Big Brother: Kyle calls Dixie a "fat, lazy pig".

If ever there was an argument for Gretel and Mike vs Kyle and Jackie O, perhaps it could be tonight's eviction show.

1. Kyle says, "Renee is really thick," and Jackie reminds him that he actually means Brigitte.

2. Kyle says, "Rebecca doesn't look too happy about that," and again, he means Brigitte.

I guess it must be hard to simultaneously juggle Big Brother hosting duties, a radio show, Australian Idol auditions and flying back and forth to LA to support your girlfriend's career. Perhaps if he just did one thing well, he wouldn't do a multitude of things shitly.

Even Eddie Maguire (pre Nine honcho days) managed that!

3. Kyle calls Dixie a "fat, lazy pig". On a reality TV show, marketed at teenage girls.

I know Kyle's schtick is "shock and bore awe", and that producers love him for the publicity he generates because of it, but this is quite simply appalling, contemptible and dangerous behaviour. Bet he's wishing he built a good fall out shelter.

4. Kyle says, "There are really good prizes to win." Jackie preens in front of the camera, realises she's been spoken to, snaps back to the job she is getting paid to do, and says, "That's right, Kyle. Also, there are some great prizes to win."

5. With ONE housemate left to nominate, Jackie says to Kyle, "The girls have been bitching a lot this week. How do you think that will affect the nominations?"

Umm ... what?

The nominations that the entire nation has just seen? "Hey Kyle. Given that you haven't paid one iota of attention to this show because you're too busy being important, and given that I haven't paid one jot because I'm too busy preening in front of the mirror ..... given all that ..... in hindsight, now that you have seen everyone nominate, how do you think they will nominate?"

And he still couldn't answer the question!

The biggest mistake this show made was replacing Mike and Gretel with these two buffoons. Something I'm sure the producers will learn tomorrow when the shit hits the fan.

Oh yeah, and Rebecca has been evicted. As the winner of Friday Night Games, she had four points to allocate and gave them to herself.

Big Brother: Rory naked in shower

[There. That should get me plenty of google hits.]

Last night I had Good News Week on in the background while I was waiting for new BB show Big Mouth when I thought: "Hang on a minute, is Big Mouth on already?" because I thought I heard Travis.

I looked up and realised it was Corinne Grant.

Next time she's on TV (and believe me, I don't think you'll need to wait long), close your eyes and listen to her voice. I'm sure you will concur.

I'm torn between thinking Our Tim's presence on the show is a good thing because it injects humour (actual humour) and intelligence into the commentary and wondering, "Our Tim, why hath thou sold out so?" It's a tough one. Mind you, I would sell out quicker than one can say "Would you like this position as a Liberal Party spin doctor?" because I am poor and sick of living on chick peas.

Are you a Liberal politician looking for good spin? Email me on contact_watchdog@hotmail.com. I promise not to call candidates "Greedy fucking Jews".

Anyway, the panel consists of Our Tim, a couple of sports columnists that you probably know the names of if you care about sport and a former housemate called Chrissy (I think) who I can't remember much about, but she is supporting our hero Nathan so I suppose she is OK.

The Panel's position (including Our Tim's) on whether Corey's inclusion in the house is "tantamount to child abuse" is that it's not and to demonstrate their impartiality, they invite some child expert on who disagrees with them. She makes some valid points which has the hosts squirming and Ten execs ready to can the entire show. Back away from the spin doctor job, Tim. I baggsed it first.

Then they invite some journo from somewhere to rectify the damage and she gushes about this year's series and seems like she might like to canonise Brigitte.

Saxon joins the panel and we get to see some more of his bigoted behaviour in the house where he justifies the Cronulla race riots and Our Tim gives him a bit of a serve.

Cut to the house and Dixie says she desperately wants a penis ...... in her mouth. Whoa, Nelly. Rory obliges her - well, he doesn't actually put it in her mouth, but he showers next to her naked and tells her he was just giving her what she wanted "to see a penis". JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION ON AUSTRALIA'S LIPS, ALREADY! Look, I don't know, OK. It sort of looked big, but I have resisted buying a wide screen because my precious mama (that's Ms Cynic Senior to you) has brought me up to believe that big screen TV's are ostentatious and a demonstration of poor intelligence and a deplorable preference for television over books. Which is why her house is a veritable walk-in library (with a big screen hidden in the spare room. Ssshhh .... don't tell no one).

Anyway, I lie. I do have a big screen TV (it's the one hidden in mum's spare room - did you think that she would buy one), but I couldn't be arsed bringing it to the country, so I live with a 51cm with warped visual, which makes everyone look like they have Down Syndrome. So, to answer your question, perhaps he has a massive schlong and perhaps he has a twinkie. Ask someone with a normal TV.

