Saturday, June 13, 2015

Big Brother - Summer 2015 (2)

CONTINUED FROM HERE

MY RESPONSES TO MARION'S COMMENTS HERE

June 13:
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Following on from that, I've had a sudden revelation. The BB-historical double top for women as embodied by Ashleigh-Helen is simply a symbol of the Black Swan / White Swan syndrome or struggle in 'Swan Lake' (cf the film 'Black Swan'). Everything falls into place...
"An angel's face with the devil's mouth." - Emma Willis

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The Black Swan is back! And no White Swan, only the March Hare with whom mutually to metamorphise. I dread the outcome.
I never really liked Brian's style,. Nikki, although being the most memorable HM, never won BB. Memorable not for good reasons, in my book. This is BB nightmare time...
Do we draw a line here? Cut our losses?

(Later):
Marion wrote: We are the Night Watch, guardians of the Wall...
I'll follow you until, together, we help to:
...save the world from it or from becoming like it or from the world actually creating it in its own current baleful image, indeed to change the world itself,
OR be present at - even help bring into being - its resurrection as a better BB, a better world,
OR, like embedded War reporters, reflect the circumstances of BB's and/or the world's demise?
Whichever the three options, it can't be too distant.

June 14: Well, it's all a plot by BB from day one, to get Helen and Marc together, and Nikki with Nick.
The chemistry - as Stephen King says: "When it's laid, it's played."
Helen in the DR calls Marc a Psycho-Rolo. She'd obviously been fed that brilliant line beforehand by her advisor.
Nikki is role-playing a crush on Nick, and does a 'classic' Nikki whining act in the DR. Over-played, though, over-laid. Saying she wants to 'sit on Nick's face' is sadly out of character.
Amusing to see Simon deluded that the public voted for him to stay.
One thing, though, Nikki IS right about Jack.

June 15: Distressing, indeed, Marion.
If these were ordinary people instead of would-be TV celebrities or entertainment business people or politicians, I might be even more distressed.
Still, thinking about it, on topic with Helen's 'wise' words, mainly because of social media etc, there are now NO ordinary people, except perhaps some of our very elderly relatives. Or no ordinary people who THINK they are ordinary. Unless ordinary is to think oneself special and entitled. And perhaps being 'ordinary' is only bearable IF one does think that.
All this leading to depression when their self-made house of cards finally falls down, as, in most cases, it will. And it ALWAYS does fall down eventually.
It is difficult - perhaps impossible - to stand outside oneself and make those sorts of judgements.
Trying to make such judgements here says a lot about me, I suppose. :oops:
I can't really feel empathy with these people, except grievance at the conniving collusions with them and at the top-down master plan to which they are subjected by Channel 5 and its advertisers.

(Later): Marion : I still pine for BB supervising evolution rather than fomenting revolution.
Perfectly expressed and justifiably felt.
I can see no way back, though. BB is now nothing but a Pogrom Panjandrum.
(And I do mean pogrom not programme.)

June 16:
Some hilarious, telling comments there, Marion. Like the batting eyelids.
I, too, thought it was cruel to taunt Jack in such fashion with presumed outside knowledge.
I was impressed with Danny and Brian last night.
Harry's turned back in the DR looked like a giant head.

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June 17:  Marion said: The BB voiceover at the start of the show has a new alert - the show contains scenes of aggressive confrontation.
How much better can BB get? Can we look forward to a warning that the show features a double murder and a suicide?

Beautiful Botticelli, Marion.
I was going to praise Brian, until you put doubts in my mind about his 'being out of character' in his rant. Thinking about it, you're probably right.
Chloe would have done better by calling herself the only 'ordinary' HM rather the only 'normal' one.
Marion, was your 'spoon' and 'stir it up' wordplay intentional? Either way, brilliant.
"After all, 'It's not the battle of Hastings. It's Big Brother.'" Like 'psycho-rolo', this is another good line fed to Helen by her pre-show creative advisor.
Danny to win. The only one 'in character'.
 
June 18: Everything was in extreme caricature last night. The explosive task and its classic Nikki hysteria and her rubber face expressions. Brian's flailing from wild temper to mild rapprochement. Brian and Jade role-playing with arms and legs flailing now, under the duvet. The only tone of sense last night was Helen's temperate cynical dissection of showmances. It is as if she has become not only the de facto nurturer of TV Reality Show behaviour but also, now, its critic and potential destroyer!
 
