Too much to bear (Big Brother, days 48-50) by Grace Dent
So after the pleasing spectacle of “naked nomination” day, two housemates are now up for the chop: Gerry and Nicky. As ever, Gerry is philosophical about things.
“In the past I have had a variety of feelings,” says Gerry, in his typical sing-songy way. Actually, I had to rewind Sky+ to double-check that. It sounded like Gerry said, “In zee passst I have had a variety of fillings.” We all know that’s closer to the money.
Gerry has indeed had a variety of fillings. Saying that, during naked nominations when he arrived naked as the day he was born holding a stuffed toy over his dangly bits, he did admit he’d never had an actual monkey down there…yet.
From across London, I swear I could hear the keeper at London Zoo monkey house sighing while sticking Gerry’s picture up behind the admissions desk with the caption “Banned Indefinitely”.
I do like Gerry a lot. I know he can be an irritating, pig-headed git at times and he does like to prattle on and on about high culture and ancient civilisations, often knowing full well that he’s the only one listening, but adoring the sound of his cleverness all the same.
But Gerry, for me, is an intriguing person. I like the idea of a man brought up in a family of psychotherapists, who’s powerless to stop himself analysing stuff all day long. It’s all a bit “Brenda from Six Feet Under”. Anything a bit Six Feet Under is good in my book.
Gerry says himself that he’s “overqualified and unemployable”. It’s odd because his parents have done a brilliant job of keeping him in education and making him empathic to others and highly sensitive to the world around him. Still, he seems more lost and alone on the planet than Brian, the boy who calls himself stupid all day long.
Oh, but I know, I know, Gerry can’t half prattle on, though. And I don’t mind a bit of chat about moooooseumnanart, but enough is enough sometimes. I don’t think Gerry’s had 3,000 boyfriends because he’s such a love god – I think it’s because his idea of post-coital snuggling is deconstructing Derrida’s reading of Lévi-Strauss.
I reckon five minutes is the sum total that any normal bloke can stand in Gerry’s bed before grabbing his pants and getting himself back down to G-A-Y to find another boyfriend, hopefully this time a stupid one who can’t really speak.
The housemate I’d like to see turfed out is Nicky. I feel quite sorry for Nicky because she is so intrinsically miserable and negative about everything that she’s barely living half a life. A grey cloud follows her about all day long. Life is essentially meaningless. I don’t think the Big Brother house is somewhere for her to sort this out.
Nicky’s sadness pervades everything. Her voice is ironed out to a monotone Charlie Brown teacher-style wah-wah-wah. Her huge eyes, pretty face and slender body are exquisitely lovely (aside from when she does the Tipp-Ex mascara thing), yet somehow she seems ugly. The man-hating mantra doesn’t help.
Jonathan once said that for about two minutes each day Nicky’s face lights up and you could see an amazing side to her that made her one of his favourite people in the house. Saying that, Nicky claimed that there was something about Jonathan that gave her the creeps. I’d love to see Nicky’s face when she eventually reads the Sunday newspaper claims about Jonathan’s habits when she gets out.
It’s Liam’s opinion of Nicky I trust the most. Liam has sidled into my affections recently with his calm, logical diary room sessions. It’s as if Liam watches the same highlights show as all of us, then goes home, has a good night’s sleep in Tyneside, and shows up next morning on the Star Wars chair refreshed and insightful.
Liam had the mark of Nicky early on. I think it’s to his credit that he’s never jumped into bed with her no matter what alcohol is thrown at him, no matter how much he needs a cuddle, no matter that Nicky is in the pool grabbing his feet and placing them on her damp breasts in her bikini and waggling them about with “Do me now” eyes.
After an initial flirtation, Liam had Nicky down as pure trouble. “She’s the sneakiest person in here,” he said. She’s up against some pretty stiff competition. Liam would have possibly come across more seriously if he’d not been naked and wasn’t appearing to be in the midst of fellatio with one of the Forever Friends at the time.
So anyway, my opinion of Liam is altering. He’s not daft and mysogynistic at all. He’s a good bloke. A deserved winner. Hey, there’s a weird thing – remember when they gave Liam £100,000 that night in a bid to spice things up and make the show more edgy? Erm, what was all that about? I suppose we’ll never ever know.