Totally off topic, but has anyone else noticed how many mistakes BB is making this year? First he calls Travis "Nathan" leading Travis to believe that Nathan will be joining him in the Strategy Room, causing him to make the unfair choice of electing Renee to stay instead of the deserving Nathan.

And during Sunday night's eviction show, he said: "Housemates, welcome back to the house ..... David," and then Rory walked through the door, making us all immediately aware that David was next and Saxon was booted and spoiler, much?

Anyway, some other stuff happened on the Big Mouth show and then it finished.

The end.

Big Brother: Brigitte vs Gandhi

I have a policy in Ms Cynic’s house and it’s that people need to learn quick smart that manipulative behaviour is ugly and doesn’t pay.

And laughable ultimatums that you can't live up to and that hurt only you are particularly unwise.

When my seven-year-old nephew cracks the shits because he’s not allowed to play Nintendo for three weeks straight, and threatens to run away, I pack his clothes, show him the door and lock it on his way out.

Then I sit back and wait the five minutes it takes for him to come knocking and begging to be allowed back in.

Then I make him grovel for forgiveness until he learns that manipulative assholery is not acceptable behaviour.

When my boyfriends threaten to leave if I won’t compromise over some bull shit issue, I let them go. Then let the answering machine take their apologetic, begging calls. Forever.

If I was Big Brother and Brigitte came crying into my Diary Room with her bull shit, “I want to leave right now,” I would have booted her from the house before she even finished the sentence. No prizes. No eviction show. No publicity. No coming back.

Why, oh WHY, did they not do that?

Let’s face it. Her absence wouldn’t exactly be any great loss in the entertainment stakes.

But kicking her out when she threatens to leave? I would have missed my best friend’s wedding to stay home and watch that.

And then she pulls a hunger strike threat?

And that’s when this year’s “tougher-than-ever-before” Big Brother says: “Why don’t you sleep on it and talk to me tomorrow?”

Big Brother, you bad boy!

I would have said, “Fine. You do that.” And then I would have fed all the housemates sizzling lamb chops and bacon and roast stuffed with rosemary and garlic and pretty much every other meal in the world that smells fabulous when it’s cooked and seen how long it would take until she came begging for a giant slice of humble pie.

Here are some other famous hunger strikers:

Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for the alleviation of poverty, for the liberation of women, for brotherhood amongst different religious and ethnic groups, for an end to untouchability and caste discrimination, and for the economic self-sufficiency of the nation, but above all for the independence of India from foreign domination.

An ayslum seeker sews up his lips during a hunger strike. Asylum seekers sewed up their lips to protest against being refused protection - as is their right under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - after escaping religious and political persecution, and being detained arbitrarily in detention centres, with some detained for periods surpassing four or five years. Their hunger strikes were held because (a) they wanted to make the rest of the world aware of their conditions, and (b) because they said (without protection and freedom) they had "nothing to live for anymore".

Brigitte is striking because her clothes have been taken away!

I'm a nobody; get me out of ..... Surfer's Paradise

Before we launch into espisode two of I’m a Nobody: Get me out of here, I need to point out two things.

1. This series is from 2006. Gordon Farrer from The Age calls Ten’s airing of such an out-of-date show, “scraping the bottom of the barrel”. Last time I checked, M*A*S*H wasn’t exactly made last year, but TV stations keep running that. That show is so old; I can’t even remember what war they’re in. The Battle of Trafalgar, perhaps?

2. The Lovely Cattermune points out that the show is, in fact, filmed in the Australian outback. “The wild jungles 20 minutes drive from the harsh landscape of the Gold Coast - a bus ride away from Dreamworld and the Surfers Versace outlet.”

The show begins with the fabulous David Gest resigning himself to his food-collecting fate. The public have chosen him to undertake Flash Flood. He sighs: “I’m king of the tabloids, what do you want?” And I immediately wish I lived in England, where the tabloids must be 18 million billion times more entertaining than they are here.

David Gest or CUB royalty the Hewitt-Cartwrights, I know whom I’d prefer to read about.

David Gest has to walk along a rope bridge and he says: “I’ve got to get a grip on life.” Not quite as wonderfully weird as his “It’s like a bad dream. You wake up and you wonder,” but close. He has abandoned himself to the rugged outback of Surfer’s Paradise, by losing the sunglasses and baseball cap. It’s just too hot. I know, David. I took my make up and hair straightener to Cairns during wet season. What was I thinking? Rendered useless crap taking up space in my suitcase. You should have called me before you packed. I could have given you the hot tip.

