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Big Brother 8 Launch Night

Noise To Signal begins it's coverage of this years Big Brother with a live-ish commentary on the launch night episode, to be followed hopefully by regular weekly-ish updates right through to the series end.

21.02pm - Looks like Davina McCall has lost weight. She's doing her usual thing of listing a bunch of non-existent tabloid rumours that aren't true to make it look like the "big secret" of this years Big Brother hasn't already been leaked everywhere on the internet. "They're booing!" Yes, already! Oh, and for a million pounds, couldn't Davina have worked on a slightly more convincing fake laugh?

21.05pm - "Look, it's a door!" "Don't stand on the bullseye!" "Let's wave at the crew!" "Look at our new chairs!" I fucking hate this bit of the show. "This is the cooker. Brilliant."

After the usual prattle about "getting back to normal" this year, the house appears to have loads of deliberate design flaws. The sinks in the garden, the ovens in the bedroom, etc. That's sure to cause literally very little amusement! Again, the aim from the start appears to be causing conflict - one aspect of BB I'm really bored of. It was awesome in the early Big Brothers when huge arguments would erupt, but the last few have been little more than a parade of people shouting at eachother, lending the whole experience an unpleasant air of voyeurism (I'd like to get through a year without witnessing a complete mental breakdown, for instance) and robbing the series of what made it really appeal to me in the olden days - the good natured interaction between housemates, the forming of friendships, sharing of unique experiences etc. BB2 was the last time the series ended on a genuine high, and it's that potential for the show to genuinely warm your heart that has kept me coming back year after year. Hopefully this years housemates will be clever enough to see through Endemols transparent attempts to turn them against eachother. Not likely though, because... they're all BIRDS (allegedly)! So much for back to basics at all, then.

21.20 - Oh, god. Oh, my god. Sam and Amanda. Two twin moron girls. I CAN'T LISTEN TO THESE PEOPLE SPEAK. They're horrendous. They like pink, but they don't like chavs. And apparently a security guard is drunk, and trying to stop them driving up to the gates. DO IT, MAN. SMASH THE CAR UP.

21.22 - STOP SCREAMING STOP SCREAMING STOP SCREAMING

21.24 - STOP SCREAMING

21.25 - Lesley, age 60. Intelligent, eccentric, unpredictable, a retired "headhunter" (whatever that means). She seems alright, despite looking like Bobby Conn. She seems fairly sane, within acceptable levels of "quirkiness" and it's refreshing to see an older woman on the show who hasn't got fake neds and a face full of botox. Is this a BB first?

21.28 - STOP SCREAMING. Poor old Lesley. These are the last two people I'd want to see walking in there. She looks perplexed and horrified.

21.29 - Charley is an unemployed celeb-shagging dickhead with a booty full of attitude, apparently. Despite the music repeatedly intoning "Glamorous", she looks like she hasn't washed her year in two calendar years. The most predictable housemate yet, could go either way - her bluster could turn out to be just that, with a relatively normal young woman hiding underneath, or she might come through on all her promises of being an annoying bitch. She's getting booed again, either way. Her favourite word is "very rude". Which is two words. Oh, sod diplomacy, she's a pillock.

21. 31 - The twins have calmed down a bit, and latched onto Charley at the exclusion of Lesley (she must be gutted! or - not gutted!) within seconds with all their bloody mindless questions. HAVE YOU SEEN THE PINKNESS? ARE THOSE SHORTS? IS THIS A HOUSE?

21.38 - For a moment there I thought the "no boys" thing had been a red-herring, but no, this creature is apparently female. I wonder how "Tracey" will cope without DRUGS. She looks like this years "Pete", but with a speech defect that's not really recognised by the medical profession. I can't understand a word she says, anyway. Sounds like she's got a mouth full of golf balls. She looks like Tracey Emins Mum. Or Worzel Gummidge. She rates herself "ten out of ten for weirdess", apparently - a surefire bet that she'll be a complete tit. But they're usually quite watchable, anyway. I bet the moron twins go mad when they see that pink hair. Apparently she's going to go out in the nip if she gets evicted, which should be something to look forward to (next week).

