Celebrity Big Brother – January 2012

My comments as continued from those on the summer show here: 2011 Big Brother (7)

Comments relating to Marion’s on-going summaries of the show here: http://ttapress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=182&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=2370

Marion wrote:

Natalie’s task is over and because she had failed to follow one of her instructions (for the life of me I cannot think which one…

I suspect there wasn’t a failure. Just a BB pretend one so that a single Housemate could give good headcase without a suitcase. (7 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

However, Kirk did outcringe himself in a task – the geography task where he claimed not to know where America or Australia or South Africa is – it was too Jade Goody for words. An act. An imposture. Why would anyone want to appear THAT thick?

I was about to ask the same question! I sincerely believe it was not an imposture and, if so, that is a truly incredible state of affairs regarding his lack of geography knowledge. In the pub quiz team I’ve been a member of for 15 years, we always consider ourselves generally weak on geography… but Kirk was up an Alternate World creek without a compass, a swamp without a sextant. (8 Jan 12)

Kirk probably thinks Essexist jokes are about Linda Blair. (8 Jan 12 – 7 hours later)

Marion wrote:

Ah, the poor creatures – some of the HMs are letting their sensitivities show, mostly the fault of the twins to whom there is a good deal more than meets the eye. There are razors in their smiles.

Very much so. The Synergy of the Shannon Twins is a Horror / Beauty oxymoron of unparalleled proportions. Quite a phenomenon. I feel drawn – like a spider into a web – by their symbiotic magnetism but repelled by their Thatcherite togetherness as a single force. It’s as if the go-lightly twins (what were their real name?) from a previous BB have turned frothiness into ectoplasmic acid…

Meanwhile, all the HMs as a gestalt seem to be genuinely enjoying the whole BB experience, particularly Denise. A constant group hug or Natalie’s seated ring-o’-roses as metaphor. Even Michael is enjoying his own cyclic down-beat diffidence and natural laughter. (9 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

I’m rather enjoying BB’s witty sound tracks this year

Indeed, I’m enjoying the whole experience: its accreting off-ricochets and synergies of the whole group gestalt. Channel 5 learnt a lot of lessons from their 2011 productions. Big Brother Renaissance Rampant. Gules and Vert and Sable .
Azure and Purpure.

Andrew is a very interesting case-study, which I feel you depict most perceptively, Marion. Andrew: Passive / Aggressive. The Continuity of Self meeting the Higgs boson glitch in an otherwise perfect symmetry of spin-reality. (10 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

Natalie kicked off the evening by telling us that she had been afraid of Andrew last night. She could feel energy off him, a dark energy that flowed from his bed to hers. She lay terrified as, in the throes of his angst, he whacked his duvet in the gloom of the bedroom. Michael teased her about Andrew wielding a butcher’s knife. It was all very amusing until later in the evening when Andrew was sitting chatting to Michael – and kept thumping a tube thing on his leg. Thump. Thump. Thump. Over and over. He was telling Michael how relaxed he was – Thump! Thump! Thump! He was more than a little Norman Bates!

I loved the reprise of his “I know my stuff” speech regarding Frankie’s talent or no-talent. This is prime BB of all time I suggest. Regarding everything you say above (extract only shown), Marion, you say it so much better than I could ever say it.
I am really enjoying this series. And your reports. I hope others are, too.

Georgia to go tonight. (11 Jan 12)

Andrew self-evidently didn’t know his stuff by claiming publicly that he did know his stuff. TV gold? More TV beige! The braggadocio now off into his glorious sunset or into the Autumn of his career, depending on what slant he can manage to put on it for himself.

Michael has a hedonist slant judging by the way his insteps became erogenous zones. (12 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

So all is not well in the house. I put it down to Andrew’s departure.

I think all is well in the House and your summary, Marion, actually demonstrates that. This is just a cycle that any group of people would go through in similar circumstances, and I feel it is little to do with Andrew’s departure, except that departure is a part of the overall ‘synchronised shards of random truth and fiction’.

