New Big Brother has failed in every meaningful way – but it has given me a whole new reason to hate the show
JUST at the point when I thought I’d run out of loathing for Big Brother, up popped housemate Segun to try to explain why he was still a virgin at the age of 25.
“No sex before marriage, innit,” he told Emma, who replied: “What religion is that?”
“Christianity.”
“OK, I didn’t know that was a religion. I thought it was some way of life,” like naturism or Pilates or headbanging, which is presumably what Emma must have been doing since about 1971.
Because the staggering thing about this exchange isn’t just the ignorance, it’s also the fact Emma is 53 and must have gone through school when Britain was still a more or less Christian country.
And now?
Well, if you watch television, you’re probably under the impression it’s a moral vacuum run by morons for morons, a fair few of whom have ended up in the ITV house, like Emma, Marcello and Lily who, at the age of 20, can go weeks without showering and still picks her nose before eating the contents.
Attention-craving idiot
A disgusting habit which gains a whole new layer of horror once you’ve discovered she works at a Chinese restaurant in Warrington.
Weird thing is, though, despite all the usual hype, ITV seems to have no great plan for these numbnuts, in terms of challenges and tasks, and for the most part has just encouraged them to sit around discussing their spiritual and political beliefs.
A really bad idea.
For inside that compound they have gathered every shade of stupid in the spectrum, from Tory boy Nathan, whose values don’t seem to stretch much beyond a vague kind of snobbery, to left-wing fun sponge Ali, who stomps around the house wearing a “Trans rights are human rights” T-shirt.
A phrase that means absolutely nothing yet speaks volumes about the self-importance and attention-craving nature of the idiot who’s wearing it.
Somewhere between these two polar opposites, there’s also: Lily, a “Labour girl” who drew a blank with the name “Keir Starmer”;
Marcello, who seems to have been planted by ITV to make some point about misogyny; and Daze, an environmental activist who hasn’t let the fact she’s the size of a recycling bin stop her telling the others: “People die of starvation every day,” or informing them: “All I want to do is rip into a juicy steak.”
You name the hot political issue, these doughballs have got an ill-informed opinion on it — and it all came to a moment of revelation on Friday when narrator Marcus Bentley announced: “Daze and Khaled are in the bedroom discussing Palestine.”
A word that gave away the production team’s own prejudices because, leaving aside the thorny issue of whether an independent Palestine state has ever existed, they were, in reality, discussing Israel and the wider Middle East when Daze said: “Actually, if you, like, boil it down, no one should be killed like this. It’s, like, not OK, regardless of the situation.”
A statement so empty and stupid it could’ve come straight from our current Government. ’Cos that’s the thing about Big Brother and its contestants.
Their stupidity is no longer unique. It’s lost its USP.
Everything else, including our politicians, seems to have dumbed down to their level and you could, in fact, swap Nathan for Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lily for Angela Rayner and Daze for David Lammy and I’m not saying it would be seamless, but the level of debate and collective IQ wouldn’t improve that much.
This all-new, politically driven Big Brother has, I’ll admit, succeeded in as much as it’s given me a whole new reason to hate the show.
But it’s failed in every meaningful way, including the viewing figures, which launched with a paltry 825,000 and dropped thereafter.
I’m one of the dwindling number who are duty-bound to watch, of course, and when last I looked they’d dressed Nathan up as Boris Johnson for a Downing Street food budget challenge, while Ali was threatening to quit Big Brother with the words: “I’m going to leave ’cos this sucks. It’s a s**t experience and I don’t want to have arguments with people on television.”
She didn’t make good on her threat, obviously.
But as epitaphs for this dying show go, it’s pretty unbeatable.
ITV gets slice of action
LATEST part of ITV’s ongoing attempt to turn itself into Channel 4 was a surprisingly solemn documentary with a very enticing billing – I Cut Off His Penis: The Truth Behind The Headlines.
A title which involves the network trying to hide its own gleeful prurience behind some academic tut-tutting and worthy medical opinions from the likes of Doctor Apirag Chuangsuwanich, a medic from the dong-chopping capital of the world, Thailand, who explained: “The problems of penis cutting are rooted deep in domestic issues.”
