Friday, June 14, 2013

Big Brother - Summer 2013

CONTINUED FROM ALL MY COMMENTS HERE ON THE UK  BIG BROTHER SINCE 2004


Extracted from on-going discussion HERE:-

I was surprised not to see Brian, but Emma seems better, so OK with that. But my heart sank when I saw the whole series is sponsored by an on-line gambling site (this forum does not allow me to name it specifically!) and then the arrival of the awful twins and Sallie (none of this boded well). It did pick up however. But Michael - the explicit BB mole - was faced with a very far-fetched decision to make (one that was bound to increase suspicion about his status) and his poor acting didn't help.
Thanks, Marion, as ever, for your very useful aide memoire. I doubt I shall be able to watch every evening, and there will be gaps when I won't be able to watch at all for a few periods of days during the season.

15/6/13
Brilliant summation, Marion. Your touch is immaculate.
I must admit the Michael mole-scenario is turning out better than I anticipated. And there are some interesting characters in the House this year.
The mother and daughter (the former who is 59 and looks 49!) are separate housemates, while the twins are one housemate.
-----------------
Well, has a housemate ever before got into a fight and had a formal warning on their first night?!
Crikey! What's the betting that Gina will throw one of those jamjars-with-handles at Sallie before breakfast tomorrow? #-o

16/6/13

...and those jamjars-with-handles - that everyone is walking around with - look like small see-through chamberpots.

17/6/13
Marion wrote here:
Oh, boy, does Gina have a surprise in store for Jemima because Gina is embarking on a BB journey. From demanding a maid and spending £8, 000 a month to stay at the Savoy, Gina has discovered that people like Wolfy have to live on very little money. Gina had a perfect Road to Damascus moment in the DR as the revelation sank in. She was moved, profoundly moved and saddened. By the end of the month she will have changed completely from spoiled little rich girl to spending every spare moment working in a soup kitchen. She’s a lot cleverer than Sallie methinks.
.
Wasn't that £18,000 per month?
Yes, this is fast becoming the Gina Rio Show, something that money can't buy. So, yes, clever, I agree. Another universal truth that only 'Big Brother' can (if inadvertently) radiate - and radiate into our fontanelle rather than just our carapace.

18/6/13
This is becoming one of the best BBs. But has it peaked too early? I wonder where it can go beyond the current shenanigans. As Michael says, it is layer upon layer of secrets and lies and madness - or, as I might say, a fairground decepticoaster...
Gina Rio is indeed very clever and she seemed to have spotted the possible 'racist' interpretation of Jemima's statements before Big Brother spotted them. In other words, she seemed to have alerted them to the situation. Having said that, I do wonder how politically incorrect actually were Jemima's words, i.e. when giving personal preferences as to the nature of the men with whom she might have relationships.
Dexter, Sallie and Gina up for eviction. I hope Dexter goes.

19/6/13
...and Gina seems to be the only one who really understands what Michael is all about, judging by some of the things she said in the diary room.
Yes, Marion, a powerful lot of performers this year, as you put it. And housemates have indeed become more performers than ordinary people in recent years.

20/6/13
That's really the first time I had noticed Hazel at all! And I am very impressed.
Wolfy's wild John Cowper Powys type theories fit into mine about Big Brother itself. What have you to teach me?

21/6/13
A further highlight last night was when Sallie asked everyone in all seriousness what the word 'ignorant' meant. But later she used the probably more difficult word 'misinterpret'...
I shall miss the eviction tonight, but Sallie should go if only for that two-faced Jade Goody-like 'ignorance'.

22/6/13
Thanks, Marion. As a result of your report I decided to watch the whole thing on Channel 5 Repeat on-line. Call me sad! But it was the best BB episode ever. Not one of them, but the best.
The cruelty upon Wolfy was its darker side, I admit. But contestants go into the House knowing that those sorts of things are possible.
Sorry that Sallie couldn't differentiate Michael as paid actor and as housemate postman. But this opens up even more ricochets and implications regarding my years-old fascination with "the synchronised shards of random truth and fiction", both from the endlessly revelatory BB phenomenon and from the Art of Fiction itself as an aspirant writer, publisher and reviewer.

23/6/13
I liked the 'Zadok the Priest' as they found the Promised Land of the missing suitcases.
And Jackie's song that ended with life beginning at Fifty-nine when all doth shine.
Perhaps at sixty-five life's bee flies its hive.

24/6/13
Thanks, Marion, for another excellent witty summary. I have nothing to add as this period of interaction seems to be neither aftermath to one drama or prequel to another, but it is probably both.

25/6/13
Marion wrote:
Wolfy was communing with nature again, asking the vegetable patch what it had to teach her. I found this disturbing, but all was well after all – she wasn’t talking to the radishes but to a bumble bee. She was very appreciative of its input. Later she stood chopping vegetables and mentioned she was thinking of someone’s face as she did it. It was quite chilling really. Is she taking advice from a delinquent bee?