June 19: Drivel about drivel, Marion? Never! Shrewd, well-written and witty reportage about drivel, more like.
Meanwhile, I do usually enjoy the perennial 'freezing' task. This one worked particularly well in all cases, and it was good to see Pete looking so well.
I still decry outside info effectively being imparted to HMs by such a task or nominations being witnessed and/or shared face to face. The original purist BB 'hothouse' in purdah has gone forever, however. There is no way back.
And to answer your specific question, Marion. No I don't remember the Jack who entered the house as a joyously engaging Pieface. I don't think it ever existed.
 
June 20: Marion wrote: SCREAM! Image
The whole thing is a mess. I can barely watch it any more. And now we have tag nominating - last one evicted nominates X, and X later nominates Y, and Y later nominates Z... Then X,Y and Z are up for the public vote, a vote that is based on partial editing of what the public can see. And then there are gratuitous immunities...
Wasn't Victor the catalyst in the biggest fight BB has ever seen? And now he has been allowed to start another one from outside the house.

Helen to win. Image

24 June:  des2 wrote: I've managed to watch least night's. Can't resist commenting on the 'white swan' that some preternatural force has brought into the show - to save it? Hopefully, but also to defeat the black swan that is Helen. The BB tutelary gods must have read my real-time 2014 post about last summer's show: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/20 ... -or-faith/
Marion wrote: I forgot to mention something that will please Des. Last night, while Harry and Nick were having their tedious spat Marc and Nikki crossed the garden in front of them. Marc led Nikki by her upraised hand liked a courtly gallant. She turned to Nick and Harry and said, 'Marc is taking me to see my swan,', and on they passed, elegant and gracious, with no further explanation.
A mysterious and intriguing little incident, loaded with hidden meaning which remains unexplained.
Beautiful. Thanks.

29 June: Thanks, Marion, for keeping me and others up to date with your highly entertaining-in-themselves reports.
I hope to resume watching from tonight. But 'hope' doesn't quite seem the right word. Trying to dip my toe in with some trepidation, more like!

30 June: Hannibal Lecter, indeed, as well as the March Hare and Noble Savage and Modern Brat, Marc crams in mutant icons like stocking up on bread.
Harry was again last night doing 'her hand across the face' act to unlock a perfectly long-held deadpan zombie expression to reveal a smile at the end of the show.
None of these Hms inspire me. None of them ever have.
The only things that inspire me about this BB season are Marion's reports about the Hms. None of them or us deserve her. And that includes those who read her reports without responding here themselves. Or perhaps they can't obtain membership to the forum?
You were joking about McCririck, Marion, I hope!

1 July: Whatever one says about Helen and Charley (yes, I do remember her, Marion!), they have been 'successful' BB HMs, based on the evidence of either winning it or being invited back. I don't know what that says.
I didn't think I would ever say this, but McCririck was a breath of fresh air!
As to Marc, I echo everything Marion says above. To add to the list of epithets: he is also a Dangerous Path.
Meanwhile, this whole season is a NONSENSE.

2 July: I think Harry likes a spam forehead - rather than a fringe - as it is more effective in her intermittent zombie face modes.
I too can't remember Jasmine. Placed perfectly to ignite a showmance with Cristian.
The nightmare spats between Aisleyne and Marc are beyond anything that contrived theatrical drama could ever produce. Thus interesting, yet highly disturbing.
As to Joel having been given a script by BB to question Jasmine .... practice for potential Tory politician?
He seemed to get really officious about the task and its luxury food prize. A budding George Osborne.
I am hoping now that Danny will eventually be the overall winner, but I fear Marc will eventually win and become a celebrity couple with Helen.

3 July: Thanks for the two Simon&Garfunkle videos, Marion. I had to laugh at Jasmine being Mrs Robinson. Spot on.
Indeed, after Dexter was pushed off early for ineffectiveness, they brought in James Jordan for vileness to meet vileness (Marc) and to suppurate together in dark symbiosis.
But I am beginning to think that Harry is the vilest of them all. I am in turn infuriated and frightened (yes, genuinely frightened) by her expressions and behaviour. Another Dangerous Path.
(LATER) Marion wrote: I checked back to Harry's entrance to see how she has changed. I found astonishing things - firstly I had totally forgotten about Harriet's, Adjoua's and the Twins' existence, about Joel's forefront performance, and most of all about Harry's confident entrance and her latex. Here was a girl unphased by Marc or anyone. There was no sign of the seething thunderousness of her nature. She has been ground down by the fact that what wins her approval with her clients does not transfer to people in the house. Nick has proved a weak vessel, a 'lover' who makes her the butt of his jokes. The situation is entirely out of her control.Her fragile self esteem (she went from being homeless to buying her own home, her proudest boast) has been destroyed and anger that people don't value her consumes her. She cuts a pathetic figure.
Not vile, therefore. I take that back. More unhinged by what BB has done to her.