Anyway, back to Nicky. Just before nominations Ziggy pulled her aside and decided to be “honest” and tell her he “didn’t hugely enjoy her company”. It seemed to come from nowhere, which seemed quite cruel. Ziggy is obsessed with how people see him on the outside.
He doesn’t want people to think he’s sleazy or two-faced or laddish or has bad manners. It eats him up all day long to the point of him orchestrating stupid scenarios like his confession to Nicky, just so Channel 4 has footage of him “being honest”.
The irony is that the only footage of Ziggy Channel 4 has been interested in for the past 50 days is the moment every day when he’s canoodling with Chanelle. No-one cares if he spends all day washing up and holding doors open for ladies and making Carole feel loved and cleaning out the pool. The bits we all remember are the eternal push-me-pull-you conversations between him and a frazzled 19-year-old girl.
Ziggy gives out mixed signals all day long. He never quite tells her it is over as he doesn’t want it to be totally over. Despite all the bickering and the fact that Chanelle is a highly strung, incessantly weeping pain in the bum, she is his closest ally and something warm to sleep with. If he just got rid her of her all together and stood on his own two feet for a few weeks, maybe we’d have more chance of seeing him being the man he thinks he is.
The one thing spoiling the show for me now is Charley. I have quite a like/loathe relationship with Charley. At the moment she is spoiling the show for me. I can’t watch a lot of the live feed and I often Sky+ the highlights so I can fast-forward through her rants. I’ve heard everything she has to say a hundred times before. None of it means anything. She’s only as true as her last conversation and most of that was probably lies. Charley is just a noise now. It’s not going anywhere.
No-one can stand up to her, not because they don’t have the brains or tenacity, just because they’ve chosen not to. Just like dealing with an internet messageboard troll, the best thing to do is simply shut off your attention. Ignore them. Do not respond. Any response is feeding the troll. Do not feed the troll!
In truth, Charley has nothing to argue about any more. Her life in the house is quite comfortable and straightforward. Sadly, Charley simply doesn’t know how to plod through a day. Shouting is all she knows. The feeling of everyone’s livid eyes drilling into her as she shouts about nothing, is as real a buzz to Charley as walking through the crowd on Friday to Davina. Any attention is better than no attention at all.
The moment Charley shuts up for 24 hours and doesn’t cause a huge altercation because someone dared to raise an eyebrow at her, that’s when Charley is nothing. Charley knows the moment she stops being a troublemaker is the moment that people might look at her sitting silently and work out that she’s just a bone-thin, marginally pretty hanger-on with a compulsion for exaggeration.
Charley crossed a line for me last night when she started on Brian. A week ago when Gerry was wigging on about the “N” word and how even black musicians shouldn’t use it and how he has strong opinions on it, Brian listened silently. Clearly Brian felt that his opinions weren’t clever enough to chip in, what with Gerry being such a world authority on bloody everything. Even what it means to be black.
Clearly this conversation got Brian thinking and when Charley brought up the matter of Emily/N-gate, Brian chipped in that he was glad Emily wasn’t there as he wouldn’t want to live with her. For want of something more interesting to do, Charley began shouting. Brian needs anger management. Brian had let himself down. Brian’s “prafetic” with his “Oooh, love me, love me” attitude. Brian makes her sick.
As Brian sat crying in the diary room I’d have given anything to be able to nip in there for five minutes and go, “Look, love, it’s all going to be OK”. I felt so upset for the poor lad sitting there with his hacked-off hair and Elastoplast ear looking like a cross between Van Gogh and the lead singer from Cameo, crying hot tears onto his knee-tambourines. Brought a right lump to my throat, it did.
“I thought she was my friend,” Brian wept, while simultaneously trying to parp out Shaddap Ya Face by Joe Dolce on a kazoo. Honestly, we have to get Charley out – soon. Nothing is worth a summer stuck in there with her. OK, maybe £100,000 might sweeten things. I hope Brian gets it for his troubles.
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