Big Brother 11 (2010) - part two

Continued from HERE

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Shabby retains a shabby part of my heart.
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Until the three aliens arrived in a spaceship to the opening of Richard Strauss's THUS SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA, it had been the Corin Show today! She is evidently a professional Housemate, one who was born and bred purely to appear on BB, to chant catchphrases, to pretend she's Nikki in the Diary Room and have half-felt, half-acted arguments with other HMs.

As with the world if it was truly invaded by aliens, the indigenes - however inimical to each other previous to the invasion - now group together against the unknown forces. And Keeley is certainly a creature worthy to group together against!

Andrew is portrayed by Ben as a geek who likes SF. I hesitate to ask whether he reads Interzone, because I read Interzone!

PS: Steve continues to be a bland sounding-board. The facilities of the BB House have been purpose-built around him, it appears, but why?
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Except for my crab eyes.

Why are they always cleaning their teeth as a conversational prop?

I know one shouldn't show any disrespect for Steve, but why is he just basking in being there .... like a tattooed ornament?

Corin is in latent mode - waiting again for the optimum moment to show her professional outburst skills as an archetypal BB Housemate.
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The relentless vision of a broken angel in the diary room's wing-unfurled chair, the broken angel who is JJ - as we focus in and out for a Ingemar Bergman film - or a dream of a Joel Lane or David Almond fiction.

Josie in her blue hood was a figure of both strength and weakness. She played her poignantly muddled part well in a relationship on the point of absurd love. The script-writer is the viewer with the skills to write it. The Director some BB god or goddess in the wings.

Tonight, there were two girls in the bathroom talking at once through gorging torrents of toothpaste - like two vampires feasting on thick white blood.
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Steve's behaviour last night was execrable - and it couldn't have been pleasant for Keeley to be loomed upon (but she is feisty enough to look after herself hopefully).

The food task by the new HMs was a real laugh - and reminded me of the concoctions I dreamed of cooking (and was sometimes allowed to cook) when I was a child. They normally ended up as 'chemistry' experiments in the garden as I further mixed them up while wearing my Davy Crockett hat.

Ben's wordiness was mocked by the commentary last night. He is probably - as Marion earlier implied - the only HM worth hoping may eventually win.
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Ben gets almost tearful about his lack of sleep - having been kept awake at 4.30 a.m. by horseplay caused by the influx of the excitable newbie HMs.

Is this the first year of BB where they have used cinematic music and special effects for tasks and contests? It's all a bit un-BB and out of its tradition, I feel. Anyway, Caiomhe won the aiming duels against Corin and Ife and then she chose Mario to replace her simply because she believes he won't be voted out by the public. Mario was stoical but also upset.

Andrew gets a bit squiffy and makes a pass at Caoimhe. And Mario gives him a mission to hug all the girls and kiss them on both cheeks to help rid himself of awkwardness with girls. I make no value judgements. Merely report.

I am leaving bits out of my report for other people to fill in. It's a sort of secret mission for lurkers to out themselves and to feel less awkward about posting on this thread,

PS: Caiomhe and Josie flash their bras at Andrew.
Ife is astonsihed at the complexity of tactics in the nomination process.
Steve is worried that he may be perceived to be trying it on with the girls. I think I may have misjudged him yesterday.
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I think Caoimhe (Keeva) missed a trick. Instead of choosing Mario, she could have chosen Steve on the same *stated* grounds of him not being likely to be voted out, i.e. thus getting over the special situation of Steve - but, of course, he may have been voted out...
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PS: Just noticed that Corin's catchphrase "I'm lovin' it" is echoed in the advert break for a Macdonalds advert. Also there is a voiceover for a Tesco advert that sounds exactly like Corin's voice. Is Corin a subliminal plant?
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I hated the montages and the task.
But I too would vote for Ife.

I did not understand at all the school plyaground politics surrounding J & JJ. The situation nor the garbled words they used.

I think Corin is entertaining as well as subliminal in a Nikki sort of way but it is all fabricated to win. She's rehearsed this for months if not years.

Caiomhe (Keeva) certainly looked the part. She should be a film star ... in a silent film.
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Now I've completely lost the plot. The Uber Cougar task got even sillier. Come on, M, you must agree. And Andrew is being exploited by Josie.

The funniest thing was Corin - amid her tears of possible eviction - mentioning she'd only had two arguments since being in the house, the famous one with JJ and the other with herself about pillowcases.

Ife to go.
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I think the Quiffhead task was hastily prepared and therefore Ben was confused because everyone else hadn't really reahearsed or even fully understood the nature of their task. Could be a damp squib.

Talk of attics and rabbits re Josie? I think the whole J/JJ scenario was ill-conceived and badly acted through by the two participants. Only two Cheshire Cat smiles will be left -- querying why the other is smiling. "Only so they are the same shape and can fit more easily into a stage kiss," I reply.
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A ripe row in a long line of great BB rows: surprised it was so good: Ben and JJ. JJ doesn't give a fig for what the public think - and such a splendid row was halted by Mario appearing with his undertackle showing. Shame on him. JJ is quite mad but he gave a good account of himself tonight, leaving Ben in a nightmare of quiff-monsters all jumping like kangaroos.
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And, Corin, for once, was at a loss for words by her 'posh' rendering of how she felt about still being in the house ... flabbergasted, I'm lovin' it, buzzin', warm, yes, warm.