4 July: "A sort of Much Ado About Nothing without the blank verse and with an undemanding vocabulary."Marion, you should win some sort of prize for the whole of your latest report. It is simply brilliant.
Marc went out on a high note of hilarity, as you say. And it was nice surprise that the public voted him out.
I was particularly struck with Aisleyne's interview where she certainly put the blackest possible black spot where it belonged, on the black swan.
Jack's roseate cheeks were other high spots.
I notice there had been a positive transformation in Harry. I wonder what had gone on behind the scenes to achieve that sudden transition? A visit from her friends and family?

5 July: Well, that's the Marc phenomenon erased, marching out, with his no doubt bespoke-remunerated role done.
Now, as Joel explicitly reveals with a bespoke trailer, it's certain that we are now entering a 'money' thing, or, as I would put it: The BB Tontine process metamorphosed.
Tontinnabulation, as a game.
(Later)
BTW, a question I keep meaning to ask. Is all smoking banned this year? I can't recall anyone smoking or arguing about cigarettes!

6 July:
It's an outrageous scandal. How can BB so arbitrarily reduce the prize Tontine fund from £150,000 to around £40,000 at one gratuitous blow, as if they never intended the larger fund, a prize that was not only advertised to the Hms but also to us viewing public when starting to watch this series? It is an absurdity that Joel, quietly, but with a point well made, turned even more absurd - good on him! - with his buying a pizza for £2500. That's a politician for you. Psychologically, after all the previous shenanigans with Marc and other celebrities, this was the last straw. And no wonder the HMs instinctively made rebellion. At first with playful-seriousness but with bitter otherwise unexpressed undercurrents, and with now possible bad consequences.
This was very telling as, even while we watched these events, the Greek referendum vote results in absurdly parallel circumstances, were on the other TV channels. You couldn't make it up.

7 July: It was confusion night for me.
Firstly, I agree with Jack that it's an electronic number on the wall, not real money at all. This is because it's not underwritten by the IMF or any other organization, including BB Bank itself. Any rebellion against it - like Jack's and Joel's - and indeed Nick's (by bidding for immunity) - is all fair by me. Making a now meaningless BB process SEEN to be meaningless.
I had no idea of the what went on with the letters from home, who was a martyr, who got letters read aloud to them, and the difference between each letter's wording was indiscernible. And why were some letters eaten?
I also do not understand why some HMs were already immune in the twist nomination of Chloe.
On the other hand, Cristian's redubbing of this BB as a game of Selfish or Selfless, I did understand and appreciate.

8 July: Last night's red hot chili of a programme was both infuriating and disturbing, particularly, again, the behaviour of Harry. Joel and Jack also showed signs of cracking and twisting themselves into knots. Despite Chloe's hysteria at times, she seems basically in control of herself. Nick with his hot water bottle in red hot July, merely a flabbergasted refugee from Brideshead Revisited.
Danny to win.

Marion:  I have just been informed that on Monday night,, Rylan Clark showed a clip from the BB house in which Jack had to sacrifice his dressing gown to win a Golden Envelope. He was made to cut up the dressing gown - THE dressing gown, his signature dressing gown - with scissors. This was not shown on the main show , edited out, no doubt in favour of one of the house's tedious rows. I protest!
(later) - he was wearing his dressing gown. Can false rumours be circulating?

 
9 July: I am afraid I can't solve THE MYSTERY OF JACK'S DRESSING-GOWN. I think this was the name of a book I once read during the 1950s. I think Malcolm Saville wrote it.
Yes, last night saw a reasonably engaging task and HM behaviour.
Marion: But there is a caveat - according to the Malcolm Saville Society, in his books, criminal types are often characterised by 'their slack dress sense.' Now, clearly running around in your Y fronts is slack and so Marc is clearly an undesirable type. But is a dressing gown slack? Is Slack Jack a criminal mastermind in possession of two dressing gowns, one for public destruction to persuade us he is reformed; and one cunningly concealed, showing his true nature?
Admirable research, Marion. Noel Coward often sat around all day in a dressing-gown. But I do think that Jack is another cut of the cloth. Without being politically incorrect, one belonging to Jack could fit two of someone else. Which perhaps solves the mystery?

