Monday, June 23, 2014

Big Brother - Summer 2014 (2)

CONTINUED FROM HERE


23.6.14
Toya scared the nation last night. A goaded zombie apocalypse where brain was replaced by fire.
But my real dislike is for four men: Steven, Winston, Ash and Marlin.
Meanwhile we can only hope that Matthew can tame the storm with which he is partnered.
Read HERE Marion's account of it. Love or hate what happened last night, this is real television. The only programme I watch. At other times, I sink back into the safe arms of 'classical' music. Still, I am sporadically reading Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann at the moment, wherein there is, inter alia, a long diary room conversation with the Devil...literally.

24.6.14
There has never been anyone like Toya on BB before --- deranged and articulate, but with flashes of wisdom, evoking soap opera type dramas with other housemates in turn, e.g. hen-spitting with Corrie-like Helen and tunnelling into the emotions of Danielle and shafting Marlin etc.
And as Hell breaks loose around her, Ashleigh quaintly paints her nails.
Well, Steve has been let off, so my vote for eviction on Friday goes to Marlin, with Winston and Ash close behind. Toya, now up for eviction herself, whatever you think of her, needs to stay!

25.6.14
Toya Story
A more conducive atmosphere last night.
Toya kept calling herself Hurricane Toya in the diary room - an attempt at self-branding. She would have been better using Tornado Toya, as she tends to zip from one housemate to another in turn and twists each one out of or into shape, depending how you look at it. She remains, whatever the case, a powerful, articulate, if sometimes deranged, feminine (potentially maternal) force, a positive step up from Pauline, but strangely similar.
Danielle, perhaps because she is up for eviction this Friday, loosens up, in more ways than one. I'm not sure which Danielle I prefer, but there is something strange about her. She emitted the 'Jesus Christ!' expletive at one point, which is something that Catholics strictly avoid, in my experience. Also her job as glamour model (wanting to do a double shoot with Kimberly when they get out) seems to sit uneasily with her explicit religion and with her (staged?) recurring shock at anything even slightly rude? And her act with the cigarette also seemed staged.

26.6.14
I think it was cheap and artificially provocative for BB to allow some of the nominations to be seen by the other housemates.This will deter future, supposedly private, nominations from being frankly expressed.
It is a nightmarish prospect for the housemates as well as the viewing public to be saddled permanently with Helen. Hell on Earth.
We can only hope she will transgress again and then be thrown out.

27.6.14
Marion wrote: Jale helped find Winston's spirit guide - she's beautiful and golden and has a bow and arrow. Jale thinks she's an angel. Winston looked quite impressed.
This deadpan description by Winston allows me to forgive him for at least some of his more usual Winstonness. At first I thought he was describing Marion's twirling avatar on THIS thread...until mention of the large breasts. Image
By the way, does Winston look a bit like the Young Churchill? I think he might:-
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Quote: In the DR, Matthew discussed Helen. A gem -'I lose intellect when I talk to her.'
He's in the right and on the moral high ground, but he is SO supercilious you want to shove him off.

But I love his superciliousness.
And then we have another attempt at becoming Marion's spinning avatar:
Quote: Christopher's workout, more like the dance of the sugarplum fairy, was hilarious.
And, the BB brilliant breakfast? The foulest thing ever seen on TV (beyond any Horror genre concoction) and one could actually smell it through the screen in a direct-current of empathy with those reacting and retching to it.
Marlon to go tonight.

28.6.14
Well, Young Winston survived! Ready to be our saviour regarding the World Wars of the macro future. (See photo above).
However, Tornado Toya fizzled by the wayside and this is a shame and a surprise. She had shown much, on the whole constructive, potential within the future conflicts of this micro House itself. But it wasn't to be.
She maintained her fighting spirit to the end and performed well in the post-match interview. Violent lipstick and all. (How could she be evicted ahead of such spear-carriers as Ash and Marlon?).
Still, a sign of hope. The new Power is in the lined-up distaff forces of the Warriors of Love against the grizzled males, and these include an at least temporarily immune-from-eviction Jale: with her get-out-of-jail-free card -- which is probably a thin-end-of-the-wedge precedent by Big Brother to make Hellon Earth (Pauline's legacy of a curse) immune from her own immunity next week ... and, judging by last night's chants of the masses outside - those Canetti Crowds of Power themselves - Helen will then be jettisoned within the slice of a wink! We can only hope so. Excise the blight, I say!

