Actually, I at first cringed and was embarrassed by the task, in case it was a damp squib, but the two ladies did brilliantly.
Having said that, I only know three of the Housemates (Kemp, Goodyear and Clary) - so wonder why the others are called celebrities, but that will always be the case with an old fogey like me.
I lived most of my life -- from 1970ish until around 2004 when I gave up watching Corrie -- with Julie Goodyear (when did she leave the series?) ... actually I started watching Coronation Street when it started in 1960. Perhaps they'll bring in Ken Barlow as a surprise HM later?
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Marion wrote: "Julian is sleeping in the bed next to Julie - this delights him. He is comforted by the thought of Bet Lynch only an arms length away from him - she;s earthy and understanding, the kind of person he admires."
Yes, just imagine that situation in the staggering paranormal foresight of this scene from yesteryear! All those pub fires seen through the prism of Madness TV, Alec Gilroy banterings, bar-top gossip with Rita Littlewopd, Ena Sharples' hairnets that caught the Bet Lynch soul in its trammels, Ken's ludicrous philandering...
Jasmine seemed to be the emerging prime-mover last night. Her legs are Sara's legs but now whittled down into slender willows by adolescent boys on an endless summer's riverbank with their awakening penknifes of growing-up.
Talking of Sara et al, this set of celebrity housemates seems a cut above the ordinary BB session just expired, in a different league of perception, articulate repartee and cute awareness. No wonder they are celebrities. I think that is the first time I've been able to say that with some conviction when comparing celebrity HMs with their 'ordinary' counterparts that preceded them. Very promising.
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(18 August) The Channel 5 signal vanished last night on my TV, but I managed to catch up on the internet this morning except for the nomination session, so thanks Marion for filling in any gaps.
I am amazed at all the gossip and goings-on in these people's backstories. Merely that. But some backstories are re-moulded I guess to match the 'truth' of the present moment...
The only people I seem to like are Julian and Julie. A good team by temperament and name and platonic bed-sharing.
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The Mouldy Cock
Luckily (?) my Channel 5 signal has returned. I think it's the atmospherics of the hot weather.
I loved Julie's quote from Bette Davis ("Old age is not for cissies") when she got up, coughed and accidentally peed herself. And I haven't laughed out loud so much watching her cut up a banana... Later, her tending to Jasmine's trauma, like cradling a sick chick; it felt almost sexual. Julie was and always will be a STAR! Still calls everyone 'cock' as an endearment: as she did on Corrie, I note.
The Lorenzo task was a bore and a cheat. Not a real BB task as everyone knew what was going on and no attempt at secrecy in all the women flirting with him and why.
Danica, Jasmine and Rhian are an interesting trio of characters: rinsing for me was what we did with the washing-up before drying. Now we have rinse-aid to add to the dish-washer. Well at least I do.
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Yesterday the mouldy cock, today the reincarnated seagull -- dutifully squawking, that was indeed hilariously from-the-sky if not off-the-wall. One of those synchronised shards of random truth and fiction.
The Danica smile being switched on and off like a lighthouse: a nice smile, though, if seen beyond the context of its intentions. Her 'Thing' crabbing was good, too.
The talent show was a bit eclectic, a ragbag of dubious talents with very little indestructible gold. I would have given Rhian a tick for saying 20% of 100 was 5%. Just a slip of the tongue. The method was right and the answer correct without the superfluous second %.
Colleen wants to be matriarch and Sunset Boulevard star, I guess, impugning our Julie on the sly as she did. Beware the seagull.
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Mouldy cock, reincarnated seagull now the white swallow...
The complex emotions catalysed by Jasmine in the others, however, have at least made this interesting, if often uncomfortable, viewing. A very strange blend of people that could backfire at any moment...
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The most remarkable thing I shall take away from this series is Julie's tale last night of the circumstances of getting married to a weird stalker who was seriously stalking her (an HGV driver 20 years younger), i.e. to stop him stalking her by marrying him I guess and because she felt sorry for him because he'd said he idolised her and no other woman would suffice and if she didn't marry him he would never get married at all and would be lonely for the rest of his life. Apparently they are now happily married! There's a moral there - somewhere.
Also whose legs do those legs alongside remind you of?
Lovely pics, Marion.
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Well, Jasmine left last night. She seemed a bit tongue-tied in the interview, but she did call the other girls 'skanky'. There was also some hint that Jasmine had been given the impression at the supermarket food-grab that Julie was two-faced in 'controlling' her, in fact the only one who could control her behaviour (instructed to control Jasmine by BB?).
Colleen is also trying to give the impression that Julie is two-faced. Julie as star was due to win, of course. But now?
Jasmine says she wanted Sam to win. Is that becuase Sam writes for the Daily Mail?
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Marion wrote: "So that's how it is done. Washed , rinsed, and hung out to dry."
Danica is a sexocet.
