Sched fool

"The first Big Brother programme went out five days after they’d gone in the house, was half an hour long, and was shown at eleven at night."


As pointed out by Peter Briffa

Chauvinist Zig

Rumours about a possible split for Big Brother’s no.1 couple Chantelle and Preston abound – but don’t worry, there’s a new weirdly-named BB pairing in town: Chanelle and Ziggy. Luckily the parents approve...

“I don’t think we could dislike him as he seems a very sensible and understanding man, and if there’s any problems he seems to step in and take care of it.”
Chanelle’s foster father on Ziggy

“I think he’s very charismatic — if she’d brought him home outside the BB house, I would have approved.”
Chanelle’s foster mother on Ziggy

“I wanna rip her clothes off and have sex with her.”
Ziggy on Chanelle

Literary Big Brother

Big Brother, the reality show to end them all, starts in a few hours, and continues for over three months (I'll be blogging it here).

I can already envisage the process I'll go through as I watch it, from the initial excitement to despair and pain, climaxing in passive acceptance. But I am just one of many; the great writers have all written about their experiences of watching Big Brother - in fact, it's one of The Big Themes of All Literature.

Anyway, here's how the next 13 weeks will run, according to the masters.

Week 1: fascination as new housemates arrive, socialise
"The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same beat; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and colour under the constantly changing light."

The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

Week 2: heated discussion about new contestants
"…he spent sleepless nights trying to understand them and extract their meaning, which Aristotle himself, if he came back to life for only that purpose, would not have been able to decipher or understand."

Don Quixote, Cervantes

Week 3: schadenfreude as they fight about shopping budget
"Some moralists reasoned that the possession of money does not always determine happiness and that other forms of happiness are perhaps more direct... Incredibly, there were complaints. The company, with its usual discretion, did not answer directly."

The Lottery in Babylon, Borges

Week 4: curiousity piqued by potential romance
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Week 5: total addiction to programme
"…and yes I said yes I will Yes."

Ulysses, James Joyce

Week 6: intense irritation at foolishness of housemates
“Out, damned spot! Out I say!”

Macbeth, Shakespeare

Week 7: annoyance as rules are broken, shopping budget lost
"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,
With loss of Eden…"

Paradise Lost, Milton

Week 8: loss of interest
"…we both noticed what an endless length of time went by before another minute had passed, and how alarming seemed the movement of that hand, which resembled a sword of justice, even though we were expecting it every time it jerked forward, slicing off the next one-sixtieth of an hour from the future and coming to a halt with such a menacing quiver that one's heart almost stopped."

Austerlitz, WG Sebald

Week 9: desertion of programme prevented by introduction of new housemates
"I felt that I tottered upon the brink – I averted my eyes –
There was the discordant hum of human voices! There was the loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back!"

The Pit and the Pendulum, Edgar Allan Poe

Week 10: brief re-ignition of excitement as fights are picked
"You must have noticed how young men, after their first taste of argument, are always contradicting people just for the fun of it; they imitate those whom they hear cross-examining each other, and themselves cross-examine other people, like puppies who love to pull and tear at anyone within reach."

The Republic, Plato

Week 11: desperate wish for show to be over / impossibility of switching off
"Would you insist that some wretch whose life is slowly but surely being drained away by lingering disease put an end to his miseries with one sharp thrust of his dagger? Does not the malady that consumes his strength also rob him of the courage to seek his deliverance?"

The Sorrows of Young Werther, Goethe

Week 12: desire for return of old life / impossibility of switching off
"…as if there were any need of help to go on with a thing that can't stop, and yet it will, it will stop, do you hear, the voice says it will stop, some day, it says it will stop and it says it will never stop… you must go on, that's all I know, they're going to stop, I know that well, I can feel it, they're going to abandon me… you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on."

The Unnameable, Samuel Beckett

Week 13: acceptance of fate
"The clocks were striking thirteen… Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

1984, George Orwell

Star pupil

Good to see lovely people rising above their differences and getting along like adults.

On 4 May, model and former Celebrity Big Brother bully Danielle Lloyd successfully sued the Daily Star newspaper after they falsely claimed she had “a marathon sex session” in a club with a DJ she had just met. You might have thought this would’ve damaged their working relationship, but a look at the paper’s recent front pages (all accompanied by necessarily gratuitous pictures) suggest this is far from the case...

Wednesday 9 May 2007
Dani: My big reunion with BB Shilpa

Thursday 10 May
Dani’s new boobs: first pics

Monday 14 May
Dani’s terror as she’s mugged by gang

Wednesday 16 May
Dani’s new X rated telly show

Thursday 17 May
Dani: see my first topless pics inside

Friday 18 May
First topless Dani poster inside

Inevitable Celebrity Big Brother post

Can't wait for the Celebrity Big Brother eviction on Friday.

