From Digital Spy:We've all gone mad, haven't we?

Update/Clarification: It's primarily the infantilisation of the public discourse which bothers me. It seeks to elevate - or rather to reduce - a complex network of relationships to an Ism, and the protagonists to Ists. Racism. Racists. When what I see are three playground bullies and an impossible princess.

Labels: bigbrother, celebs, media, television

1. Once again, K and I have become Big Brother's bitches. Once again, Grace Dent provides the sharpest commentary. Also on the telly tip, I was able to identify the precise moment when the hitherto flawless Shameless jumped the shark: namely, when an unconscious Frank Gallagher was dragged from his burning kitchen by his pet dog. I mean, really.

2. As the Hellen Affair rumbles on, Zinnia Cyclamen provides a neat rebuttal of his rebuttal.

3. Much to my surprise, since I'm not exactly Mister Gadget Man, I have been completely sucked into the Apple iPhone hype, and now find myself pining for ownership. Engadget has the most thorough explanation. Unfortunately, K's plans to surprise me with a Blackberry on my birthday now lie exposed and in tatters. If only he was going to Florida in June...

4. ...rather than today, six months short of the device hitting the shops. In preparation for this, my valeting services have been in great demand this week. We had a lovely time picking out fresh shirt-and-tie combinations for him a couple of evenings ago (does pink scream "Spring 2006", or can we get away with it for a while longer?), and I have never been far from an ironing board. Oh, I do have my practical uses.

5. Alarmingly, K will still be out of the country when the kitchen fitters arrive next week, thus leaving me as de facto Site Manager. But what if they ask me technical questions about, I don't know, angle brackets or something? I shall be all at sea. Thankfully, K's business partner's wife E - who is something of an expert in this field - has volunteered her services as Relief Manager. She knows her way round kitchens, does E. I don't usually stretch much further than the fridge, the kettle and the microwave.

6. Facing the prospect of being home alone with no working kitchen for a few nights, I intend to be Out and About as much as possible next week. Owt good at t'flicks?

7. My intensive pre-interview research into the Life and Times of Will Oldham/Bonnie 'Prince' Billy is yielding rich dividends. In particular, his most recent album The Letting Go is a quiet revelation. I don't have many alt-country moments these days, but this is one of them.

8. With the Amsterdam weekend imminent, blogging might be light, but Twittering will hopefully be moderate-to-heavy - so keep your eye on the newly expanded "we twitter" box on the sidebar. (I am SO PROUD at having hacked the code around for this, although it has rather buggered up my archived unordered lists.) In the meantime, why not refresh your memories with details of my previous visits in 1991 (in which I found myself the unwitting star of a Benny Hill sketch at a *cough* "men-only event") and 2002 (in which cracks appear in my carefully constructed professional facade)? Ah, for those heady devil-may-care early days, when Troubled Diva was still a byword for Too Much Information...

9. Preparations for Which Decade Is Tops For Pops and Post of the Week have taken up most of the rest of my spare time - and at the time of writing, there is still one more vacancy for another member of the Post of the Week editorial team. More details below.

10. If spin the list out to a nice round ten, I'll make myself late and miss my plane. Have a good weekend!

Labels: bigbrother, confessional, gadgets, journal, linkage, lists, media, onetrack, television, twitter

Despite my fondness for getting pleasantly pickled on a fairly regular basis, and my general reputation for being a "good" drunk (articulate and affable to the last, even though I do tend to stray into "too much information" territory), I'm no good at dealing with "bad" drunks. It's the loss of rationality which unsettles me the most; if someone is no longer capable of having a joined-up conversation, then I am at a loss with them.

Unfortunately, I'm also very bad at disguising this unease, which filters through as a kind of cautious distaste, bordering on superiority. More unfortunately still, most "bad" drunks are also adept at picking up on this, and so I am frequently taken to task for my perceived prissiness.

Donny Tourette is (update: was) a contestant on this year's Celebrity Big Brother. He is the lead singer in a not terribly successful rock band called Towers Of London, who bear the minor distinction of polling the lowest EVER score of any of the 1000+ tracks which been reviewed on the Stylus Singles Jukebox. On the show's opening night, Tourette enters the Big Brother house in a state of advanced refreshment, flicking V-signs at the crowd outside as he stumbles his way in.

Initial impression: he's a poor man's Johnny Rotten, a latter-day Gizzard Puke, a rebel without a clue, the latest in a long line of witless dullards who have appropriated the trappings of "outrageous" rock-and-roll behaviour, but without any real fire in their hearts. Whereas Rotten's contempt was impassioned, lethal and withering, Tourette's V-signs are a mere learned pantomime.

Inside the house, his fellow contestants have no difficulty in grasping his schtick, and compartmentalising him accordingly. The token rebel. It's what he does. It's his act. None of the squares are freaked out, even for a second. They're in showbiz too. They've seen it all before.

"He's a pussycat at heart. You can tell."

He is also, clearly, a "bad" drunk. I can already feel myself tensing up.

Eventually, and with a thudding inevitability, Donny ends up in the outside jacuzzi: fully clothed, fag still lit, expensive radio mike still attached (and hence beyond repair). Watching him from the other end of the garden, those same tell-tale signs of unease are beginning to flicker across the faces of his fellow housemates.

Except, that is, for Cleo Rocos: a carefully preserved (we're the same age; I can say these things) television comedy actress, whose main claim to fame was appearing as an over-the-top glamour girl on the Kenny Everett Show in the early 1980s. Cleo, as it swiftly transpires, is quite superb at handling "bad" drunks like Donny. Smiling, supportive, and utterly unruffled, she takes him in hand, leads him away from the others, gets him cleaned up, lends him some dry clothes. Without coming across as even faintly bossy, or critical, or disapproving, she takes full control of the situation. Donny is putty in her hands.

There's a wonderful, telling moment, which resonates with me more than any other. As Cleo hands Donny his change of clothes, a moment of clarity emerges from the foggy depths of his booze-addled soul. It's there in his eyes, as he holds Cleo's gaze for a second or two, with a mixture of surprised realisation and warm, trusting relief. It's a look which says: F**king hell, you're alright, you are. It is not an expression which I am used to seeing in situations like these.

The whole episode is a master class in how to handle a "bad" drunk, and I have learnt something from watching it. Once again, by placing real-life inter-personal relationships under a microscope, and by raising the emotional temperature in order to elicit a series of controlled reactions, Big Brother is - whether by accident or design (and I couldn't really care less) - usefully illuminating the human condition. This is why, for all its peripheral irritations, I never tire of watching it.

Labels: bigbrother, celebs, drinking, media, opinion, television