Saturday, August 24, 2013

Celebrity Big Brother - Summer 2013


Continued from here: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/big-brother-summer-2013-3.html


23/8/13
I've just seen the start of tonight's programme where in 15 minutes I have seen them all enter - and that has saved me from watching the two hours last night! ;)

As these include Les and Janice Battersby from the old days of Corrie when I used to watch it regularly, I might try to stick with this CBB if I can. But the rest of them look pretty awful.

And who is that mute blonde lady who looks a bit like Harpo Marx sitting in the secret room?


24/8/13
Excellent description of Courtney, Marion. Mangling the rabbit, though, was a scene to cherish from perhaps another Marx Brothers film...
It's funny how the the Battersby characters cling to Vicky and Bruce.  I was rather shocked when Bruce said, in an enforced double bed scene with Vicky, that they must seem like the Battersbys. For me they *are* the awful Battersbys!
Whoever said that Ron Atkinson is more famous than Bruce and Vicky was right.  Not only for his remarkable football career, but for his latter day TV pundrity from which he had to be sacked because of an allegedly racist comment, I recall.

25/8/13
A very fair report, Marion. Both helpful and enjoyable.
You said many of the things I was going to say about Ron, Louie, Carol and Charlotte.
The quoting of words by others - is that the same as using them for oneself?
The aggressive smashing of the cake was the first real aberrant thing to happen in this CBB. The earlier mangling of the rabbit was also a theatrical happening, but less aberrant. In some strange way, I like Courtney's personality (when sober), but not Charlotte's.

26/8/13
I agree with what you say about Ron but I did hear him mention the bomb.
The only HM I really like is Vicky.
Judging by BB and CBB, everyone walking about in the world is incredibly crude and/or dangerously idiosyncratic. Do these programmes give a false impression of life in general these days? Discuss.

27/8/13
Marion wrote:
This is what is dangerous about the media - the gap between the reality of society and the media's love of oddities and the downright trashy and awful, presented as somehow representative of us all. What makes BB work, is not the trashy, but the moments when a human being peeps out from under the front they have erected in the belief it makes them interesting. I don't know if BB understands that. Tonight, for example, Lauren was genuinely discomfited when confronted with Courtney's genuine upset someone different appeared for a moment even if she was still wearing the Queen Alexandra pearls.

Indeed.
As a separate point, I don't know where BB will be going after this summer's two series.
Here three of the Hms were made, three times, to enact a semi-religious Ceremony of Judgement as robed figures in the Celebrity of Cult - and then any sacredness snatched away by divulging everything they said to the other Hms. This was a most ludicrous and, then, cruel event.
Nobody will believe in any privacy of secret room or diary room, again. Perhaps this Summer is actually intended to be the self-destruction of BB by BB.

(later)
Marion wrote:
Next year's house will be full of Sams snoozing in corners and HMs sitting tight lipped and granite jawed in the DR. The betrayal of HMs confidences is suicidal.
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BB HMs 2014

How true and how apt, Marion.
But they seem to be poignantly pouting for a kiss...

28/8/13
Marion wrote:
  She's also a party planner and wants to organise the birthday party for Courtney - everyone will dress up as Courtney (Lauren can hardly wait) and Lauren will bake a birthday cake with pink icing for her. (PLEASE, BB, let her do it!) Blast - I'm getting fond of the kindly woman and it's too early in the series to attach to an HM.

Image

Lauren in happier times
 A gem about Lauren, Marion!
BTW, I wonder why Courtney is in CBB and Gina Rio (obviously already a celebrity before she went into the house) was in the ordinary BB? 
On CBB in general, 3 weeks is hardly any time at all for the long game of finding (or even losing) oneself. CBB is just a semi-rehearsed folderol.
Ordinary BB itself used to be 13 weeks in the old days, but now it is only 9 weeks. Hardly enough even for a snap-judgement rite-of-passage or Road-to-Damascus....

30/8/13
Get Ron out, get Ron out!
And Princesses Lauren and Courtney both seem to leave untidiness in their wake and naturally want to be looked after hand and foot!

31/8/13
Marion wrote:
What a wondeful evening it was tonight - and it was all down to Lauren. She played comedy, pathos, tigress (well, angry kitten), tragedy, and triumph, and even possibly a murderess, slipping from one role to the other seamlessly.

Well, yes. But she sometimes has mouth surrounds a bit like Yogi Bear's...
Image

And Bruce needs to go on an anger management course.
Yes, a great episode. But Ron's clenched false-teeth grin always put me off...

1/9/13
Marion guessed right away that it was a task because BB wouldn't let any item be promoted.