29.6.14
Not much to add to Marion's latest report, other than to report that I have now settled on a prediction as to this season's eventual winner.
Taking into account all factors of evidence I can muster, I sense it will be Winston.
Believing that this person will be the eventual winner fills me with dismay, and we are not quite yet a third of the way through the series.

30.6.14
Marion wrote HERE: Danielle had to run a Finishing School for Gentlemen. She was got up like a Miss Prim and proper Victorian with amazing spes. The first task for the gentleman was to write a poem dedicated to one of the girls. Winston gallantly rapped a stream of personal filth and was told he was too forwar if he wanted to be a gentleman of any calibre.
Actually, Danielle seemed rather to relish Winston's doggerel that teetered on the edge of Swift or Pope for a modern age. Not that it was to my taste. She was far harder on the other men. I fear Winston has a spell that transcends...

1.7.14
Marion wrote: Chris in the DR was fed up with conspiracy. He believes Steve, Ash, Winston and Marlon will be saved. Steve - who has no investement in other people, who is like a clock that, after you buy it, asks you the time rather than tells you it. 
An interesting observation by Chris, that Steven talks to people only in questions. Is this new business-speak for the managerial entrepreneur like Steven these days? Actually, Steven Goode has long been my least favourite housemate, for reasons I can't really pinpoint. Helen is at least straightforwardly awful.
Quote: All in all, it's a very unhappy house. Only Helen's removal will cure it.
As I said before, we now have the precedent of the Pauline-permanencies being waive-able for a week, i.e. in the case of Jale. Why not with Helen, too?
And thanks, Marion, for defending masculinity from the broadbrush of the Marlon template!

2.7.14
Marion wrote: Just when you least expect it, a near perfect show. full of the little gems we crave.
I completely agree. The best BB show ever!
Can't add anything to THIS perfect report by Marion. Escapegoat, and all.
(I've never seen 'The Game of Thrones'.)
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3.7.14
Yesterday, I wrote that I agreed it was a great show the night before. This time, I disagree.
Although there were some more telling insights with the masked ball as a tableau being got up well, the staged nature of the questions and answers from the archetypal zombie dead and the whole task itself, all very silly. I kept imagining the many make-up artists and other BB staff involved in tutoring the housemates in what do and how to do it (eg Mark suddenly turning up, carefully prepared, as a turbaned psychic) - why don't they film all that preparation? What behaviour is exposed during rehearsals etc. for what we eventually see? In the old days, the housemates were strictly isolated from any other people, except just the voice of BB in the diary room.

4.7.14
Marion wrote: I think everything is staged now -
...including, last night, with a budding clutch of fauxmances bedding in for the duration. I can't pretend to understand some of the machinations going on and even the TV's subtitles of what the HMs were saying didn't seem to help me. I can only hope Marion understands what's going on. All I know, is that Ashleigh is becoming a strong character and Kimberly less of a strong character, as if a form of symbiosis is draining one and feeding the other. And, despite his cerebral shortcomings, Winston remains, with some dismay on my part, the disarming jack-the-lad future winner of the series.

5.7.14
I was disappointed that Ash didn't leave last night.
As I speculated much earlier in this thread, ("...there is something strange about her. She emitted the 'Jesus Christ!' expletive at one point, which is something that Catholics strictly avoid, in my experience. Also her job as glamour model (wanting to do a double shoot with Kimberly when they get out) seems to sit uneasily with her explicit religion and with her (staged?) recurring shock at anything even slightly rude? And her act with the cigarette also seemed staged."), Danielle is not what she seems.
Meanwhile, Steven IS what he seems, and should leave, even before Marlon and Ash and Helen. A half-baked jammy dodger.

6.7.14
Marion wrote: She's an ex of dexter koh. That tells you everything. I find it fascimating the way the imp peeps out from behind the prim facade.
I'd forgotten that Danielle is an Ex of Dexter from last year's BB. She is either a complete impostor as strict creationist Catholic as well as Prude or just a bit of one?
I agree that Helen's topiary of Christopher seemed rather naughty. Meanwhile, to her credit, beneath it all, she is not as inarticulate as some of her swearing 'bitchy' forerunners in BB over the years.

