Nervous Breakdown on the Small Screen

Celebrity Big Brother Five launched last night.
Over eight million viewers tuned in as the eleven celebrity contestants walked their way to CCTV hell led by Dirk Benedict, best known as Face of top TV fodder – The A Team (I never missed an episode as a kid – can you tell?)
Other participants include: Jermaine Jackson (of The Jackon Five – now known as Muhammad Abdul Aziz since a conversion to Islam), Bollywood starlet my-nose-is-now-plastic Shilpa Shetty, Sunday Mirror journalist Carole Malone and others.
The London Paper runs a daily reader’s poll I check with interest. Today’s was: ‘Are the housemates Z-list freaks craving attention or contestants taking part in a valid social experiment?’
When BB started out it may have passed as the latter – it was indeed curious and intriguing.
However the shows since been flung out of hand. See archived June blogging re: BB and the Mental Health Foundation’s thoughts on the show in an interview with me after a contestant announced he wanted to kill himself on air.
But who cares? As long as we want to watch – Channel 4 will hand it out.
Last night, host Davina McCall (the best bit about the show) vowed “Big brother will be just as twisted and just as devious as ever.”
Let the raucous begin.

Note: I didn’t watch BB - I stole the facts from the morning papers. But comment is free as the saying goes - and herein is all mine own.