Des and Marion alike. But, thinking about it, this summer BB has regularly had frozen shots of used food and other packaging showing clearly Weetabix and other trade names.
Why and how is Lauren a celebrity? She claims not be used to mixing with people, only her Mum and Brother. Sitting up in bed she tries to cut a pathetic figure. But that is her 'game' - transcending a pathetic mode with a carefully moulded personality that she wants 'Lauren' to be. She alone so far has made this CBB interesting.
The others, other than Sophie, also cultivate fallibility as a game plan to lesser and greater degrees. But I have not seen enough of my potential favourite - Vicky - to tell what game, if any, she is playing.
But Bruce is truly a fallible character and I wonder if he is due to do a Vanessa Felz...
PS: I know I placed here a photo of Yogi Bear earlier, not realising till last night someone (who?) shouted out 'Yabber Dabber Doo!' when Ron left...

(later)
Marion wrote:
Lauren is a puzzle indeed. How much is real and how much cultivated it is nearly impossible to say. Her wardrobe changes are key = she shifts from vamp to 'Yellow Brick Road Dorothy'.. Even when cleaning, she had to have a cleaner's hairstyle. I think she really is a non-integrated person playing the part of different 'types' of female: Nurse, sexpot, giggly girl, Mummy, pitiful oppressed spinster and so on...and yet somehow the caricatures have real elements in her. Which is why she is so much more successful at beng poignant than Sophie (who isn't really scared of Lauren; her jaw is too strong for that and she wasn't made to be vulnerable) or Louie ( who apparently wept in the DR last night but didn't really). Lauren slips a perona off with her clothes and dons another within the hour.
Perhaps she truly doesn't know who she is and is trying everything on for size.


Very astute, Marion. This makes complete sense to my inexpert eyes regarding someone who is (recently?) Transgender.
2/9/13
Yes, Charlotte does lead the regrettable uncouthness on the ever downward path of what BB chooses to edit IN rather than edit OUT. As BB obviously needs to edit for an hour long summary, one needs to question their editorial policy. Meanwhile, though, their sponsors, Supercasino, have adverts I find both tasteful and hauntingly effective with that strange attractive striding blonde lady and the inscrutably rugged and thoughtful man spinning the disk, although I personally hate gambling.
I thought Vicky was marvellous when dressed up for the dancing and I thought her dancing, too, exceeded all the others. Shame on Louie for making her lose.

3/9/13
I rather admired the way Vicky handled the Charlotte-Bruce situation and she should be given the job of sorting out the Middle East.
Yes, the nomination process in general this summer has been devalued and made unfit for future purpose - a destruction of a 14 year tradition just for short-term 'entertainment' purposes.
Hopefully without being ungalant, I shall point out that Carol has a genuinely classic 'old lady' face but upon a beautiful young woman's body. And I'm liking her personality more, now. Between her and Vicky to win.
Lauren - I'm not sure she should win although she has been very entertaining but that entertainment value is now wearing thin.

4/9/13
Marion wrote:
 'Lauren, have you been in the toilet?' Carol demanded. Lauren denied it, but interestingly, put her hands over her face and peekd through her fingers like a nuaghty child. Carol then ordered her to flush the loo. Lauren immediately complied,, headdown. Even Mario looked embarrassed. When she returned, Lauren lay on the floor all cureled up before announcing that she had had enough. This wasn't acting - this was real distress.

Yes, a classic BB moment, but the whole task was otherwise boring rubbish and I don't believe in a million years that Louie hadn't already been told by BB that was not real broken glass.
Sophie to go tonight.

5/9/13
It was Courtney's summary programme last night, and I do think she is far more attractive in the dungarees and hairnet. Seriously. And she is far more astute than given credit for.
(later)
I've now seen the interview on Ch.5 On Demand - and predictably it was Sophie. I think she was genuinely surprised by her own 'bossiness' when shown back to her.
Carol made a grand re-entrance and predictably nominated Courtney.
BTW, I enjoyed the Les and Janice Battersby reunion - but noted that it was played against the Corrie wall that once belonged to Stan and Hilda Ogdon.
(later)
Marion wrote: Were the flying ducks on the wall? :mrgreen:
yes, indeed, from those innocent days...
6/9/13
Sex-obsessed Charlotte was actually quite funny during her self-appointed role as clairvoyant.   "I can see a lady with a creased face..." "I have a vision of a large [redacted]..."

7/9/13
Marion Arnott wrote:
Dull And Duller
Dull show. Dull eviction. Dustin and Bruce have gone, said their piece in their interviews and the waters will close over their heads and we shall not think of them again.

