Like a Paula Radcliffe marathon, Big Brother trundled to its disappointing and lacklustre conclusion last week, with the most boring and stretched out of races being won by the most bland contestant ever to compete. Hell, to complete the tortured analogy, Big Brother even left behind a shit in the public arena, namely Rex Newark, who is hotly tipped to be offered his own show by Channel 4 off the back of his virtuoso display of unlikability in the house.
As mentioned though, it was Rachel, a lifeless computer game character version of 'niceness,' who won the show. A genuinely sweet, caring and warm individual, it is hard to begrudge her victory, or indeed to hate her. However, I have somehow found myself doing both. Rachel was just the televisual equivalent of white noise, the appearance of her on screen immediately switched off something in my brain; namely consciousness.
Still, it was a victory for positivity and compassion, and I preferred Rachel winning to Kat, her compatriot in all things saccharine sweet. Kat, a crudely created balloon figure made by a manic, drunk childrens' entertainer, spent her time in the house strolling around in her Aladdin trousers, offering little more than sub-standard Little Britain style catchphrases, or vague pieces of advice or sentiment which contained all the insight and profundity of a greeting card.
Despite spinning herself as a positive, sweet character, I was part of the camp who considered Kat to be a self absorbed and hypocritical show-off. Her tolerance of Rex throughout the show (despite his relentless bullying of her best mate Rachel), her manipulation of others to get her own way (she shaped housemates' opinions in order that she keep her friends in the final) and her understated yet fundamental presumption of popularity (in a surprise eviction she begged BB not to take away and of her friends, little suspecting she herself may possibly go) - in my mind outweighed the short-lived, simplistic, and vaguely racist laughs garnered from the hilarity of her poor pronunciation of the English language. Hell, let's get someone with a genuine speech impediment on next year and we'll all have a chuckle at that - ha ha. Really. Who likes that sort of thing? HA HA HA. Ha.
So yes, maybe Rachel was a deserving winner. Better her than Rex (oppressively dislikable - see any episode from this series), or even Darnell, who showed towards the end of the show a rather nasty misogynistic streak. And if Mikey had won then well, the fireworks would have been inappropriate at best.
A small part of me however, did want Sara to win (unfortunately that'd be my penis). Her attractiveness, her wide eyed amazement at anything and everything, and her flirtatious behaviour are exactly the subservient traits I look for in a potential partner.
Please - I'm kidding. My penis is actually massive.
But really, Sara was nice - and nice in the interesting way. She was kind, positive, and had a certain spark to her. As well she was responsible for one of the best moments of the series - choosing to share a fifty thousand pound prize fund with the equally interesting and likable Lisa - in a version of the Prisoners' Dilemma game, in which two players - actually just look it up yourselves - what am I - your slave?
NB: If any newspapers are interested - I work for a very competitive rate.
The other big story of the last fortnight (one place above Mohamed blowing off to the tune of Beyoncé's Crazy In Love*) was Mario's return to the house to propose to Lisa. Having just been talking about the pair's romantic meeting in a car park (some cover story about a purchased eBay item - but a tenner says they were dogging), when Mario appeared in the garden outside, ring in hand, it was obvious that the universe was calling the pair towards years of conjugal bliss.
Lisa accepted Mario's 'unique and different' engagement, and it made for a jolly nice episode. Watching housemates celebrating to the colour-blind tribute to Mario's skin tone - EverGreen by Will Young - was pretty much as close to a live-action montage of housemate 'good times' that you're likely to get. Still, it was slightly disconcerting later on watching Lisa slow-dancing with a cardboard cut-out of Mario which Big Brother had provided housemates with. It was like seeing footage of a serial killer/ fantasist fuelling their celebrity obsession by holding a wedding ceremony with the life size version of their current affections.
Incidentally - did anyone notice that said cut-out was very pale and faded? Maybe the printers received the final proof image, and had to reset the machines' brightness and saturation levels in order to correct the obvious mistake of sending an image with clearly poorly calibrated skin tones. I can see it now: "Fuck me Jim.. the machines are malfunctioning.. it's all gone.. orange. Abort! Abort!"
Unregrettably, it is here I shall end things. If you have only been half-watching the series, as I imagine even the most ardent fan will have been, I recommend watching the best bits compilation - now available from a cursory search on YouTube. These collections are always the highlight of the show - in fact one of the main reasons I sit through the series is that I can have some sort of emotional investment in these montages.
It doesn't even need to be a popular entertainment show like Big Brother that can be poetically summarised in the medium of montage. I still maintain that if you had footage of anything - for instance some sad cases dejectedly masturbating into a bin in a futile display of virility - so long as you added some emotional music and made it into slow motion you'd have an epic bit of cinematography.
Actually, if I'm going to end like I started, with an analogy, that is inadvertently probably the best comparison to the show I could ever wish to make. Not sure how, but think about it hard enough and it is almost poetic.
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Thank you all for (not) reading. Given the literacy rate of most Big brother watchers is likely about 10%, I am honoured that at lest seven people have stopped by. Now fuck off.
Sorry, that is rather like the teacher who bollocks the half empty class for everyone elses' poor attendance. I'm fighting the wrong people. I love you all really.
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*May not have happened. I can't even remember.