David gets to the task area and hosts Down Robbie and Down Ronan are just sort of hovering in the corner, looking like a couple of Jehovah Witnesses waiting to pounce. They are eager to please in an annoying way and their scripted jokes are so appalling, that woman who reads the “joke” news on Rove thinks, “Even I am funnier than that”. And as much as it kills me to say it, she is right.

So David gets in this tank which has 10 pipes in the wall and 10 wrenches on the floor and he must find which wrench opens which pipe. Every time he opens a pipe, a star comes out (for each star he collects, the group get a meal), as well as a “flash flood” of water, which contains large spiders, eels, fish, a couple of baby crocodiles smaller than Danny De Vito’s little toe and a yabbie.

Oooh. A yabbie. Hard core. They should have put a Christmas Beetle in there, with great, big, gnashing teeth.

David tells the crocodiles: “See ya later, alligators. Fuck off, really.”

But it’s what he tells the camp about his experience that’s infinitely funnier. “I was in this tank and there were alligators (baby crocodiles), snakes (eels) and I had like 40 (about five) animals around me.”

Anyway, he has collected six stars, which shits all over GILF Jan Leeming’s effort, so he must be commended. I, and probably the rest of the world, had really expected him to cop out within five seconds of being in the tank, so bravo and all that.

Then we learn that the nobodies are actually being fed rice and beans, which is pretty far from the idea that they’re being starved if they don’t collect stars, and my enthusiasm is dulled a bit. Oh well, let’s push on ….

Next up Dreamcoat (Jason Donovan) and Cans (Faith Brown) have to get across this sort of rope bridge that’s broken up into sections and they have to get from one section to the other by swinging like monkeys. It looks like there may be a massive drop below them, but OH&S laws still exist in this country, even in the wilds of the Surfer’s Paradise outback, so I don’t know what they’re carrying on about. I am really feeling for Dreamcoat. He really has just resigned himself to the humiliation and degradation of being on this show and gee, he must have needed the rent money real bad.

Anyway, they collect this chest (an actual chest, not Faith’s cans) on the other side and take it back to camp and inside are two boxes. One box contains a cheesecake and a bottle of champagne and the other a lie detector. They have to answer a question right to get the treats and the question is something like, “Who once told a newspaper they would do anything for publicity, Lauren or Phina?” Neither woman wants to admit to it and ….. umm, hold on a minute ….. WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THIS SHOW? Lauren (Cherie’s sister) is adamant it’s not her and she doth protest too much so we know it is going to be her. She begins to realise that it probably is her and to save face she starts pointing the finger at her agent. Her irrational pride will be the disappointment of the whole camp and she knows it, but she won’t back down.

So, it’s her and she says: “I should have known it was going to be a catty answer, but it’s something you expect from an actress, not from a journalist.” Seems she knows a bit about catty herself.

David leaps at the chance to bleat to all and sundry that Lauren “took a ride on his fame” attacking his cosmetic surgery in a newspaper article.

Writing about David Gest’s cosmetic surgery? Oh right, that kind of journalist.

I think we could expect more from an actress, don’t you?

So, he confronts her and says: “You wrote about me, which is normal, after all I was on the cover of two magazines,” and then they patch up their differences.

Scott Henshall, fashion designer, is up next for the food challenge, which is “Jungle Boogie”. He has to dance while wearing plastic pants, which gradually fill with all sorts of bugs. There’s a bit of sexual tension between him and Down Ronan and I reckon they are going to get it on.

He’s lame and can only dance long enough to get one star. He complains: “The bugs are biting me.” Down Robbie says: “There were only crickets and earthworms in there.”

He has also shamed gay men the world over with his so-called dancing, which was like the Running Man without the rhythm.

He gets back to camp and everyone is forgiving of his piss-poor effort, in particular David Gest, whom I had expected to see fire up, but proving once again that I am quick to judge and form completely wrong impressions of people (look at every single man I have ever dated), the only person to really let fly is our (former) hero GILF Jan. She is a total bitch about it and she gets worse.

She and Phina are sent to find keys in a haystack to open a chest full of treats. Despite the fact that she has previously had to be lowered down a mineshaft with cane toads, spiders and a snake, she is suddenly too precious to flip through a bit of straw. Perhaps she is allergic to hay. Or team work. Or just being reasonable in general. She whinges and moans and is effective as Terri collecting carrot juice in Friday Night’s Games, while Phina finds two keys to her none.