7.7.14
Although the Santa scenario showed Christopher in a good light and threw Helen off-balance, the scenario itself grated on my nerves. I have nothing to add to another of Marion's hilarious and all-encompassing reports.

8.7.14
Marion wrote: At lights out in the bedroom, we saw rather more passion than is BB's wont or than we want to see.
Agreed. And the TV subtitles - used for my aging ears - seemed to indicate something shocking that Ash and Helen were doing. I shall be having a rest from watching BB for a while.

9.7.14
Marion wrote: So where are we? Contact from the outside world affecting the action in the house. The DR no longer a safe place to express one's feelings so BB mght as well close it for good.
Where are we? We are nowhere, with nowhere to go. Can't even have a private conversation without BB showing the others.

10.7.14
As Jale said meaningfully: "There are no innocent parties here."
Meanwhile, Marlon has never been one of my favourites but there was something strangely endearing about his reflex innocence amid devious guilt.

11.7.14
Yes, Danielle was hilarious last night. And Chris's appraisal of Marlon is spot on. I suspect that all private conversations and DR discussions are now much more guarded than they would have otherwise been without BB compromising them so radically in the last week or so. Hence, the 'Yawn'.

12.7.14
The question arises - as well the rhythmic see-saw of his duvetted rear - whether Steven was miming, possibly in cahoots with Kimberly... My bet he was. For something other than sexual satisfaction. Every thing was so dry and clinical.
I can't believe I am talking about this. Time for another rest.
And the other pantomimer, one of religious and prudish catchphrasing, Danielle, appeared in a Channel 5 programme trailer about girl webcammers, within BB's adverts! Presumably this was a programme that was filmed before she went into the BB house?
I think Cassandra should win BB. Know who she is?
(later)
Marion says here: I found an article this morning saying that Kim's ex is to enfer the house, along with an enemy of Helen and one of Ash's. It's going to be explosive. Cafefully staged with Steven and Kim in on it?
Look at. Ashleigh - everyone sure she was going and surpris surprise she didn't. BB injecting a little drama?
Has a subterranean script being written? The Kim/Steven scenario has been leading up to the explosion.
Tomorrow a HM will be evicted with no public vote - all we can be sure of is that it won't be Ash, Helen, Steven or Kim.
BB began as a social experiment. It still is, but of a different kind: how much drivel can the public swallow?

Thanks for that Marion.
I'm definitely off for a summer break now!
Thanks for all your finely witty and truthful reports.

13.7.14
Thanks, Marion. I did gird my loins again last night and I was satisfied that the person that I disliked most from the start of the series is more and more showing me why I thought that.  But even so one can't judge character through a screen of any sort, especially when they could be role playing and especially when we only see edited bits of their behaviour. It's like reading about a villain in a novel who turns out to be a hero.
It's not the real or enacted sex that worries me either; it's the way it's being used by the people involved and by those editing their performance.

14.7.14
Did I hear right? Did Helen tonight describe the blue barrel raft that she helped build in the task as 'Avant Garde'?

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Another fine examination of the whorls and spirals of the thumbprint of the House. Thanks, Marion.
For thumbprint, read: the changing gestalt of the real and mock treaties between some and others and then others and some - the google-seeking and manoeuvring by the modern webcame boys and girls who have upped or downed their game under the gaze of National TV.

15.7.14

Marion says: I do long for the old days when they nominated and we decided.
I go along with that!
Anyway, a BB reshuffle running parallel with David Cameron's Cabinet reshuffle happening at this very moment! Armageddon indeed!

16.7.14
"Powerful, Babe, powerful!" says Bianca. I think BB has sunk to new lows with this character, and that's saying something! BB no longer deploys human behaviour; it now negatively manipulates it toward a lowest denominator.

17.7.14
I think Super Cassandra should replace the whole show with her snap intros.
I knew there was something fishy about Danielle when she once used the 'Jesus Christ!' expletive. No Catholic would have done that.
This programme has now gone ultra vires if not ultramontane. I am speechless. Biannca Lake - note the double n.

CONTINUED HERE

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