Indeed, and Louie's 'drunk' task was stupid, both setting the task and the way it was then performed. I didn't know he had once been a judge on 'Dancing on Ice' ...
...and I still can't believe that I didn't realise Lauren Harries was the precocious bow-tied boy who once appeared on Wogan around 1980.
And, wow!, Marion, thanks for that huge red blow up of a comic-strip Courtney!

8/9/13
I think this is the first time I've mentioned Abz in any of my posts here. But it was an engaging conversation he had with Lauren in the tree house - and his extended communion with a spider appealed to whatever there is in me that only enjoys cinema films that move very slowly like 'Claire's Knee', with minimalist music, and preferably with subtitles.
In hindsight, Dustin was interesting in his compulsion to get to the bottom of things, struggling with inexplicable things, a bit like Abz and the spider.
Lauren should win BB, I guess. The now elongated and curved out Little Lord Fauntleroy, slightly stooping, wayward, carrying an aura of my first impression of her as Harpo Marx and, decked out in her Royal jewels, inscrutably featuring in an atmospheric minimalist cinema film called 'Last Year at Marion-abad'...
But I have a soft spot for Vicky. I also loved her dancing with bright red lipstick a week or so ago.

9/9/13
I think Vicky lost herself some votes when she briefly gave what she saw as a typical image of a CBB viewer - i.e. someone messing about on the internet all day and then switching on the TV to watch CBB. 
BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning: "The National Trust will open the Big Brother house to the public for a weekend later this month [...]. Ivo Dawnay, London Director of the National Trust, explains why they have made this decision, and Ann Widdecombe, former Conservative politician, gives her reaction to the idea."
I've recently noticed I never mention Mario in my posts here. Just don't like him, I suppose.
But Abz is growing on me, slowly fluttering awake under my gaze...

10/9/13
Marion wrote:
It was the BB moment to end all BB moments tongit - ad your fave, Vicky, did it, Des! But of that more later!

Yay! I watched it with glee and I knew also you would react thus, Marion. :)
Indeed, where have we got to in this world. BB teaches us a lot about social history - as well as truth and fiction which are often blurred but BB viewers learn to pick them apart; it teaches us of unwelcome things, but there's no point living with one's head in the sand ... and knowing about something is half the battle toward eventually exorcising it.
Lauren is still in that slow-moving cinema film I love so much. She is also an Anita Brookner heroine. And what she doesn't say often speaks louder than what some others do say.

(later)
Marion wrote:
I was thinking about it all today. You and I both like Abz and Lauren - it occurred to me that both waft about the house in the scent of past times - Abz exhales a hint of gentle joss sticks and peace and love, man; Lauren shakes out of her stiffened petticoats a soupcon of Edwardian gardenia and lavender. We do not care for the stenches of thoroughly modern Charlotte. Long live milky pearls and kindness to moths!

Beautiful!

11/9/13
Indeed, the Rylan Bitch Fest was a cack-handed attempt by BB as a psychological ginger group.
And Ch 5 are playing their old games again, with an advert between parts of the show for Geordie Shore involving Charlotte herself.
And more stills of product placement within the show itself.
The Abz cushion mountains were a reminder of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Nice one, Abz.
Lauren as ever was tantalisingly inscrutable.
Vicky is simply lovely in a basic good-natured yet stringently righteous broad-brush way. In fact, that last bit you could also apply to Lauren but with a metaphorical twin-set and pearl necklace on.
Vicky to win, Abz second, Lauren third.

12/9/13
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A fair result last night. Glad to see Vicky at least survived to the final. I've really grown to dislike Carol. I hope she is making a mistake by continuing to side with awful Charlotte. But who knows? The public might like Charlotte. Can't understand why, though.
I can meanwhile 'understand' why the final six are the final six (even if I actively dislike two of them and am indifferent to another). That indifference is to Mario. I have nothing to say about him. I can only think he is in the final six for what I infer to be his classic good looks, though I can't really see those either!

13/9/13
Marion wrote:
But this is where I despair - Charlotte won the Funniest HM award, and also the most Entertaining. Charlotte? What is WRONG with people? Were the votes even real?

Indeed.
And Charlotte was advertising again for her TV programme between the parts of CBB, as was Carol for that gossip mag Gina earlier advertised similarly.

The sleep-talking incident was obviously staged by Carol but she was then effectively upstaged by Vicky who took credit in the DR for getting to Carol big time to the extent of her talking about it in her sleep!

Well, Sam and Charlotte this Summer's winners? Not very auspicious. But I've enjoyed some things, been inspired by others, disturbed and annoyed, too. But above all, I've enjoyed your reports, Marion. Thanks so much. PS: loved the rain and smoke on Charlotte's exit!

CONTINUED HERE

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