Word is civilised, astute, talented Shilpa (who speaks seven languages and has a black belt in karate) will be up against Jade. This will be the biggest landslide in Big Brother history. The odious Jo and Danielle will also be tainted by their appalling behaviour and will be cast out of society. And perhaps this will reassure India that not everyone over here is a racist bigot, and prevent nuclear war.

The Times Celebrity Big Brother blog is where it's at. Favourite comment so far, which came in response to the news that mass demonstrations had erupted in India and that questions had been asked in the House of Commons:

Having previously scoffed at Jade being the 25th most influential person in Great Britain I now fear this ranking was severely understated.

Posted by: Simon Curran | January 17, 2007 at 02:11 PM

All these things that I've done

Haven't shat out any blog matter onto the global information network in a while. Let's get up to date. Since last post, I have:

• Listened exclusively to music by eccentric female singers (Newsom, Winehouse, Spector)
• Been lambasted online by angry BNP sympathisers
• Spent ages trying to get tickets for Arcade Fire in Brixton, finally getting a spare from a friend
• Booked a flight to Moscow
• Realised that I would be in Moscow during the Arcade Fire gig
• Cursed the day I was born
• Cooked a slightly too stodgy potato korma
• Thought very hard about some of the issues raised by Celebrity Big Brother
• Realised that an acquaintance with newly-shorn hair now looks like Harpo Marx
• Didn't smoke a single cigarette
• Finished Day 5 of 24, and cemented my love for Aaron Pierce
• Drank cocktails on the South Bank
• Taught myself to speak (a bit more of) Tamil
• Briefly confused Alec Stewart and Alec Guinness

Anecdotalist

I truly am the anecdote king. Last night I managed to tell an ex-colleague an anecdote about me telling an anecdote (it was the one about meeting Celebrity Big Brother Preston's French ex-girlfriend and immediately launching into the infamously filthy 'Aunt Sally' anecdote). I mentioned this to my friend Darren. "So now you're telling an anecdote about telling an anecdote about telling an anecdote," he said. "That's fucked up."

Twenty songs

A list. The twenty most played songs on my iPod. What can it mean?

1. The Late Greats – Wilco
2. Stupid and Shallow – The Futureheads
3. Honky Tonk Women – The Rolling Stones
4. You're No Rock N’ Roll Fun – Sleater-Kinney
5. Holiday – Green Day
6. Talk Talk Talk – The Ordinary Boys
7. Come Back Little Sheba (Outtake) – Patti Smith
8. Hittin' On Nothing – The Detroit Cobras
9. Be Mine – REM
10. My Sherona Formed a Band – Art Brut feat. Spoiler Boy
11. Tiny Spark – Brendan Benson
12. All These Things That I’ve Done – The Killers
13. Waiter at the Station – Willy Mason
14. Home – Zero 7
15. Woman's Realm – Belle and Sebastian
16. Heavy Metal – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
17. Constant Sorrow Hollaback Girl – DJ Erb
18. American Idiot – Green Day
19. A Little Soul – Pulp
20. Fire In My Heart – Super Furry Animals


I've listened to the Wilco song a whopping 27 times. That reminds me. There was a task on Big Brother about a month back in which the housemates were each given an MP3 player with three songs. They were blindfolded and each had to dance on the spot with their headphones on while the songs played on repeat. The winner of the task was the one who danced on the spot the longest.

Welsh 18-year-old Glyn managed to dance to the same three songs for a total of NINE AND A HALF HOURS. If we take each song to be five minutes long (though they were probably shorter), he listened to each around 40 times. Even more shocking: one of those songs was MC Hammer's Can't Touch This. Hammer says the words 'can't touch this' around 25 times in that song. You do the math.

Pun of the week

Davina McCall on Big Brother eviction night: "It's time to say 'So long Lea, and thanks for the mammaries.'"

More recommended puns

Becks' sick stunt

The world's gone vomit mad! After England captain David Beckham scored and then barfed in the team's 1-0 victory over Ecuador in the World Cup yesterday, it's all that's been coming out of people's mouths.

Following the goal / hurl, commentator John Motson pointed out that this was not the first time Becks has yakked after scoring. "I'm glad you brought that up John," replied fellow commentator Mark Lawrenson.

The tabloids came up with some good ones. "Becks beauty makes 'em sick", said The Star and "Here we throw", The Mirror. The Sun topped them both easily with "Queasy does it". But The Mirror's website smashed the competition with "The Spewtiful game". Well done them. Meanwhile, even the Big Brother house got in on the act, with housemates being woken by a recording of Glyn vomiting on his bedclothes.

What does Beckham have to say about all this? "It just came out."

Big Bloodletter

Ah, Big Brother; a third housemate - George - has quit. These days, when the going gets tough, you just leave. Not like the old days, when men were men (apart from Nadia) and plates were thrown. Get your nostalgia boots on.

The electric goose goes, like, totally highbrow

Getting paid to watch Big Brother is a bit of a career highpoint for me. It probably won't get much better than this.

Read my Big Brother article here.