Night falls and the camp begin to worry. Scott says: “Can you walk in the jungle when it’s dark?” In Australia, your legs stop working when the sun goes down. Never mind the kids around the corner who have just strolled over from Dreamworld to sneak a cigarette among the trees, or the 10 couples parking at the top of the hill.

Outback. They can probably hear the Big Brother eviction audience from there.

Phina searches while Jan bitches and they return to camp empty-handed and Jan proceeds to bitch about Phina to anyone who will listen, including the trees (and the smoking kids). She even cries about it, but blames the whole debacle on Phina, ignoring the fact that it was her lack of contribution that means they all get to share one wallaby shank.

Not happy, Jan.

So they share out their meagre rations and Phina helps herself to a couple of serves, earning the ire of the entire camp who turn on her like a pack of wolves, proving themselves more dangerous than any creature they’re likely to run into in Brisbane’s outer burbs.

The British public have chosen both Jan and Scott to undertake the next food challenge entitled “Tray Top Terror.” And I smack my forehead and realise what that nagging sense of deja vous has been. Mineshaft Misery, Jungle Boogie and Tray Top Terror are all levels in Donkey Kong on the Nintendo NES.

We get a preview of next week’s show and there will be an intruder called Dean who is shown squealing like a stuck pig while undertaking challenges. Excellent.

Greatest Actor in the World to enter politics

"You can't out-act me, boy. Don't even try."


Alec Baldwin, the "Greatest Actor in the World" has expressed an interest in entering politics.

The 50-year-old Hollywood star (really? Just 50?) became a real-life villain when his ex-wife, Kim Basinger, publicised a phone call he made to his teenage daughter, in which he called her (his daughter) a "thoughtless pig".

Should be well suited to politics then.

Watchdog is able to recount his maiden speech here:

"We are here to usher in a new era without violence. By following the rules of the Film Actors Guild, the world can become a better place ...that handles dangerous people with talk, and reasoning. That... is the FAG way. One day you will all look at the world us actors created and say, "Wow, good goin', FAG. You really made the world a better place, didn't ya, FAG?"

"When you see Arec Bardwin, you'll see the true ugriness of human nature."

Big Brother: sedative nation

I don't know what's more depressing. The fact that people only come here for their Big Brother smack down, the fact that I'm catering to it, or the fact that Burma is still blocking US aid, despite earlier reports that they were going to accept it and 80,000 people are dead from just one region - a figure that's expected to rise - and more than 1.5 million are homeless.

That's not entirely true. One hard done-by young teen found this site by googling "why are brothers such wankers?" I feel for you, blossom. I'm a younger sister too. I see you, banished to your room, searching for answers to life's injustices on Google, while BB plays at being the Chosen-Child-Why-Don't-You-Just-Canonise-Him-Already downstairs in front of the roasting open fire, lovingly cooed at by your gullible parents, and scoffs your serve of dessert.

Sometimes, when they get older, they become gourmet chefs, and then you can take your revenge by using their precious chef's knives to unscrew hinges on your Barbie Townhouse. Mwa ha ha. He is still crying about it and that was 22 years ago!

If you must know, the housemates in the Danger Zone - the ones with the least votes and therefore possibly up for eviction this Sunday - are Rebecca, Saxon, Dixie, David and Alice. Dixie has replaced Bianca on the list.

Tensions are escalating in Fiji, with death threats made to Australian High Commissioner James Batley. The threat follows the recent expulsion of three Australian journalists for criticising the Fijian Government.

Sometimes you want to do what you can, and CARE, and sometimes it all just seems too much and you want to lie down on the couch, in front of Julius Caesar, consuming Sauvignon Blanc, The Poplars marinated goats cheese and roasted capsicum pate, smoking cigarettes without guilt and contemplating a cup of Earl Grey, a Valium and bed.

Morbid, aren't I? And I'm not even anywhere near the time my eminently charming (male) colleagues call my "Angry Reds". I'm off to be a glutton and pretend the world doesn't suck (or at least drown it out for a while).

Big Brother: Michael threatens Daily Telegraph

Evicted housemate Good Charlotte Michael loses it in an interview with Daily Telegraph journalist Garth Montgomery over whether his (Michael's) girlfriend's a stripper. Read it here.

My favourite bit:

Michael: If you write that then I can get things done. I have a bit of pull, that’s how I got on the show. I can post things about you and question whether it’s true.

Garth: So you’re threatening me now?

Michael: I just know you’re going to portray me in a certain way, you’ve come up with this bullshit that someone’s said and it’s just crap.

Garth: Well, we’ve had it confirmed from Kittens that Amy works there as Ashley

Michael: It’s crap, you’re just trying to come up with some gossip, is there someone higher up I can speak to?

