘at. Get a hold a sumgirl an ‘at.”
Obviously, Liam was lovely to look at when he was doing his Oz from Auf Wiedersehen, Pet routine. Liam has one of those physiques that you might see on a naked firemen charity calendar. Those calendars that make TV critics of a certain age consider throwing a bucket of water over their chip pan, changing into a negligée then dialling 999.
However, it’s arguable that Liam perhaps wasn’t the most deserving person in there to get the cash. Maybe Carole the martyr should have got it for washing everyone’s gussets? Or Gerry, as compensation for his poor violated monkey, Freddy, which now smells of “condom lube”? But Carole and Gerry are both rather astute and gobby and in the Big Brother house keeping it buttoned and acting dim will save your skin.
That’s where people like Jonathan, and in CBB4, George Galloway, go sadly awry. They think they can just saunter in and run rings around the stupids with their big vocabulary and character judgement skills. They’ll just hover from group to group being sardonic and omniscient, then everyone in the house and the whole country will think they’re ace.
Sadly, there’s no place for brains in the Big Brother house. What prize does Jonathan get for sussing out house dynamics in 22 minutes that will take Brian six weeks? Within two days of being in there, Jonathan saw that Nicky is a moody cow, Tracey’s “ave it” routine is an annoying defence mechanism, and the twins talk a load of old crap. But all it’s brought Jonathan is sadness and alienation.
Look at him wandering about broken. He’s been branded “a perv” by Nicky and nominated by Billi for being rude. All Jonathan’s done is point out that two 18-year-old women gurgling, “Pink, fluffy, lark, pink, fluffy, lark, lark, do yer luvvit? Do yer luvvit?!” might be amusing, but makes no sense.
The world is neither pink nor fluffy. No matter how you look at it. No matter that, in my opinion, the twinnies’ mummy has engineered it so her babies stay babies for ever by repeating the idiot mantra.
Jonathan’s found that it’s rather easy to be branded a dangerous subversive in the Big Brother house. Oh, yes, Chanelle and Charley can burble on all day about “deals” and “being celebrities” when they get out, but if Jonathan calmly states that the twins are the slickest marketing machine in there, everyone looks at him like he took out a gun and blasted Bambi’s mum. Stop making our heads go fizzy, scary knowledge man! We want to talk about hair straighteners!
Saying that, it’s not like Liam’s £100,000 will bring him long-term happiness. Not now Nicky’s got her beady eye on him. I feel that Nicky, in her current state, is a man’s worst nightmare. She’s absolutely gorgeous: tiny and slim with a doll-like face, beautiful eyes and lovely shiny hair. If a bloke saw her giving him the eye across a dance floor he’d think all his birthdays had come at once. Cut to three weeks later, once he’s officially her boyfriend, and he will be in the fiery furnaces of hell.
He’ll face an eternal damnation of moaning, bickering and being beaten verbally for something bad some other bloke did in 2004. “All men are pervs!” Nicky tells the diary room. “I don’t do men! Horrid, vile little creatures! They repulse me!” she says to Chanelle. Then she stares over at Liam and sighs, “Oh, but he says he wants to get married one day! And have kids! And I think, ‘Oooooooh, marry meeeee!’”
Run for the hills, Liam! Run! Oh, you can’t. You’re locked in a house with her. And she’s slinky and curvy and looks like a Victoria’s Secret model when she puts on her bikini and deigns to flash an occasional smile. That is a tricky one. Never mind, you’ve got £100,000 now. When the rollercoaster of mental anguish is over you can spend some of your cash on a long holiday up a big tree somewhere.
I find the whole Victoria Beckham, I-wanna-be-a-Wag mumbo jumbo she spouts quite depressing. I wanted to scream the other day when she was cuddled up with Ziggy and he asked her if she’d ever consider a boob job and she replied without thinking, “Yes, will you buy me one?!”
“Buy your own boobs!” I felt like screaming. “Get a job and buy your own boobs. Y’know that Destiny’s Child song Independent Woman that you no doubt murder at karaoke? Y’know, the bit about buying your own diamonds and rings? Why not try applying this post-feminist logic to ‘boob implants’, too? Unless you want to be standing in some court room in five years’ time with your ex suing you for 50% of your surgically implanted chicken fillets!”
But I didn’t scream it really. I just screamed it internally. I’m not allowed to scream at Big Brother any more. What with the screaming and the constant fire engines arriving, the neighbours are getting quite vexed.
Weirdly, I quite like Ziggy. He ticks every box of someone I wouldn’t be able to stand, but I still think he’s not a bad bloke. I think he’s made a mistake by picking the prettiest girl in there and jumping into a relationship feet first. But I don’t think Chanelle will be too distraught when it’s finally over. The fact she said his name four times “accidentally” Freudian-slip-style during nominations doesn’t bode well.
If Ziggy finishes it, Chanelle will probably cry for ten minutes, then put on those little panties with SINGLE across the bum and play foam fights with all the other boys. No change there. She was doing that before.
I think Carole might go tomorrow. There’s only so much a nation can stand of her passive-aggressive sighing. Her trudging from the pool in her lumpy cossie looking like an evil sea Medusa from Jason and the Argonauts. Her cauldrons of soup that she’s seasoned with resent.
Thank God they never gave us a referendum on Iraq; by the time Carole had given everyone a banana and told everyone they couldn’t speak unless they were holding one, then stormed off crying when someone else made a point, we’d all have been voting for George Bush as our president, too.
Ah, another week drawing to a close. So many questions left unanswered. What would a pink and fluffy world look like? How long before Laura cracks and eats Freddy the monkey between two slices of bread with a bit of mayo? Will Big Brother ever send in some slutty hot girls for Brian to play Spin the Bottle with? Stay tuned…
Just before the first of tonight’s Big Brother, Davina announced in a Big Brother preview, “Some say money can’t buy you happiness, but can it buy you friends?” Mmmmmhhh. Interesting!