She really is Nikki Mark II.
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Well, until I read M's report above, I was entirely at a loss as to what was happening last night - a combination of genuinely not understanding or not being able to hear what they said properly. I was on the point of abandoning the whole series.

It was like suddenly finding myself in a foreign country without a map. Plus Ben Keeva, Ben Rachel, Ben Ben &c. - even Ben Hur.

Two things stood out, however. Dave's shock at Caiomhe being more frisky than heretofore - on Big Brother! Has he never watched it before? And Corin's strident and tuneless rendition of Shirley Bassey. Ben was not too bad as Bobby Bigwood (star of Bournemouth hotels in the Eighties) on the electric organ.

But the rest? Just hold on to Marion like a lifebuoy. That's all I can do.
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Ben is straight out of Brideshead Revisited - but he is a cross between Irons and Andrews, rather than either of them. His hair is his teddy bear, though.

The JJJ syndrome still takes air-time but I wonder what else we're missing when the summary edits them in rather than edits them out. I fear the rest is even worse.

Steve is ultra vires. And Dave, I can't fathom him. He is either what he seems or not what he seems. I know which is most likely.

Ben and Rachel. Hmmm.
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Caiomhe has gone apparently - but not before performing a striking set piece with Keeley: a stocking mask stretched between them like black pizza cheese - something from a Horror Movie by Cronenberg...

And Dave has a Christian cross drawn on his back in tanning spray. I am aghast. Truly aghast. (A symbol of his religion, not mine)

And we have to look at his bare bottom. What hypocrisy compared to his attitude towards Caiomhe's see-through blouse.

Glad that is the last time I have to spell Caoimhe.
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JJ was in the diary room at 5.30 a.m. talking to a trainee Big Brother on the night shift. It's nice to know that angels watch by night.

The whole scenario is in churn mode with nobody grasping their own intentions let alone anyone else's. The damaged ankle of Keely is perhaps symbolic in an oblique way of Steve's two ankles.

Ankles watch by night.
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Not sure whether Steve is or has an Achilles' Heel.
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While Ankles watch their Socks by night.
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Steve has almost rehabilitated himself in prospect. We shall see. Perhaps it was worthwhile, after all, for BB to have designed the whole house around Steve's disability.

You're right about JJ seeing pound signs for JJJ. The main drawback for him is that if we see those pound signs, so can everyone else.

Ben and Mario make the more interesting couple, though.

Corin's star is in the wane. Perhaps she'll end up with a bit part on Corrie not as the front lady on THIS MORNING.

Meanwhile, the DR chair wings are waiting to envelop the whole soul of this programme. Let's hope we feel satisfied when it is all over, alpha males or not. At least I'm an alpha male.
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Andrew to win!

And him and Corin to be the new Jordan and Peter Andre.
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Queasy? Why are bodies squeezy?

Are the new housemates *allowed* to talk about previous DR entries they've seen on telly?
Can I believe as a watcher of the test card in the Fifties, that I've even asked that question or spend my time in 2010 thinking about such matters?

Lugubrious Steve when asked about the new housemates: "I can't see them being too detrimental to the dynamics of the group." I wonder if his glass is half full or half empty?

My glass is the trick one Mr Pastry made me believe - during Children's Hour - that he poured into his hat....
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And will Laura be punished, whatever her motive we gauge by Intentional Fallacy or pure omniscience?

And is Steve a reincarnation of Falstaff?


Falstaff:
Wilt thou to bed with this fat Knight, my Doll,
And dally with my carnal opulence?


Doll Tearsheet:
I' faith I will, for I am no slim trull.
And am as robed in flesh as your sweet self.
Let's take our pleasure ere our bellies rot
And we become a mockery of bones.
Death's the personal trainer none may fail
As changeling for the dough Life's weightress needs.

--From Shakespeare’s Henry IV part III

(With thanks to the nemonymous person (not me) who discovered that lost play and who wields its text. With apologies for my adaptation. With apologies, too, and due respect to Steve).
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The variant reading (recently dreamed) of Doll's last two lines quoted above (now checked with notes I made earlier after waking):

For Death has no diet - and none may fail
To yield the dough of Life its wait'ress needs.
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Mario and Steve (and to some extent, Rachel) are going through a mid-bb crisis. it's like a mid-life one, except here it's bijou within a million gazes. I feel these emotions were genuine tonight - and not often can you be certain that bb emotions are genuine.

Ben thinks he should be considered one of the 'hunks'. Pity he's married to his hair. The ultimate brideshead!

The Dave ja Voo task was hilarious. I was determined to get in the word 'bijou' twice in this post without anyone noticing. Three mentions of bijou would be pushing it, though.
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Other than Andrew's manful shouting and later pampering by dolly babes and Ben's emotional tangles, most things tonight were inconsequential talk about double dates and other matters I didn't understand at all.