Garth: No

Michael: Why not?

Garth: Because this isn’t a call centre where you ask for the supervisor.

I LOVE that last line.

We have a journalist who tells people "I'm not your personal PR hack."

News: Come and get it.

DURING the Fringe Festival, I allowed my friend to take me to a show called the 'Mutant Barnyard' because it just had to be done. It was $5. And it was called the 'Mutant Barnyard'. If I need to justify our enthusiasm, then you're a dullard of the highest order who'll probably never get it.

I don't want to give away too much (you might go there one day), but suffice to say, the anticlimax (albeit not entirely unexpected, making it eminently more enjoyable, and that was the point of it, people) was rather like a headline that screams "Colin Firth lets go in love scene", and you click on it, thinking it might be something like actual Colin Firth porn, but is actually a story about how some crew member farted while Colin was kissing Helen Hunt.

Let down like a housemate's ego on eviction night.

Mind you, I probably only like Colin Firth anyway because he was Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones Diary and I am a single, cosmo-mixing, disillusioned, Manolo Blahnik-wearing, Bridget Jones clone, who "childishly scrawls" my date's surname intertwined with my own after just three dates and takes my relationship advice from an online Sex and the City-wanna-be blog.

Aren't we all like that?

I'm also a fat and lazy woman who sits on my arse and then bitches about not getting paid as much as my male counterparts.

Not eating right now, are you?

(WA Opposition Leader) TROY Buswell was groaning and writhing in sexual pleasure after lifting a chair above his head and sniffing the seat deeply, the woman at the centre of the sex scandal has revealed.

"We finished the meeting, I walked the bloke downstairs and out of parliament and when I got back I walked into the room to pick up my notepad from the desk and Buswell started grabbing the chairs going: 'Aahww, which one did you sit in? I'll be able to tell'," she said.

"And then he picked them up and started sniffing them and groaning and making sexually satisfying noises.

"Buswell opened the door really wide, grabbed a chair and started sniffing it, lifted it above his head sniffing it and breathing in, going, 'Aaww, yeah," she said. "It was awful.

Angelina Jolie. Sixteen-years-old. Pashing the 1990's version of Enrique Iglesias while he sings an Italian version of Crowded House's 'Don't dream it's over' on You Tube. You know you want to look.

Admit it. You wanted to see her looking ugly and sporting some horrendously embarrassing look from the era of big hair and shoulder pads, didn't you? She looks like only the most beautiful woman in the world ever and EVEN BETTER CAUSE SHE HAS YOUTH ON HER SIDE! Quelle surprise. What a bitch.

Fat is good for you. Eat as many wheels of King Island Dairy Black Label Blue Triple Cream as you want!

Sharks dying is contributing to global warming. Who would'a thunk it? I can't find the link right now, but I read about it on ABC, some new docco, and it's fascinating (and scary).

Reports now in that the death toll in Burma after Cyclone Nargis could be as high as 250,000, with millions left homeless.

The cyclone, the worst to hit Asia since 1991, is believed to have destroyed an area the size of Victoria.

Red Cross, CARE Australia, Unicef and the aforementioned World Vision are all aid organisations who are supposedly getting past the ruling junta. Click on the links to donate whatever you can. Just $10 can buy a mosquito net, preventing diseases like Malaria.

I've decided (and I may come to regret this) that Nathan the Virgin is the most decent person inside the Big Brother house. He's from Adelaide too. I think we should rally some support for him and vote* to save him.

Are you from Adelaide? Got any goss you want to share about Nate Dogg? Email me at contact_watchdog@hotmail.com.

* Or just hope. Either or.

Big Brother: Michael and Barney evicted

My, but a lot of you come here searching for Rima Big Brother Midget Porn. I'm not sure what it is about my blog's moniker that might entice you to believe I have that! Welcome, heathens.

So Terri has evicted Good Charlotte Michael and Barney Jackman from the house.

But, according to Tim Brunero, Michael had planned from Day Dot to leave because his band begins its national tour on May 22.

BB gave Corey the mission last night, ordering him to evict two of the new housemates. But, Corey refused and Terri willingly took up the mission. I just love this snippet from the Big Brother site's summary of the proceedings:

"Corey was furious. He told BB that he was unimpressed with Terri’s efforts so far to chaperone him properly. “She hasn’t even tried to put me to bed!” he complained, adding that he hadn’t eaten fruit all day either."

No fruit? What about the five food groups? Two fruits and five vegetables? Minimum 30 minutes of being active? Don't stop there, Corey. You could really nail her.

BB rewarded Terri by making her and Nathan proper housemates. Also, the housemates have now learned how the nominations and eviction process will work and don't seem too impressed.

