Big Brother’s Middle Brother #4

Who goes, you decide. Except if you live in Ireland. Then you can’t vote at all. Which is a pity. “Get John James out”. Unfortunately one syllable names are much easier to chant. With Jo and Ben long gone, it could be Sam’s turn tonight so. Either way, four of the remaining housemates are to leave tonight, with the final of Big Brother 11 taking place on Tuesday night.

Big Brother’s Middle Brother #3

Big Brother House, this is Davina, you are live on Culch.ie, please do not swear. Big Brother 11 braces itself for the third eviction tonight, and only one question is on everybody’s lips. Who actually was the person who got evicted first? Can anyone remember? I don’t ever hear the housemates talking about the evictees, not even the shifty nervous fella who got booted out last week. What’s been happening since my last update? Read on…

Big Brother’s Middle Brother #2

Day fo’een in the Big Brother house (you’re putting on the voice, aren’t you?) As promised, two weeks after my original post, I’m checking in to see how the housemates are getting on in the final season of UK Big Brother. I was considering doing a ranking of the top housemates from 1 to 13, but there would be just 1 at the top and then 12 joint last places. Instead, I’m sticking to the order they went into the house, and telling you what they’ve been doing since day one…

Big Brother’s Middle Brother #1: Opening Night

It’s that time again folks. Television stations are clogged with boring drivel that interrupts regular programming, and it’s usually more than one channel too. And that’s just what some of the ladies are saying about the World Cup starting tomorrow. What about this week’s other big launch, the last ever UK Big Brother on Channel 4 (with endless live shows on E4)? In what promises to be a semi-regular thing (approximately every two weeks or so), I’m going to tell you about the comings and goings in the final season of the original reality television show.

Sweary’s Jaw

Surreptitiously reading Heat, so you don’t have to. Anyone else like a bit of fluffy celebrity gossip with their cuppa? Ever been frightened by the “culture” part of pop-culture? Do you know more about Jordan, the Boobmeister, than Jordan, that gaff in the Middle East? No? Er … me neither. No. This whole gossip column thing for culch.ie is part of my community service, alright? Although I must say that there’s something vaguely comforting about indulging in a bit of frothy nonsense from time to time – after all, if there’s anything that will make you feel a little more cultured, it’s knowing that somewhere out there, a celebrity is making a twat of themselves. On with the slapstick, then!

Bye Bye Big Brother

Just caught this via @jonathanwpurvis on Twitter. It seems that Channel 4 have finally taken the hint that no-one is interested anymore and called an end to the reality TV series Big Brother. After over a decade next years BB11 is to be the final year of the show when c4′s contract with Endemol ends in 2010. Channel 4 claim the reasons behind the decision are purely creative and nothing to do with the dwindling popularity and fall in ratings but let’s be honest, the show stopped being creative after Series 2 and the idea of the social experiment behind the programme has long since been abandoned in favour of crass, shock-value TV. Remember the girl & the bottle? Need I say more?

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here

Published in 1991, Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture focused on the coming to late twenties maturity of Americans and Canadians in the late 1980s. The novel’s three main protagonists embark on a journey of self discovery, distancing themselves from the ferocious pace of a society overseen by the godless yuppie generation. In the same year, Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho hit bookshelves amid a furore of controversy. Ellis became the stereotype of the enfant terrible, and American Psycho became a test case for censorship. The New York Times Book Review urged the public to “snuff the book”. But despite the backlash, the text emerged as the key novel of Generation X. Ellis sought to fight the advance march of popular culture and rampant consumerism by satirising society while at the same time satirising the notion that the valuelessness of society will culminate in extreme behaviour. … There’s more

The monkeys have landed in Elstree

Last night saw the return of unrealistic reality freak show Big Brother. A sombre Davina McCall appeared on the screen in breaking news style fashion, delivering her grim message across the airwaves: the circus is once again back in town. Now in its tenth season, the fact that Channel 4 continues to churn out the same old tosh year in year out is nothing short of baffling. But churn they do, and tosh is still very much the order of the day. So, once again, the crowds gathered at Elstree studios, and we were introduced to the new batch of performing monkeys. Perhaps it wouldn’t be fair to cast assumptions on the Big Brother sixteen so early in the series. But lets not dwell on what’s fair. As usual it’s a mixed bunch, and as usual most of them can fit into one of four categories: thick, tits, likeable and … There’s more

It started out as Hogwarts now it’s Lord of the Flies

Once I loved Big Brother. Note, there is no number following that title. The first Big Brother. The most interesting thing about the first Big Brother was how different the contestants were when compared to the crop over the last eight years. Few of the contestants were fame hungry. No one really knew if it would work… it was a very expensive experiment. As a group it seems that many of the first contestants are, well, not working. Some are still working somewhere in media (usually quietly behind the scenes now). True, none of them found the dizzying heights of fame as the most famous looser of Big Brother, Jade Goody, but few people let alone reality show contestants have. Then again, one the the first contestants, Mel is responsible for the Big Brother “eye” logo. Its her eye.