A possibility, I’m sure, you’d never considered.
The simple truth behind the headlines, though, as newspapers reported accurately at the time, was that a woman called Lorena Bobbitt severed her husband John’s prong then threw it out of her car window.
A lot of other abused women from across the world followed suit, including New Yorker Brigitte Harris, who later found solace, we learned, in her own food-delivery company, which really should be trading under the name Deliverow or Deliveroohyah, but hasn’t even had the nerve to go with Cocado.
Patient Zero, though, remains Lorena Bobbitt, who provided the one solid-gold quote of the night.
“As the whole world knows, I cut off his penis and there’s no way I can candy coat it.”
Well, there is, and you could’ve piped it full of apricot jam and put it on to bake at gas mark seven as well, but didn’t.
One to watch
AND finally, if you haven’t already watched One Day In October, please make sure you do, before it disappears from Channel 4’s catch-up service.
Unexpected moron in bagging area
THE Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Which Baywatch star was once married to the singer Kid Rock?”
Caspian: “David Hasselhoff.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “Type 45 destroyers are ships that belong to which branch of the British Armed Forces?”
Sylvia: “Royal Air Force.”
Ben Shephard: “Which typically round stoned fruit is an anagram of the word cheap?”
Norma: “Pear.”
And Ben Shephard: “Which band from Liverpool had a number one hit in 1969 with The Ballad Of John And Yoko?”
Malik: “Pass.”
Random TV irritations
BBC News carrying the Wynne Evans and Katya Jones “Joke gone wrong” story on its main Six O’Clock bulletin.
Mr Loverman forgetting it needs to be entertaining as well as woke and worthy.
Endless sob stories completely destroying the credibility of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
And the entirely predictable mauling of ex-Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns, by all of the usual cowards on Have I Got News For You, where, whatever horrors Labour’s new housing policies unleash, Boris Johnson will continue to live rent-free in Ian Hislop’s head.
TV Gold
ADEEL AKHTAR acting everyone else into oblivion on BBC1’s Showtrial.
BBC2’s brilliantly edited Parole turning into the best guessing game on television.
The priceless look on the face of left-wing actress Sue Johnston during ITV’s DNA Journey when she discovered her uncle was a Tory MP.
BBC1’s masterpiece Industry.
And Gone Fishing having its own “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” moment when Paul Whitehouse was suddenly confronted by his muse, Tony Blackburn, with a Mike Smash style “Pop a-doodle-do, my great mate.”
Great TV lies and delusions of the month
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, Shazia Mirza: “As you know, I’m a comedian.”
Lorraine, Diane Abbott: “Women in public life are not allowed to make mistakes.” (So why are you still here?)
And Big Brother, Will Best: “I think I love them all. Is that allowed?”
Allowed? Yes. Believed? Not an effing chance.
Great sporting insights
LEE HENDRIE: “It’s been a great game from start to finish and it’s not even half-time.”
Ryan Lowe: “I just can’t call this league. Port Vale will go straight back up and Doncaster will be up there too.”
Tim Sherwood: “Sancho doesn’t look but he sees Cucurella.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
Ferne's quest
REAL progress on Ferne McCann: My Family And Me. Ferne: “Over the past six years I’ve really worked hard to work out who I am.”
Ferne, welcome to our world.
Enders on way back
DESPERATE EastEnders is now in full “comeback” mode, with the latest old face to return being Michael “David Wicks” French, who immediately found himself confronting the soap’s current murderer-in-residence Reiss Colwell, as interpreted by Jonny Freeman.
“I’ve been you. I’ve felt like I was living a nightmare, on this Square.
“Everywhere I looked, whatever I did, all I could see was people getting hurt.”
“So what did you do?”
He threw himself on the mercy of Holby City.
So it looks like you’re screwed, Jonny.
No S**t Sherlock award
INCIDENTALLY, October’s No S**t, Sherlock award goes to Ferne McCann’s husband Lorri Haines, whose first words to an intimacy coach, on My Family And Me, were: “I feel there’s definitely a void that needs filling.”
Like the great Bexley-heath sinkhole needs concreting, you’d better believe there is, Lorri.