I talk to this screen with my fingers. Most bizarre. The rocks and trees, too. 
The yearly tradition of breaking the talking-about-nominations rules was celebrated last night. Such routines give me a good feeling, like Christmas and my yearly November renewal as a person, as if I am the Doctor resurrecting without changing the actor playing him.
I hope Dexter goes. For the benefit of readers of this thread, Marion's Sexter is really called Dexter! I find him like whining repetitive static interference on a wireless signal.
Gina is a clever girl - other than thinking potatoes grow undirtily, which is a thought process akin to the human condition of wishful self-hypnotising that one will never die, never be planted like a potato or overcooked into ashes.

26/6/13
Marion wrote: Who are these people?

Variations on a Theme of Nikki?
I lost the Channel 5 signal for the last half of the show, so much appreciate that summary. In fact for the next two or three weeks, my attention to BB will necessarily be very bitty - if not losing my own signal completely for a whole week at some stage.
I did however see the AmbiDexterous Gemini conspiracy develop.
Are there any readers of this thread who can fill in for me? I know they are out there somewhere as the numbers of 'views' are increasing exponentially as this series develops. Incredibly so!

27/6/13
Thanks for explaining all that, Marion. I got lost last night. It just seemed one stock BB task with zombies and 'Get me Out of Here' shenanigans.
Not surprised that game Gina is no longer on Evacuation Watch. I think they should expel both Jemima and Dexter.

And are the walls in this year’s ‘Big Brother’ real books?
Image
28/6/13
The books look real - and there are hundreds of them - wallfuls of them swaying and rocking like a soft library with the passing of cameramen and gophers (and some zombies?) on the other side.
As to last night's action - boring. Your report about it, though, Marion, was not boring.

29/6/13
I think Jemima was genuinely shocked being evicted against Dexter. But when the clips were played by back, I think she realised what a preying cougar she actually is. Boy-mates or not.
Marion wrote:
HMs had to disappear one by one and hide from the twins. A child’s game. An infantile game. Probably dreamed up in a second because the quarantine task had to be curtailed. It took the twins an inordinate time to realise everyone had gone missing. Still, the others were not hard to find as the only hiding place was the store room. Surprise! Surprise!
The hiders were playing an old-fashioned children's party game called 'sardines' in the store room even if they didn't realise it. At least Michael wasn't there to turn it into postman's knock!
Still, not much fat on sardines. Even though Dexter's pretty oily.

30/6/13
I think the task last night - with them all standing at rostrums like a World Economic Summit press announcement - was boring and so typically BB, while the Stones rocked on the other side of the hill.
The repercussions of the task were not even interesting. Showing housemate BB auditions to some other housemates - it's all been done before, too. This show's gone right down hill since the postman left.
Marion wrote: However, in the field of sexual braggadoccio, Callum is an amateur beside the utterly outrageous Dexter, he of the schoolboy face and form and the rather stylish jackets. He seems to have modelled himself on Sean Connery playing Bond, darkly smooth, confident, standing just so, sitting just so, holding his cigarette just so…
Just had to quote that to remind me the main reason for watching BB - to appreciate Marion's reports afterwards!

1/7/13
"Irksome trivia", indeed.
BB must have planted that tennis ball themselves - making sure one of their cameras could focus on the writing the right way up.
The only interesting thing last night (does a revealed destiny alter that very destiny?) was the phenomenon of Hazel. As well as the twins, she is a possible future winner, though I don't like the twins myself.

2/7/13
My version of last night's BB ended before Dexter nominated. But I see that Wolfy, Dan, Dexter and Gina are up for it. All strong housemates for positive and negative reasons. That's why they're up. Dan to go, for me.
Meanwhile, the dry eye and the cold eye were very telling in Marion's report. But what about the tell-tale heart under the floorboards?

3/7/13
Marion wrote:
Dan is frighteningly intense when he starts these interrogations - his eyes widen and there's a bright sheen comes into his eyes, like headlamps. He must be murder to live with.
It was certainly a more interesting programme last night. Genuine angsts and frictions, rather than play-acting amid irksomely trivial tasks. I hope Dan goes on Fri. If Marion's reports continue here, I'll be able to keep track of events and maybe comment but not watch the programme for a week or so. That may be a good thing and give me a new slant on things when I resume. :)

10/7/13
Thanks, Marion. I watched the episode last night and tried to fit my strides into any new dynamics. Your reports have been enormously useful in that regard. Like you, I find it hard to call the Friday night eviction, especially as we don't know all the effective nominees yet.

11/7/13
Last night's episode demonstrated the strange contradictory nature of BB, where Housemates were discussing how best to present themselves to the voting public - i.e. what tactics and strategy - and discussing this not 'in camera' as one would expect but ON camera!
Meanwhile, I hope Wolfie goes on Friday.

12/7/13
In any theatrical drama or in any real life, in any pretence or in any genuine feeling, I have never seen such an evil, angry, disturbed, expression on any human face other than that on Wolfy's when she heard last night about the cigarettes figuring in the Treasury Task. Even Oscar-winning actors fail to manage to create such expressions.