Michael (49), for me, is the star. His acting mixed with genuine emotions is seamless. His hair a mighty bit younger and striking than his Cormac-McCarthy-type ‘son’: Frankie (18 ).

The ‘blow your house down’ task was emblematic of us all in today’s world.

This is definitely the best BB ever! (so far)

Nicola to go. (13 Jan 12)

I am trying out my new IPad, as I watch latest BB tonight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a staged and cheesy task as Romeo teaching Frankie to date the twins in turn. Shame on BB!

Also, It is now degrading into a typical BB crude steaminess since last night’s Bunny party. (14 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

Romeo is an artist! I have to ask where he has been for the last week – I don’t believe he has been sitting in silence.

I asked myself the same thing. (15 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

She’s not speaking to the Twins now – as if they cared. They form a perfect self contained unit, looking outward, never inward, through a frosty blue stare. They are rather terrible and also rather wonderful.

I used the term Thatcherite before about them, but that’s not quite rite. (16 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

There was a great deal of nomination talk (I still don’t care for this). […] This is one of the most interesting CBB s we’ve ever had. Have you got a clear winner yet, Des? I haven’t. I couldn’t even begin to select a winner.

Agree about nomtalk. It should stay nemotalk.
Agree, too, about most interesting CBB.
Romeo would be a good bet as a popular winner? The twins are quite a phenomenon, though… (17 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

The twins […] They really are terrifying, you know!

Their task last night was one to chalk up in the annals of BB history. Deliberate mayhem, yet meticulously (without rehearsal and with very little forethought at all) method-acted. BB’s well-seasoned tantalisation or blend of truth and reality taking a remarkably new original turn…
… also with believably sad tears outside and laughter inside. Many viewers, in today’s world, are possibly ‘tother way about. (18 Jan 12, my 64th birthday)

Following Denise’s gamble for fame or notoriety – we now know what Loose Women are. They are soft-boiled Lilliputian twins each with only one point of engagement during spooning.
The real twins, K & K, continue to impress: each a blend of ineluctable maturity and fresh youth.  (19 Jan 12)

[The TTA Press site seems to be down today, so no sign yet of Marion’s summary.] The twins talking together about the other housemates reminded me of the gods talking in the film Jason and the Argonauts:

Meanwhile, face to face nominations ended with everyone except Gareth up for eviction!  Michael crossed some line of BB protocol or Celebrity Culture when delivering his nomination speech about “emotionally disturbed” Denise.  Michael, I think, later realised he had gone too far when criticised by Natalie. (20 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

Natalie’s evicton did surprise me. […] Your notion of them being like the Gods making sport of lesser mortals may be truer that you think, Des!

I was shocked about Natalie, one of my favourites. I wonder if there is something intrinsically faulty about voting to ‘save’ rather than to ‘evict’. You think someone is so popular amd you don’t bother to vote??
We are Gods of Gods, Marion – watching the ‘Heavenly’ Twins as they commit Hubris….

[Later] Yes, I have also seen our Twins in Die Walküre – and I agree their best bet is to maintain that image. Not that it’s an image. It’s the reality. Only Romeo can dislodge them, if he now “opens his legs and shows his class” (as David Coleman once put it) down the home straight. [480,011 views on the TTA thread right now.] (21 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

But the truth is, all the men are more likeable than the women. And all they have to do is sit and watch the women destroy each other and then claim the winner’s crown.

No comment.  🙂

Marion wrote:

On the other hand, the females have no equivalent to Frankie and Kirk. That’s somehting!

And Michael is a bit of a mixed bag. Not made my mind up about him. Him and his Mad Son Frankie. (22 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

A brilliant and funny show tonight – I was cackling like a hen on an egg. Such a silly hoax too – Hms selected to be on a Japanese Talk show. It’s not as if BB hasn’t done something like it before! All were sceptical at first (with the possible exception of Gareth who seems to take things literally) but thanks to the persuasion of Denise and the other HMs, the Twins, Romeo and Gareth were convinced it was all real. […]Hmm…it hasn’t occurred to him before what an actress she is!