Big Brother and Burma

Before we get to the Big Brother smack down, if you've been living in a media void, you may not know that the death toll in Burma (Myanmar) from the weekend's cyclone is now believed to be more than 15,000, with an estimated 30,000 still missing, and 10,000 dead in just one town.

Some reports are suggesting up to 50,000 people could have died in the tragedy.

The military junta is now accepting foreign aid in light of the disaster. You can try to help here.

In Fiji, military ruler Commodore Frank Bainimarama has threatened to "shut down" the media if they continue to criticise the Government. Fiji Times editor Australian Evan Hannah was arrested and deported last week.

Anyway, back to the mundane.

So, I didn't watch Big Mouth last night because I had a good book to read and Goddamn you people, I can't do everything around here. If you want to find out what happened, you can click on the link. While I'm still a bit flummoxed as to why sporting personalities are hosting this show, I'm pleased to report that everyone's favourite lefty and former BB contestant Tim Brunero is co-hosting. I still love you, Lefty Tim, and remember fondly our campaign, where every blog with a Greens party membership and chai latte at hand displayed a gif of Tim, with the caption: "I'm voting for Lefty Tim because he has been touched by the hand of God (and unions)."

Good Charlotte Michael and Brigitte are at each other's throats. You can read it about here. Contains the wonderful line, uttered by GC Michael to KKK Terri: “Bloody hell Mrs Doubtfire … you need to chill out over there, you’re going mental."

Bianca has given Corey a serve for "all that he represents". Turns out that she is trying to show Australia what generation whatever-alphabetical-letter-they-are-these-days represent and he is not helping her cause. I admire her unpredictable and quite unprecedented (for a housemate) intelligent outlook on the matter, but she also confirms something anyone over the age of 30 is consumately aware of and that is, that teenagers think they know everything and are big on condescendingly patronising anyone approximately 2.5 months younger than them.

"I am 18. You're just 17 and three quarters. When you're my age, you'll understand."

Child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg labels Corey's time in the house as "tantamount to child abuse" and blames Corey's parents and agent Max Markson for exploiting the gormless teen.

Has a point, I reckon.

Also, Scarlett Johansson is marrying Van Wilder Party Liaison. Isn't it ironic, or something?

Big Brother: Housem8s, soz bout da mess.

TONIGHT'S show begins with the new housemates talking about themselves a bit and Pestilence Corey, Barney Jackman, Good Michael Charlotte and Nathan McKenney summarise themselves in neat and concise dot points. Ku Klux Terri takes the stage and presents a ramble that would give Gwyneth Paltrow’s Oscar acceptance speech a run for its money.

I’ll give Terri this – she tried to talk to the housemates about changing roles for women in society, social mobility and social opportunity.

But, know your audience, you know?

You may as well try explaining physics to my landlord’s dog.

Personally, I would have been interested to hear her story, but she did bang on a bit like a mature-aged student in a university tute.

Corey is being truly hilarious in a locker debate, refusing to share his locker with Terri. Perched on the edge of the diary room chair, as far from her as he can possibly get without falling off, refusing to look at her, fiddling with his eyebrow piercing, hand shielding his face from her glare, he kind of reminds me of this:

"Whatever I want to do, Gosh!"

The housemates decide to play a prank on Terri and tell her that Corey has scaled a tree, jumped a wall and escaped the confines of her clutches. (He is actually hiding in the house). They egg her on, urging her to dob him in to Big Brother. She marches full of menace to the diary room and BB plays along with the prank, telling her she must climb the tree and go after him. Terri dons her climbing apparel (running shoes and all) and clumsily clambers up the tree.

But, Killjoy Bianca tells her the truth, ruining the only entertaining moment this show has spawned yet.

Later, Anglo-Saxon, self-appointed Devil’s Advocate, tells Terri that Corey’s not in bed. Terri can’t be arsed chasing him up about it, but BB tells her she must, so she goes to the garden, where he is sitting with Knob Head Nobbi and someone else and orders him to bed.

He ignores her and she tells him he’s “inconsiderate of other’s feelings”. His parents, watching at home, and pretty much the entire rest of the nation, smack their foreheads and exclaim: “Tell us something, we don’t know.”

They all sleep and wake up to a horrendous party mess that BB has left for them overnight and they must clean it within the hour. There appears to be a broken down, spray painted car in the yard and I’m not sure if that’s a party leftover or just some sort of comforting décor to make these trailer trash housemates feel at home.