It ain't heavy, it's Big Brother

Oh come on, how could I not watch the opening night of Celebrity Big Brother? First in was Michael Barrymore, who found the rapturous applause so hard to leave behind he was barely able to enter the house. Extraordinary how people can so wholeheartedly throw their support behind a stranger whose integrity is so clearly in question.

We also found out that one of Barrymore's phobias is clowns, which annoyed me. I have a phobia of people who say their phobia is clowns - I really don't believe them. When was the last time you actually saw a clown? That's what people who don't actually have real phobias say when they're scratching around for an answer. I think more likely is that Barrymore's phobia is a limelight powercut. His exile to New Zealand must have been hell. But once he was in the house, the man looked instantly at home, and each new housemate was like a courtier visiting his kingdom.

The first real surprise for me was the appearance of Preston, lead singer of The Ordinary Boys, a Morrissey-tongued band of nu-Britpop urchins from Bournemouth. If you want to catch up, download Talk Talk Talk - it's a great song. Anyway, Preston shot into the lead in my book when he managed to greet Barrymore with his own "awight?" catchphrase.

The most mouth-dropping moment came when MP for Bethnal Green George Galloway was announced; he arrived looking eerily calm. I began to wonder whether the Endemol kids hadn't heavily sedated him in the limo on the way there. He greeted actress Rula Lenska (whose preview tape included the unfortunate line, "If I could describe myself in three words? Passionate, fun, slightly eccentric") and the show finished with the most unlikely fragment of a line you could've hoped for: "... knew her from the old Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign days..."


From the Electric Goose archives
- Kearns' hatred of Galloway
- More Big Brother bile

When I say 'x', you say 'y'

I love the whole "when I say 'x'..." thing. Not sure how it started (old skool hip-hop perhaps?), but it's a ridiculous and under-celebrated genre, in a watching-car-crashes kinda way. It used to be quite basic, with the MC stopping mid-song to go, "When I say 'ho', you say 'hey'. Ho!" The crowd then shout, "Hey!" and everyone's happy.

I actually find the whole thing really embarrassing and rarely participate, just stand on the touchline, silently egging them on. Especially as the whole thing has now developed into something unwieldy and wrong; witness this cumbersome exchange, which took place in Big Brother over the summer:

Antony: Eugene, when I say "Do you really like it?" you say "Is it is it wicked?" Do you really like it?
Eugene: (reluctantly) Er, is it is it wicked?

There were two more classics at the gig I was at on Wednesday last week. The first came from a pair of rapkids called Natural Selection (imagine if a huge asteroid wiped out all the world's MCs and just these two remained! What a thought!):

Natural Selection MC: When I say "music", you say "snobbery". Music!
Crowd: (muted) Snobbery.

The other one was great, mainly because the choice of words was so unusual and strange; it came from headliners Crack Village. I found them confusing, but quite fun - original too, though the enthusiastic man in front of me ("This is groundbreaking! Groundbreaking!") was probably overstating the case a bit. Anway, one of their rappers, clad in Bobby Gillespie style insect shades, took a moment out to shout, "When I say "crack", you say "village". Crack!" The crowd, loving it, and as one, all yelled back: "VILLAGE!"

Well not quite everyone. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Lost time

Last night was the British debut of Lost on Channel 4. The hype had been pretty massive, which I suppose is what you get when you do a massively expensive and stylised David LaChappelle trailer. There's also the 10pm Wednesday night factor: everyone assumes it'll automatically be the next Six Feet Under because it's from America, it's about an hour an episode, and Channel 4 are sticking it on at 10 on Wednesday nights. Like Desperate Housewives.

But unlike Desperate Housewives, Lost was pretty cliché-free and actually rather good. So far, it's hard to tell whether it's going the way of X-Files sci-fi, Jurassic Park action, or Twin Peaks weirdness and such genre-defying tricksiness is part of the appeal.

Okay, the script had it's dodgy moments: it was only five minutes in before the hero, Jack, went off on a dreamy flashback-eyed reminiscence ("It was my first surgical procedure. I was a surgeon in downtown Brooklyn. I had to perform a quasi-cervical-spinotrachteochtomy on a 16-year-old girl," he waxed) and the end of the third episode (yes, I kept watching) finished with this horrible everyone's-happy musical interlude, but otherwise it was totally gripping. And Dominic Monaghan arguably stole the show - hasn't he come a long way since the days of Hetty Wainthrop Investigates?!

My evening reached ecstatic levels when odious housemate Craig was evicted from Big Brother; the sneering man-child fool was finally sent packing. He is part of a horrible new breed of Big Brother goons, who spend more and more time discussing their post-BB "careers" while still in the house and talk of their "fanbase", despite having no contact with the outside world. Now he's out, I'm not sure whether I'd prefer Craig to be completely ignored by the world and to sink back into obscurity, or for him to get his oft-pined for chatshow just so he can mess it up and experience public humiliation on an even grander scale.