Yes, a very enjoyable episode. Not sure that the Twins believed the hoax. They are so Reality Show savvy from past experience. They are good actresses. Romeo, too, I think was acting belief. Gareth didn’t believe the hoax as such, either – he subconsciously suspends disbelief like reading a good fiction book.
As to Denise being an actress, true. She has spent her time deliberately ricocheting off Michael to give herself good acting moments. I’d vote her as the first to be evicted – out of those remaining.
A brilliant series, indeed. The best ever?

[Later] Tonight, I was torn between (1) being genuinely disturbed by the acute drama that has just taken place between human beings in distress and anger and clumsy passions of right and wrong – real beyond any Reality Show I’ve ever seen – and (2) an interest in the whole mock-theatrical phenomenon that transpired as a slow-motion train wreck. I shall sleep on it, but – as I hinted earlier today – I do not have much time for Denise and – whatever the faults of the other ‘contenders’ – I do blame her for most of what went on. (23 Jan 12)

Having slept on it, I feel the same as I did last night. We seem to be in agreement, Marion. Girls gotta have ‘fun’ – wasn’t that the song they were dancing to? Classic BB, indeed. But left me with a nasty taste, sadness and foreboding. An eye to the Youtube culture turned inflamed. Equivalent to the Victor fight … but even more insidious. Jade in the shade. (24 Jan 12)

The poetry task – giving Michael the responsibility to mend the house – was a masterstroke. Undercurrents still prevail, but an easier day. And I imagine the nature of Denise and Nicola making up ‘in the playground’ continues earlier Marion’s analogy of grown-up schoolkids.
I didn’t know Michael is a published poet. Perhaps we can persuade him to go on Marion’s TTA Poetry thread!
The Twins are a hard act to call. At one moment extremely strong and business-like – the next minute something shows through of the vulnerable, increasingly. Interesting that the others can now tell them apart, even with their eyes shut. I don’t think I can, but fascinating to hear about their differences. (25 Jan 12)

agree Marion. I still wonder if voting in reality shows for someone rather than against someone creates a more skewed result. Or as they say in law, an ‘unsafe’ verdict.
I think Gareth will win.
In many ways, Michael perhaps deserves to win, though. Game to the last.
Denise – erstwhile soap star in the only soap I ever watched (Corrie) – is a living example of some of the people they portray in soaps. She is running close to the edge of ‘normal’ people’s once-in-a-lifetime tragedies but a different one for her every week! And each thought that crops up in her mind is the only thought she is able to carry in one go.  (26 Jan 12)

Marion wrote:

She’s also on edge because of Michael who is nver the same way twice.

I read nver as river at first. And that resonance is brilliant! There is no riparian consistency indeed with Denise *or* Michael.
Frankie’s childish drawing alonsgide his ‘lines’ was just another sign of the ‘school playground’ to which I think we would all fall into if incarcerated by the BB House! Frankie *is* as obnoxious as he seems, however.
The Twins remain a phenomenon. The self-misperceived ‘humility’ and apparent ‘high confidence’ and arguably great ‘entertainment value’ and staged modesty all in synergy, with touches of a middle-aged Diana Dors, Alison Steadman from Abigail’s Party, Margaret Thatcher and a vulnerably feisty and cutely young Jean Shrimpton from last night’s play on BBC4.
We are tending to agree, Marion. For me, hopefully Michael first, the Twins second. (a.m. 27 Jan 12)

Well, there it is. Possibly the best BB ever. And thinking about it, Denise deserves to win by being the catalyst in more ways than one in creating that situation. But I still don’t like the way she acted – yes, acted.
Thanks, Marion, for such wonderful summaries. See you in the Summer. It will be linked to a new page from below.  (pm 27 Jan 12)

EDIT: CONTINUED FOR BIG BROTHER SUMMER 2012 HERE: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/big-brother-summer-2012.html