21.41 - Is it just me, or is Tracey clearly on tons of drugs?

21.43 - Chanelle - what a fucking name. She's another wannabe glamour model, obsessed with Posh Spice, blah yawn etc. I HATE HER. And I DON'T THINK SHE UNDERSTANDS WHAT THE WORD "PRETENTIOUS" MEANS. Let's vote all these slags out mid-series and keep Lesley in. Lesley to win. Hooray Lesley! Someone doing little other than standing around looking horrified winning my UNEQUIVOCAL SUPPORT, there.

21.46 - Yeah, people probably tell you that you look like Posh Spice because you've got HER HAIRCUT AND ALL OF HER CLOTHES, but if that's the most interesting aspect of you then YOU'RE SHIT. Plain and simple. Lesley continues to look as if she's made a terrible error.

21.47 - Shabnam! I don't mind this one. She likes reading on the toilet and eating food, she's not bad looking and she hasn't mentioned a single premiership footballer in her little video. Actually she's being a bit of a pain in the arse on her way in, yelling at the crowd and stuff. I dunno, she could go either way. I'm inclined slightly in her favour because she's decent looking without appearing to be *completely* braindead. Upon her entrance, it's clear that Worzel Gummidge has found "her"self on the sidelines with Lesley, who doesn't look very happy about having to share them.

21.51 - Peaches Geldof, there. "There's a new music taking over the country - it's called indie!". Giving yourself 10/10 for intelligence and referring to a genre of music that's been established for twenty years or more at least as "new", there. Emily is an actual real character off Skins, I think. One of the fucking annoying ones. Nonetheless, that makes two of them that I want to shag, now.

21.54 - STOP SCREAMING.

21.59 - Just so you know. I've no intention of covering BBBM. I can't do more than about twenty seconds of Chris Moyles.

22.00 - Laura, a chubby welsh nanny with massive neds and an irritating voice, is the next one in. I'm glad we're not being utterly overwhelmed with braindead models angling for a career in softcore, but this house has the potential to be EXTREMELY annoying to watch. The screaming as the door opens each time is getting DEAFENING. STOP SCREAMING.

22.04 - Lesley is standing on the far side of the room, up against a wall, looking ready to scarper. Next housemate - Nicky! The bound-to-happen Indian housemate that everyone's going to be as nice as they possibly can to. She seems alright, though. She's not SCREAMING or jumping about or acting like a massive moron, but her little rant about not wanting men to even TOUCH her indicates levels of insecurity that will probably cause some stress whenever they decide to put some men in, in a fortnight or whatever. Oh, and her half-brother actually *is* a character in Skins.

22.07 - Have BB cocked up royally with this all-female-housemates stunt? As a man, I'm finding this really hard going. I can't think of anything more boring than a group of women shrieking at eachother. Clearly, neither can Lesley, who chubby nanny appears to have taken under her bingo-wing.

22.09 - And the final housemate is... Claude Greengrass from Heartbeat! Carole is some impossibly embarassing sexual health worker bisexual anti-war campaigner. She has a giant land-snail and is every person you've ever tried to avoid at a party or a gig. The crowd are into her non-conformist antics (has Pete warmed them to tree-hugging dipsticks?) and with any luck seclusion from the outside world will reveal a decent enough person hiding behind all her desperate attempts to pretend she's 30 years younger.

22.14 - "The boys are in another house! They're in another house!" - another negative aspect of the constant rule-changing in recent BB's is that they give the housemates cause to speculate endlessly about what might be coming next. This is SUPER DULL viewing.

Overall, a reasonably interesting mix, I think. There's a few people I already despise, but enough oddballs thrown in there too for them not to dominate the series, hopefully. Given that it's Big Brother and it's unavoidable I'm sure I will continue watching, but I'm still worried that a house-full of women is just going to be, well, fucking tedious. Sorry, women.