When the program started, she explained that one of the housemates will receive £100,000 tonight! And they will all be led to believe that it’s the prize money that has been given away so there is nothing left for the eventual winner of the show. Sneaky.
But first the highlights…
In the last five minutes of the first show, Davina came back on. Time for the twist, hurrah!
The camera switched to live feed revealing all the housemates gathered in the living room and Big Brother announced, “Housemates, in the diary room is £100,000. Big Brother will get back to you.”
So we have to wait for the second half for the action. Talk about dragging it out!
Back for part deux. Is it time for the twist yet? Is it? Is it? Oh more highlights, goody…
Gerry: “If you think it’s fine to put a condom on my bear, I think it’s fine to put your hats in the water. You have to understand what is funny. Now my bear smells of condom lube. I love my bear, and now he smells of lube.”
Seány: “Your bear was asking for it.”
Gerry: “Don’t push me! Are you going to find it a joke when I put spunk on your clothes?”
Seány: “Enjoy your last night of freedom with Freddy – his arse is mine.”
Gerry: “You will find your clothes in the oven. Let’s see how you will react if I burn your leprechaun.”
Adverts. Back with almost live feed now. Carole is arguing about a towel. Back in the studio, Davina says, “Er, hello? There’s £100,000 in the diary room and you’re arguing about towels?”
And finally! Carole, Jonathan and Seány are called to the diary room. They are told that they are not eligible for the money because they are up eviction but they have to choose who it goes to. Carole thinks Ziggy. Seány thinks Laura. Jonathan can’t decide but he doesn’t want Laura to get it. They choose… LIAM! Carole is given the job of announcing the winner.
Back with the rest of the housemates, Carole announces, ”We had a minute to decide, and we’ve chosen Liam.”
On hearing that he was now a hundred grand richer, Liam managed to remain stoic… for at least a whole second but then started crying like a girl. Aaaaaaahhhh, bless.
Now, I don’t know if the twist needed two half hour shows with an hour break inbetween but, it is a good idea although it will probably be a bit of a slow burner. Of course, all the housemates are going to say they are alright with the money going to Liam and that they are only in Big Brother for the experience but… well, they are Big Brother housemates. Would you really believe any of them any further then you could throw them?
So there’s two helpings of live Big Brother (C4, 8pm and 9:30pm) tonight which apparently features a surprise twist.
There’s also a double helping of shiny new US hit Brothers & Sisters (C4, 8:30pm and 10pm) from Ken Olin, the producer of Thirtysomething. It’s been described as a pensive, sharp and moving grown-up drama, a bit like a less surreal Six Feet Under with a slighty lighter shade of humour and fewer funerals, presumably. The casting is pretty stellar too with Sally Field, Calista Flockhart, Rachel Griffiths, Balthazar Getty, Rob Lowe in later episodes etc etc etc. Flockhart thankfully has shed most of her irritating McBealisms.
And then there’s the second and final season of the most expensive TV series of all time, Rome (BBC2, 9pm).
More sexy toga antics with a heavy dose of shagging, carousing and duffings. Caesar lies in a pool of his own claret while Mark Anthony runs about like a girl, trying to avoid his enemies. Atia is at her self-protecting best as she prepares to hitch herself to Antony’s wagon and flee north. Poor old Niobe spends the whole first episode being cried over. Looks set to be another cracking series but such a shame Ciarian Hind’s Caesar had to die. He’s worth re-writing history for.
For this week’s shopping task housemates had to swim the Channel. No, they weren’t packed off to Dover, smeared in goose fat and pointed in the general direction of Calais, although that would probably have been pretty entertaining, they had to swim the 34 kilometre distance in the outdoor pool which divvied up to 7,500 lengths.
After a total of 20 hours and 20 minutes of swimming over two days they finally managed to pass the task in the tiny pool. The first they have managed to complete successfully.
Probably a good thing too since this particular task led to Chanelle having an almighty strop which began when Gerry jokingly said that Chanelle’s seven lengths in the pool might be because she was unfit and ended a long, long time later with the Posh Spice wannabe huffing, “It wasn’t funny. He made me feel like a fat whale.” Oops!
The task was also resposible for Charley having the mother of all bad hair days, “My extensions are sewn in. The hairdresser plaits the hair and then sews the hair in, yeah? Now the hair has gone all tangled into one big dreadlock… I can’t get it out. It’s gone all matted.” She had to cut them off in the end.
And the rest of the housemates might not be celebrating their victory for long either.
As Amanda had swum the furthest out of all her fellow housemates, clocking up a whopping 6.5km, Big Brother rewarded her by giving her the opportunity to choose every item on the shopping list herself! “How is that a reward?” the blonde moaned. “I feel I am being a little punished! I can’t add up – I don’t even know how to spell!”
Hot off the press…
“Big Brother has confirmed that there will be two special live shows, tonight (Channel 4 8.00pm and 9.30pm). Hosted by Davina McCall, housemates will be given a dilemma. It will involve a large sum of money and the housemates’ decision could change one of their lives….”
Oooh! Sounds tremendously exciting.
The housemates don’t know about this yet. Maybe one of them will be offered the chance to take a big sum of money and leave?

Former Buffy star James Marsters will reportedly be guest starring in the second season of Torchwood.
The 44-year-old actor, famed for his role as swaggering British vampire Spike on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, will be filming his appearance in Cardiff next month.
Torchwood’s parent show Doctor Who also featured one of the leads from the Sunnydale based cult show in its second series, with Anthony Head starring in ‘School Reuinon’ last year. The creative force behind the revived Doctor Who – Russell T Davies – has often cited Buffy as a key inspiration for his show.