I really think - despite some bright spots - this has generally been so far the least entertaining and least inspiring BB ever.

We're still cool, though, here on this thread.

PS: BTW, was Steve groping Rachel in the garden?
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Thanks, Marion. A real-time review that has brought me back on course - tutored me into again seeing the innuendos as well as the brash TV programme.
I wonder, though, whether most of the BB viewers can concentrate hard enough between the adverts on anything other than - with their HD sets - checking that the HMs' faces are free of zits.
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It was as if John James entered the dark artery of the BB house peopled only by corpuscualr minders - like a pre-conceived injection to the metabolism of post-operal fame. Now he's in the heart of it again. Josie is his partner in Big Brotherly symbiosis, aided by the twin balanced soul of another JJ .... with exorcist Dave in inscrutable ambivalence of pro- or anti- symbiosis, I'm still unsure which.

Batesian Mario - a good observation - staring mindlessly with his pathetic new moustache - a Peter Lorre who dwells within the living Ben-tangles that some others (in tattooed fleshy swellings upon evolving pin joints) weave in and out of - while John James corrodes the arteries or whispers to others under a duvet about what his next move is vis a vis the living essence that is the BB house.

PS: Laura, having lain beside the panther that is Ben, and beneath Mario's Psycho stares, she has been infected by a complete falsehood about her own immediate past : driving her back whence she came....
Here we clearly see innocence being corrupted before our very eyes.
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Josie as Miss Havisham - John James as Princess Diana - the mind boggles.

Corin. She is either an alien or, more likely, an android. Just look at her. She has been programmed with all the necessary traits and responses for the perfect HM candidate. She is all heart, but no soul. She's all business-like and fail-safe. No unexpected quirks other than the unexpected quirks that one would expect in an eventual BB winner.

Laura. We shall forget about Laura as we forgot about other BB unofficial exits. She was still there yetesrday, but she wasn't. It was her ghost. A fabricated ghost made of flesh and bone - and she was born from the runs. She will live in the runs forever. A beautiful woman - a fabrication like Corin but someone, unlike Corin, where the various ingredients hadn't set properly or there was a Trojan in the programming.

Yes, Dave to go!
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Marcus coolly pinching the jaffa cake reminded me of a brilliant scene on a train in SOLAR by Ian McEwan.

The whole task was brilliant and, by far, the best BB task in its history. It combined everything I love in BB - with theatricality and reality mixed inextricably, with Surrealism and Absurdity evolving from both deliberate and automatic actions.

Corin as a cross between Hylda Baker and Hilda Ogden in the bloom of youth - was wonderful under the onset of Slapstick Pies in the Absurd Circus of Fellini. Wonderful, yes, but too wonderful.

I see Laura slid back into the runs whence, I believe, she was originally born to a giant Queen BB.
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Yes, I was sorry to see Ben go. The Jedward's hairstyles were brash straightened mops compared to his labyrinthine brideshead. And his carved droplips were decidedly Ozymandiatic.

As you know, Marion, my growing despair at this last BB has been greater than yours. Corin has her faults as I outlined earlier but she is likely to win (and she will be indeed a worthy winner when compared to the others).

BB even blew that splendid task by throwing in too many random events, some of which were impossible to ignore by anyone.
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Well, Sam Pepper (graffiti artist) is walking the edge between offence and legitimate joking - but he seems likely to put a few noses out of joint. Andrew is not at all pleased. But good on Sam for mimicking John James and Josie and doing a bit of his own duvet-delving. The first time Josie's thumbsuckling has been openly discussed, let alone ridiculed?

Let's hope he takes a jab at Steve! Steve's been too long on his ponderous pedestal.
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Josie as a delieberate pre-planned Cinderella figure is an interesting observation - except she isn't clever enough to have thought all that out. Her instincts are akin to her thumb-sucking. Immediate amd irresistible and splatter-gun as to targetting others and to being targetted. A lot of people go through life like that. And John James is no Prince Charming.
Nor was Prince Charles.
Nor Rock Hudson in 'Move Over Darling': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxAjIqKbeDg : See photographic images of Josie (as Doris Day) in action.

Shakespearean thumb-biting? Yes, brilliant.

Sam Pepper is just that. Seasoning. More power to his condiments.

PS: Josie also appeared as Doris Day in PILLOW TALK. Listen to the lyrics of the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WrEyVOPR8M
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They should put pepper on Josie's thumb.

Actually Sam is a strange, awful character .... but as you say, Marion, he has proved something about John James' gallantry and/or feelings for Josie.

Sam is the boy Darling from Peter Pan grown big and beyond kilter. A sloppy do-laddle.

One day - when he's older - he'll be the only member of Sam Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.


Steve seemed genuine in his emotions. But why is he suffering all this just to sit self-consciously on the couch, go through the motions of tasks and act frisky from time to time with a girl or two?

CONTINUED HERE:
http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2010/08/big-brother-11-2011-part-three.html