Anyway, come back next week to see how many insipid twists Big Brother has yanked out of it's sleeve, whether or not Lesley has burrowed out of there, and how hilarious it will inevitably be when someone tries to use the oven while someone else is having a sleep. I imagine it'll be something like this:

- I'm trying to sleep!
- But I'm trying to cook a lasagne!
- Well, can you do it quietly!
- Yes, OK!
- Thank you!

Hilarious.

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Comments

FREE RINGTONES!!1111111111

Thanks very much for that, Mike. It was really good. Especially

all of it

Crazy Frog

By Nicholas H
May 31, 2007 @ 12:14 am

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Sorry to be sneery but I think BB really is fucking awful. It was interesting at first but Channel 4's turning it into a cynical freakshow has taken all the fun out of it and the sheer nastiness of the production team was exposed earlier this year on the celebrity addition. And, after seven years, the freshness has completely gone.

By Zagrebo
May 31, 2007 @ 2:48 pm

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> Hopefully this years housemates will be clever enough to see through Endemols transparent attempts to turn them against eachother

Do you think Endemol would have put them in if this were the case? Most of them are so young and hungry they'll go along with anything, which is probably one of the main reasons the 'mol casts like this. Exploit the young, naive, wannabe sheep. Mwahahahaha!

The supposedly 'clever' one, Emily, who is a girl I would fancy like fuck in real life, will tow the line just like the rest of the sheeple. Any pseudo-political bullshit she may spout, along with tales of her 'acting', will soon come to an end when she realises it's getting her nowhere.

As for this all-girl show, if I had my way the first task would involve them finding a secret compartment full of dildos and anal beads.

By performingmonkey
May 31, 2007 @ 5:49 pm

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It's possible, though not likely. Moving the cooker about and stuff is such a shit and transparent attempt to cause arguments that I can only hope it does fail.

By Michael Lacey
May 31, 2007 @ 6:02 pm

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Emily is someone who I find myself rather fancying (perhaps because she reminds me of someone), but feeling extremely guilty about doing so. I suppose that there's the tiniest chance that her already-legendary "there's this new kind of music" comment was being made in a gloriously ironic fashion, but somehow I doubt it. She betrayed herself somewhat by also using the phrase "indie rock 'n' roll", a phrase that's only sprung up in about the last two years, and is used almost exclusively by people who like the Killers.

Though I bet you anything, assuming she lasts longer than a fortnight, she comes out of this getting work as a Diet Fearne Cotton.

By Seb
May 31, 2007 @ 7:01 pm

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> but feeling extremely guilty about doing so

I second that. She's a great-looking girl but also an annoyingly naive idiot, although perhaps she can be forgiven that seeing as she's a 19-year-old Performing Arts student (surely you'd be hard put to find a non-annoying performing arts student). What is good about her is that she'll provoke tons of reaction.

By performingmonkey
May 31, 2007 @ 8:02 pm

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Why would you feel guilty about fancying a thick blonde bird with big wazzers? You pair of fannys. She reminds me of loads of girls in art school who come from the countryside and fancy johnny borrell and most of them are alright once you get to know them even if they are pretty soft

By Michael Lacey
May 31, 2007 @ 8:46 pm

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> I suppose that there's the tiniest chance that her already-legendary "there's this new kind of music" comment was being made in a gloriously ironic fashion, but somehow I doubt it.

I was watching Pegg and Frost's Channel 4 'night in' today and now I suspect this was just one of those 'keep talking, keep talking' things that you feel compelled to do when in front of a camera. You may get lucky and sound ironic my mistake, but it becomes a game of 'finish the sentence I just started without thinking'. And if Pegg and Frost start to sound like a pair of rambling dopes, anyone can.

"A show that was set in space that was on television was Blake's 7..."

By Andrew
June 01, 2007 @ 12:03 am

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