George - the greatest housemate that never was.

For my feelings on the end of BB, please see my sister column - 'Lucky Blue Suit' - whose author puts it better than I ever could. In fact, I didn't even watch the finale. Why mock up a sense of faux-anticipation when it was clear that the slightly tawdry Brighton crustie was bound to walk away with the title? What an interesting BB though. All the way from Shahbaz to shambles. Jesus. I can hardly recall all the twists and the turns, the deceptions and the disappointments, which have suffused my life for the past three months. I have a feeling that this is a BB from which there is no going back. Another landmark series in which another layer of innocence was peeled away, in much the same way as Jade Goody got her kebab out three years ago. Weirdly, the only person who I cared to see again during the reunion barbaeque on Sunday was old Harry's chum, George. I spied him twitching and ticcing away behind Dermot, desperate in equal measures to avoid the cameras whilst fulfilling the terms of the contract he had signed in order to receive payment. 'How different would this year have been', I thought, 'if George HAD wanted to be famous?' What effect would his outrageous poshness have had on that idiot Glyn - whose mindless patriotism and hatred of anyone who doesn't speak in a regional accent would have been thrown into relief if George had remained. What about Grace? Would we have had another version of the love story if George had stayed to stimulate her inner gold-digger? What about Nikki? If she had hooked up with the aristo, would Pete have ever bought her story about learning to love people from the inside rather than the outside? Who knows? But still a George-shaped ghost haunts BB7. I feel he may have been the catalyst that made the housemates reveal themselves, and that because he wasn't there, we got played as an audience by the likes of Nikki. Pete and Glyn. Maybe, in another dimension, George stayed in BB, and Nikki is already signed up to the Fantasy Channel. But I suppose we'll never really know.

Tuesday Night's TV (15/8/06 - Birthday of Jaxsta, pbuh)

Bit of a 360 on the last post. I expected Nikki to re-enter the house and heighten the tantrums. I expected her to wrap herself around 'Petey' and giggle like a love-struck teenager. She is permanently frozen at age 13 after all. Yet I didn't expect her to re-enter the house and pull a Grace; taking the opportunity to settle old scores, and making Aisleyne feel incredibly uncomfortable in last night's episode. There's been a lot of talk of bullying this year what with Grace and her army. Nikki's behaviour towards Ais last night reminded me that she was often the malevolent earpiece Grace would test her poison out upon. I attributed this towards a social malleability in the little princess but discovered last night that it was an equal ability to torment others. For this reason, and this reason alone, Ais deserves to win. In a BB year in which backstabbing, snide comments, cruel laughter and downright malevolence have become de riguer, I am supporting the one housemate who refrained from slagging others off as far as she could. The one time Ais had a problem with Nikki she told her straight away - no diary room impressions, no bitchy interviews in Now - just a straightforward 'why don't you shut up? You're boring'. That's what Nikki can't handle, the truth.
The reemergence of the divide since Nikki went back in the house has also made me nostalgic for Imogen. She got a bad rap but I think I managed to look beyond the void in the end and find just a really nice, sweet girl. She's not going to discover the cure for cancer, but at least she acts her age and sticks up for others when they're being taunted (Imogen was the only HM to support Shahbaz when Richard - he truly is a Dick - had it in for him). Imogen and Ais, the true winners of BB because they kept their integrity. Nikki and Dickie, in the words of Bjork, can sod off.

Tuesday Night's TV (8/8/06 - Birthday of Princess Beatrice, May God Save Her Soul)

Right. Where was I? Oh, I stopped writing about BB because Nikki left and it became boring. Now it looks like she's going back in on Friday, and it's become exciting again. Clever old Endemol. Except everyone's furious at them for stealing the quids they spent getting rid of people, and the perceived breach of the contract of trust between BB viewer and producer. I don't care as long as Nikki gets back in the main house pronto, and ousts that scally Jen from her relationship with Pete (Can't stand Jennie. She claims to be "like a lad", and then spends the whole time asking Glyn and Pete if they think she's pretty). I do have reservations about Nikkie's re-entry though - she knows that the public favour her childish tantrums, and if she heightens them, she truly will become the "fake" housemate that viewers and HMs alike have obsessed about for the entire series. She could seriously mess up her opportunity to walk away with the 100k. If so, it's a straight two-horse race between Pete and Glyn for the final. We're supposed to like Glyn because he's been "on a journey". All the way from Butthead to Beavis ("Huh. 69. Uh-huh-huh-huh. Yeah. 69. Uh-huh-huh-huh"). Petey it is then I suppose. And, as much as I adore Nikki, he really does deserve it. There's so much less scope for him to get his baps out in Nuts and Zoo following his departure, that he actually needs the prize money. Yeah, let Pete have it, and keep him in children's entertainer clothes and ketamin for life.