BB sends them a text message: "Housem8s, gr8 party, soz about da mess."

roflwafflez

Anyway, so BB has taken all their food and they must live on staples for the rest of the week and they have to clean up a party mess every day to win a room full of gourmet food and a barbecue.
BB explains the task conditions to them repeatedly, but he could hire a small plane and write it in the sky, tattoo it in their foreheads or make them write a 40,000 word thesis on it and still this pack of dumbarses wouldn’t comprehend.

They can’t work out when they will get the food. It is like Planet of the Apes in there.

Big Brother: Live blogging. The gatecrashers.

Live via satellite from my lounge room, with my own gatecrashers in attendance Michael, Nikki and Annabel. Talking during the show. Eating me out of house and home. I've sent countless eviction messages, but they just won't leave.

Kyle is seriously deluded, telling the crowd, "The press are saying it's the coolest year yet."

All the press releases from Channel 10 are saying that.

Rima delivers a message from her Hospital Bed of Pain to the house.

"I'm a little bit in pain, but nothing I can't survive. Don't feel sorry for me." -- Rima.

No one, NO ONE, feels sorry for you. You broke a leg. You don't have cancer.

Well, no one that is, except Dixie, who would cry over an Anne Geddes card.

While we go to an ad, let's have a look at tonight's gatecrashers:

Nathan ......



Who reminds me of Todd McKenney.



Michael:

Thinks he is Good Charlotte.

And volunteer lifesaver Barney who looks a teeny bit like Hugh Jackman.




Ad break. They introduce Barney. Knob Head said if he could speak to Ku Klux Terri right now, he'd tell her to "jam it".

Then we go to an ad again. Barney's about to enter the house.

BB just told the housemates: "These people were chosen by the Australian public. The Australian public voted for them. You guys got the lowest Australian public vote. They are your biggest threat. "

----

Barney enters the house. It's a bit of a non-event. Nathan McKenney takes to the stage. No word yet on whether he's likely to wake up with $400 worth of GHB in his pocket, but here's hoping. He's also from Adelaide, and being the proud, parochial piss ants that we are, we are rooting for him.

Current conversation in my lounge room.

Nikki: [talking about Travis] That's because you're gay, you effing faggot.

Michael: You're gay too, you effing idiot.

Nikki: Yeah, but I'm not in denial.

Me: Nikki. You are gay and you didn't know the male judges on "So You Think You Can Dance" are gay. You are a fool.

Nikki: Michael didn't know that Paul McDermott was gay.

Me: I don't care. You're gay. You should know.

Nikki: Michael's gay. He lost soccer today 9-nil.

Everyone: You're gay, Michael.

Good Charlotte enters the house after the break.

----

Booing for Corey. Lots. He looks nervous.

"I hate girls getting hurt and stuff."

"They don't know the real me."

"I can change people's opinions of me and stuff."

Kyle calls him "the modern day Ferris Bueller."

Nikki: Are they drinking tonight?

Me: Yep.

Nikki: He won't be able to drink. Ha ha.

Me: I wonder if they're paying 70 per cent tax on their alcopops.

All: Effing alcopop, binge-drinking bastards.

Me: Top ups?

All: Cheers.

Corey in for a rude shock. What is it? Not going in house?

Good Charlotte is strutting.

Dixie is probably crying somewhere. Ku Klux Terri is up next.

----

Live blogging technical problems. We're back. Ku Klux is going to enter the house. Asked what she thinks of Corey, she says "Moron". She is then offered the chance to play chaperone to Corey in the house.

Corey enters the house and someone says "He's nervous." Twice.

BB tells the house he is in a predicament. Brigitte says: "What does predicament mean?" He says that Corey needs a mature guardian, but he can't see a "mature" person in the house. Enter Ku Klux. Then we get something like five minutes of obscenity bleeping as Knob Head throws a tanty. While I'm sure that they're extending the obscenity bleep for comedic value, watching Knob Head suffer is comedy gold enough for me and my very own gatecrashers.

----

Pestilence has been a bit of a piss-poor show. He's been about as entertaining as a council meeting. The new eviction rules are announced. No one is nominated. We don't get to see housemates stab each other in the back in a nominations show. The only fun part of the show and they've got rid of it.

So, now you just take your pick at random from all of the housemates and vote for who you want to stay. The ones with the lowest amount of votes will be up for nomination and the housemates will vote on who leaves, leaving YOU, the viewer out of the equation.

BB Producer: Hey guys, I've got a great idea for this year's show. Let's take the only sections of BB that still seem to be working for us, like nominations shows, and viewer participation, and hosts that people like and respect, or at least think are fun, and get rid of them all.

Execs: [snort another line of coke] Wicked! Whatever. Is my ponytail centred?