Julie is both wonderful and monstrous. Watching her dragging lingeringly on her long cigarette-holder emitting side gasps of "flying f***s" - counterbalanced by her Sunset Boulevard tragic humanity and her backstory as Bet Lynch, Bet Gilroy and a Stalker's wife... Who says sublimity is not housed within such human frailty?
I agree that Julian is detached.
Beginnning to like Coleen more. None of the men are particularly interesting, except perhaps Harvey.
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I'd recommend anyone who wants to know what happened last night -- and exactly what acutely just perceptions can be drawn from these events -- to read Marion's report ... but please be apprised of the mixed delights of negotiating the slippery letters that make up many, if not most, of her words.
I'd only add that the cowboy-style hat that Julie was wearing made her look like Jimmy Carter as he is today.
And, oh yes, Marion is right -- the sexocet has a new target. A Shangri-La Principality nestling within the Lost Hills of Ancient Italy.
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Marion wrote: "Ashley, Lorenzo and Mike. Not one of them is actually having a relationship with anyone in the house, but each of them is confabulating one as they know romance is a winner in BB..."
Yes, good to put those boy-cards in abeyance or flick them into the corner of the playground and, instead, play trumps with the Julie-Julian game of snappy quips elsewhere.
Did Lorenzo actually say to Danica last night that if she'd been playing, among 16 other girls, in 'The Bachelor', he'd've chosen her without hesitation? Could this be a real 'Romance' on his part? And on her part, too, because, in much Classic Literature, love was not always the main motive for 'Romance'? Fauxmance is as old as the hills. The Italian hills.
Quote: Did Lorenzo, in High School, eat lunch alone?
That was quite a good snappy quip by Mike the Situation.
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(27 Aug 12) Marion wrote: "Julie also had a moment when she was listening to Danica explain her work. Julie doesn't see anything wrong with it -people send her things too - earrings, toilet seats, pubic hair, addressed to Bet Lynch, England."
Yes, that was the highlight of the evening. Best to draw a veil over the rest, but thanks Marion for putting it so justly for the record on how NOT to run a BB show. And Men Behaving Badly.
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Marion wrote: "Valerie and Albert for the win!"
Albert Tatlock and Valerie Barlow, no doubt.
Julian was the star last night: with his brave public hatred of the Daily Mail and the perfect protectively maternal reading voice for children's bedtime (here less than hilariously geared to its adult audience tucked up with their teddies and toys but that does not take away from the perfection of the voice).
I have not really considered Samantha before. So far a bit of a non-entity for me. Despite her Daily Mail connections (£2 per word according to Julian), she is perhaps playing a long game, arguably more astute than Julie's misguided partisanship and Colleen's over-passionate reactions to her own eviction escape etc.
I dunno - Mike the Situtaion is effectively economical with the quips: whose backstory has a Prince Harry 'charm' about it. I reckon he might win. Playing to be 'played'. Julian as the other contender.
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Another brilliant summary, Marion.
A great Gods and Mortals task, but it is another idea they have pinched from this very discussion forum. (Cf the Jason and the Argonauts comments earlier).
'Candid' Danica was articulate in her attack upon The Situation, even though she wasn't quite articulate enough to know the meaning of the word 'articulate'. I found her frightening in her forensic diatribe, with cutting-edged forthrightness. She is certainly, as I said before, the ultimate sexocet.
There are two sides here, both essentially wrong and both essentially right. They are all playing a game or, like Ashley and Harvey, merely being swept along by things. Meanwhile, Julian is playing his own soft-toned, laid-back professional act of campness to a treat... It's as if he is another sort of Tommy Cooper who could never doff his Fez or cease his amusingly mis-performed magic tricks throughout all the waking hours of his life: in or out of the public gaze.
Julie's banana act was a classic equivalent in memory to a lionesque George Galloway's pussy.
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Well, I watched the amazing large hadron collider on last night's extraordinary opening ceremony - but now caught up with happenings at the House.
Martin Kemp is making his move - warning the boys about Julie. If Danica is a sexocet, I'd bet Julie is a one person Lynch-mob. Gilroy was here!
Rhian was not surprising as the departure. A misunderstood lady, I feel. Thoughtful, with a refreshing inner clown that popped out now and again. What you saw was what you got, including her seamless assets.
Meanwhile, the collusive Danica Situation prevailed.
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(31 Aug 12) Two giant reports from Marion fascinatingly extrapolating upon her view of the truth behind the Games being played. Thanks. But only by watching the programme will you get your own truth. And every viewer will have their own truth. Every viewer's truth is true according to the ground rules you set. One cannot hide your own reception of truth - unless, of course, you're in the House itself rather than viewing it from outside like the Olympian gods themselves. As for me, I'm working for an individual Games for every category of ability, even for each grey area between categories.
Danica and Julie and Colleen - like all powerful women of their sort - use the art of weeping as part of their armoury or gestalt...
PS: Marion, did you choose that TUSK song by Fleetwood Mac because the woman on the photo is the spitting image of Danica?
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I agree about Mike's situational cheating.