10 July: Harry: "Drop the Subject."
Joel: "You went into the argument."
In recurrent incantation. Relentless refrains still ringing in my ears.
Glass's 'Einstein on the Beach' has nothing on this.
Other relentless refrains. The whole season has involved tasks about what the HMs think the public think of them and what they think of each other. Week after week of Steve Reich's Clapping Music. Angry clapping in mistuned unison. Uncouth screeching like Xenakis' 'Ais'. The Stripper music on tape loop. Dressing-gowns and chubby legs. Dissonant prosody. A Summer of Nightmare
.
 
11 July: Good to see Harry go!
Yes, it was inevitable they'd choose Sam in the 'mind-blowing' finale last night. After all, she was the only 'new' HM left and the original HMs are loyal to each other. Sam took it graciously and did a good interview. If she had been as engaging as that in the House as she was in the interview, then it might have been a different story.
I rather liked Joel's rendition of Money, Money, Money. It will be a good backstory for when he becomes Prime Minister, which he will. Hope he changes his party before then, though. He is amazingly mature for a 19 year old. And I now favour him above Danny to win. I gather Danny is a regular Reality Show jobber.
 
12 July: A reasonably entertaining general knowledge task. I could have spelt both canoe and yacht.
Chloe has done well to be the winning lady HM. Congratulations.
The Joel and Danny argument was uncannily the exact parallel of what must have gone on overnight with the EU's various stances on whether to evict (rather than just nominate) Greece.

13 July: A lot of silly tasks last night, Jack's tan, Joel's pizza, conga etc. It's like a children's programme from the 1970s which I watched with my own children, plus today's swearing. Twas Tiswas.
Jack's taking the money will finish him for the eventual overall win, I think, for which he was otherwise slowly becoming the favourite. I hope that come-uppance is true, anyway. And I bet he will be tempted into bargaining away the money he has already won? Or just have it stolen off him by BB?

14 July: BB obviously wants Jack to win, giving him a whole programme, yes, a whole programme, well almost, to shine through ostensibly hard but manageable tasks. Thus to recoup his winning chances.
Credit to BB for almost recouping the Tontine prize, mainly by manipulative means. Or did they have an auditable budget for that which they simply had to spend on a prize?
Nick was evangelical in the DR about his getting into the final. Good to see that BB still holds its cachet among the young. Illuminati or not.
Joel again was good with an Abba song. It was an interesting tableau, with Nick swinging lackadaisically on a pole to the music, Danny swaggering into the cool noir bar to survey the scene magisterially, and the only woman talking over it in chance dialogue given to her by the noir writer of the scene. Chandleresque.
The finalist we find ourselves hardly ever mentioning: Cristian. Is he a dark horse for the win?
 
15 July 2015:
Marion wrote: You've got no sense of humour, Cristina.
A new housemate? Wonder, if she'll win at this late stage.
BTW, no sooner than we comment on Cristian's low profile, than it is heightened - in a bad way. An Internet troll and blackmailer (from his own mouth during this BB season), allegedly.
Marion: One interesting scene that came from this task was that Nick was judged the most open and honest - while he stood there, hoodie up and concealing his face, and head bowed low, a creature that lived in the shadows and could not tolerate the light of day. Well observed, Marion.

And Jack and Joel went up the hill:
Popcorn licks with stoic will.
 
16 July:
Marion wrote: So who is your winner, Des? I swing between Joel and jack. Tonight I slightly favoured Joel but Jack would do. Just not Chloe.


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All in all, I think Joel. Anyone who can bring the topic of "constitutional monarchy" to the BB house deserves it!
(later) Marion wrote: On the other hand, there is stubbornly honest Jack, tormented and teased, unappealing in some ways but possessed of an iconic dressing gown.
Oh, dear - I like to have a clear candidate for the win in mind but I swither and swither
...
You mean that tiny figure in the bottom right hand corner of my photo?
(later) Marion wrote: Chloe wins. Why?
A good question, Marion.
Thanks for all your reports. The highlight of BB every year.
750,000 hits! Well done. YOU are the winner.
Here's to CBB...
 


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