13/7/13
From the deadpan to the melting pot, I am beginning to regain my grip on proceedings, thanks to Marion's reports. What would we all do without her. Millions going about the streets befuddled by the subtle and blatant interconnections between argument for argument's sake (the twins) and a Machiavellian agent-provocation (Dexter and Gina and Hazel) - all threaded through with simple minds thinking above their weight.
Wolfy's exit stance at the opening door scared the cameras and they rushed to the adverts before showing the exit proper - you see, they couldn't make out the sculptural impossibility of her body, twisted and slanted into a new existence by the giant creature within her. It was only a flash in the deadpan, as it turned out. But we must be afraid - whatever-it-is is now in the open, among us.

14/7/13
A good Sylvia Plath poetic reference to Dexter.
Also I, too, am quiet overnight with this, now, my gentle foot in the door of morn.
Marion's meaty late-night dinner become my breakfast feast.
(des 7.44 am)
15/7/13
Marion wrote: I think Hazel has bitten off more than she can chew with this man.
Indeed, one can never trust relative strangers, even under the gaze of millions. This is a very strange branch-line of humanity we have been travelling since the beginning of Reality TV. Reality itself is no longer Reality. This is the New Reality. And many of us are beginning to do it ourselves on the Internet with the growth of Facebook. (I came off Facebook over a month ago).
Dexter's hand-cup streak - hardly a real streak like Erica Rice's. Thank goodness.


PostPosted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 3:44 pm 
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Marion wrote:
Image

Oh, dear - I think BB should get Hazel out of that secret room.

Hey, that looks decidedly sinister.
If a crime is committed it won't take Sherlock Holmes to solve it, though.

16/7.13
Last night, the Channel 5 signal started breaking up at exactly the time that that final incident began to be shown in the summary show - an incident which is I'm sure accurately described by Marion above. I then blamed the complete break-up of the signal to hot weather atmospherics, and some other TV stations, but not all, were indeed down at the same time. I don't know how long they were down as I went to bed.
Having now read about the incident, I feel it was all rather spooky. And disturbing. I'm not sure whether I shall try to watch it on Channel 5 catch-Up. I think I shall leave it to my visualisation of it as a result of Marion's report. A sad landmark in BB history.
CONTINUED HERE

Sunday, June 09, 2013

A Threat of Rain / A Sale of Red Wellington Boots

A Threat of Rain / A Sale of Red Wellington Boots

Can there be any point in telling you this story? A story needs either to be entertaining or instructive, although instructive alone is rarely entertaining, while entertaining can remain entertaining without also being instructive. But instructive increases its instructivity by being entertainingly conveyed. This story, meanwhile, is probably neither entertaining or instructive. But I'll let you be the judge of that. You may even think it cruel.

Once upon a time, there was a man called Manny who made a living from making red wellington boots, making them from water creatures who kept their insides dry by means of their skin. His day was spent catching them from his spinning coracle, and his night spent skinning them in the curing-plant attic of his house. The skin itself somehow became thick enough for boot-soles which was half the battle for good solid walking. 

The lake that nearly surrounded his house seasonally teemed with bright narrow slants of light reflecting an internal threat of rain as an intrinsic part of the lake's body of water yet separate from it, close enough to the surface for Manny to harvest with his waterproof nets.  He called this phenomenon rainfish: as good a name as any.

 It was only when the slender silvery rainfish were thus caught that they began to blush either with pain or panic, gradually taking on the swollen redness that stayed permanently with what had by now become their bodies but only as long as they were smothered during that blushing or bloating period before they had the chance to fade or deflate. A skilful task of deft timing. Well targeted branding. Sensitive to their pain or panic at the various stages of smothering and branding while having to remain thick-skinned enough yourself not to worry about the extent of pain or panic that was being induced by such processes.

Manny was was the only experienced harvester of the rainfish. It was as if the  threat of rain created its own repellent, as it were. 

He once sold what rainfish skin he could not himself make into red wellington boots through lack of space  in his attic or through  lack of time to cure it into the required sealed units , yes, he once sold any such surplus to raincoat and rainhat and leggings manufacturers all over the land, but, by the time these manufacturers received their consignments, the redness and thickness had faded or depleted. Only by quickly making them into wellington boots would the redness as well as it thickness maintain colour or consistency. A mystery that not even Manny could solve. As if the skin understood something we didn't. 

Redness was not only the fashion in wellington boots but proof of their waterproofness. So when he sold the surplus no longer because nobody would now buy it, he just returned it to the lake once its redness and thickness depleted. Whole layers of old rainfish skin probably smothering fresh rainfish within the water itself, killing them before they could be killed properly by smothering them in the air.

And thus Manny's business was inadvertently  an end in itself. As Manny was an end in himself - eventually. So if you want a pair of Manny's red wellington boots, just look into the sky for the next threat of rain and you may see him up there smothering the clouds. His new sale of red wellington boots. Catch it if you can. 

And if the moment is ripe, if the dream is at its perfect pitch of belief and non-belief, if your mood is precisely balanced between the optimum synergy of worthy instruction and pointless entertainment, you may hold out your hands, if more in hope than faith, and harvest your own uniquely wonderful red wellingtons as they float down in increasingly heavier rates of falling - eventually to become a single defeathered pair of red rainbirds with your boot size cruelly branded upon them. Not only water-proof but proved by water.