Yes, I take 'Delphic' as a compliment - mosaic, allusive, elusive, illusional, fustian to the nth degree...
I was surprised and disappointed that Danica was evicted. A star BB housemate, whatever you think of her. And she sure has had an effect on me, both good and bad. You can visualise her growing old into Bette Davis rather than Bet Lynch! Lauren Bacall, too...
And as to 70 year old Julie/Bet Lynch/Bet Gilroy, she's still the monster, still the soap queen, with some really intrinisic fault-lines that must endear her to some and infuriate others. And I shall always prefer her to Colleeen.
Harvey is the best of the men. An ethnic Arthur English. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
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Marion wrote: "I think BB orchestrates thse booing sessions, you know. Why else would an entire mob catcall in unison for a housemate who isn't even up?"
I don't think they would dare as some of the orchestrated would blab. It's just that the braying mob don't really know who Julie is. Imagine coming across someone like Julie COLD!
Julian is the real 'gentle'man - I HOPE he wins.
Otherwise nothing much to add to Marion's excellent report. Just like to know who else is watching the programme and/or reading Marion's reports of it?
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Marion wrote: "She has never sunk so low as Mike did tonight in the influencing nominations game - he offered that has- been Harvey a show with him once CBB is over - I susect that offer will disppear as soon as the series ends. But in the mean time, it will save Mike from Harvey and his gang's nominations."
Good spot, Marion.
Meanwhile just Julie, as you say, justice for Julie. Don't pretend to hold back, Colleen, just because you claim tactically that a 70 year old needs special treatment. Julie is scary as she wobbles and runkles in the bubbling juices of the jacuzzi. Indeed, let's hope the young voters see that she is the new azathothian incubation for a new myth of daleks.
Ashley coming up closer, though, with his sterling efforts beside the acid bath (as opposed to Julie's jacuzzi)
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Marion wrote: ":| :| :\ :| She is the most shameless old biddy in the world but she comes out slugging every time. Go, Julie - lay it on with a trowel and win through!"
Completely shameless. Like me if I'd resisted the nature of the review of 'Weirdtongue' simply because I am getting old (as I am) and then issuing a tearful prayer (to the God of self) to counter all genuinely bad or seeming mocking reviews and all adverse voting. Better than writing pseudonymous reviews of my own work myself, though, like some 'respected' authors have done apparently! But they are all things I'd never stoop to. Unless it be an up-front non-pseudonymous real-time review of my own stuff as an experiment in gestalt-seeking, of course!
Julie has shot her bolt but I hope there are more than just Marion (and me) who will continue supporting her: supporting her for, inter alia, her black-eyed pees and for her clownishly-foolhardy Sunset Boulevard nonsense (still nonsense, however well performed by this ancient stager) ..... and for old time's and old timers' sake.
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(5 Sept) Marion said: "The greatest joy of the evening, however, was the final scene between Julie and Julian. Tucked up in bed together he advised her that she has to be a good girl tomorrow. She complained that Harvey called her a disgrace. 'But you are,' Julian said gently and tenderly. She reckoned Martin might be better than her in the final and that she would go tomorow night. He told her to stay for the fun of it. Didn't she want to grow old disgracefuly?
She nodded.
'Mission accomplished,' he said.
It was a lovely scene, real and poignant. It will be a travesty if Julie goes tomorrow. The only proper outcome of the series is Julie and Julian standing together right to the very end."
Fundamentally, I'm singing from the same hymn-sheet as Marion vis-a-vis the great Julie Goodyear.
But I fear that hymn-sheet is not available to most of the BB voters.
And it was all very well BB allowing Julie to have her hair washed by a hairdresser 'for medical reasons' but to allow that to go beyond niceties of conversation with the hairdresser, to the extent that Julie could vent her emotions to another person outside of the house... On the face of it, unfair. If it hadn't been for Harvey and Lorenzo next door in the gym talking about what they heard through the wall, we BB viewers may not even have known about that hairdressing safety-valve that has presumably been available to Julie from day one to splutter like a volcano. Lava as well as lather!
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Sorry, Marion, that neither of us had our wishes about Julie winning.
'Nanna Julie' (gauchely describing herself as a "70 year old disabled pensioner") put a brave face on it after some loud music played by BB to deafen out the boos and she stone-walled Brian's basic, cruel question: WHY are you not upset about losing? I bet she is wondering today why she put herself through all that? A tragically flawed but still loveable figure of Shakespearean proportions.
We must now hope for a Julian win to recreate balance in the universe.
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Yes, I retract what I said earlier in this thread about Harvey. In hindsight, that was demeaning the memory of the great Arthur English. (Martin's explanation to Harvey of the difference between exposing the arse and the arse-whole was illuminating, by the way.)
I, too, hope for (and expect) a Julian win
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(7 Sep 12) Well, Julian won. He did develop naturally into the winner....and an overall satisfactory result. Thanks for your company again, Marion, and for your wonderful reports. See you in January if there is another CBB then.
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Continued HERE for Celebrity Big Brother 2013.
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