Or was the ruination of the show Kyle's idea?

Big Brother Live Blogging Corey in the House *UPDATE*

Watch Corey's pre-entry BB video here.

If by live, you mean half an hour behind the rest of you because I'm in SA.

Actually, make that several hours behind the rest of you because I'm in rural SA.

I'll still be ahead of WA though, so shut up. That's what you get for trying to secede.

Corey became the focus of national and international media attention after he threw a party at his parents home while they were away in January. The 17-yearold invited guests via My Space, attracting more than 500 teens, who trashed the neighbourhood, requiring 30 police and the dog squad to break it up.

The Victorian police have threatened to fine the teenager $20,000. Corey remained unrepentant in an interview with A Current Affair's Leila McKinnon, cracking Australia up with the noteable quote:

LM: You should take a good, hard look at yourself.

Corey: I have. And I love it. Everyone has. Everyone loves it.

Watch the interview here.

I bet his manager/agent is in total panic. It's one thing to be brash to a TV reporter because you're showing off to your mates because you're shit scared in front of a camera and your parents are going to ground you for a decade of Sundays. How will he shape up when he has to maintain the funnies for an extended period of time?

Find out tonight. Big Brother live blogging at whatever time it starts tonight in rural SA time.

UPDATE: Corey's mother Jo Delaney has been charged with assault. Read about it here.

Big Brother's Rima broken leg: Now with video

Big Brother diminutive housemate Rima - pictured here on a porn arthouse website - has broken her leg in the Friday Night Games.

Watch the video here.

RIMA has broken her leg in the Friday Night Games and is recovering in hospital. BB described the incident as thus: Rima was one of the last Housemates holding on, but she slid down the platform at a tilt of approximately two meters and unfortunately landed awkwardly on the padded surface.

Which might not sound very dangerous to you, but let's remember that it is twice her body length. I'm 152cm tall and I fell out of a tree once and it wasn't much fun. Incidentally, I have also done a back-to-back with Kylie Minogue and we are exactly the same height. Yeah. You like me now, don't you. It's OK to be a midget if Kylie is one.

So, Rima is out for a while. Party Pest Corey and Ku Klux Terri will enter the house on Sunday night, supposedly as well as three others. Two sports personalities are hosting a show called 'Big Mouth' and seriously, what are they thinking and were they just waiting for the next round of I'm an Australian Celebrity; get me out of here because I cannot think of any other reason why they would stoop this low.

The most exciting incidents to have happened in the house have been Rory's decision to crack onto Renee, or was it Rebecca, or someone else entirely, who really cares? And the so-called "Spa Mafia" have stolen a My Little Pony called "Princess Sparkles" belonging to Bardot.

I have dreamt more exciting incidents than this, while I was in a coma, induced by Roh Hypnol, braindead, and I was dreaming about a Patrick Secker media release on declining water tables.

Read out loud by Leonard Cohen.

And sung by Missy Higgins.

Friday Night Games almost had it right when they promised Knob Head $20,000 as his winnings, but then decided to punish him for entering the house (earlier in the day) - which is against the Kombi van rules - and decided to give him only $20,000 in Zimbabwean rand, the equivalent of $1 AUS, instead of giving him 20,000 lashings with a cat'o'nine tales like Australia was praying for.

How much more boring can this year's BB get? And the answer is, "None. None more boring."

I'm a nobody; get me out of here

"That news woman has got her head in her vagina." -- David Gest.

I JUST knew this show would be better than this year's Big Brother.

BB wax lyrical about injecting "diversity" into the house. In fact, if we look beyond the physical diversity, all they've really chosen is the same old insecure, pretending-to-be-brash fools who like mouthing off about how strong and confident and individual they are and how they're "not afraid to tell it like it is" - that is, until they get inside the house and pipe down and emit tsunamis of insecurity.

We really should have known by the launch night when, upon taking centre stage, the housemates froze like startled rabbits in the headlights. Tell it like it is, my posterior.

I'm a nobody; get me out of here is far more entertaining because it contains people who really do have an over-inflated sense of self-importance, and are experienced enough in life to really tell it it like it is. They are also desperately clawing on to the notion of having a career and they don't care who they stab to get it.

And relishing in the torment of those sort of people is much more fun because your conscious and compassion doesn't kick in. Nobody wants compassion getting in the way of enjoying a reality TV show.

Episode One:

The show begins with a couple of hosts no one in Australia has ever heard of and whose names I couldn't be bothered even finding out, but it's enough to say that one looks like Robbie Williams and one looks like Ronan Keating. If they both had Down Syndrome. This is not a dig at people who have Down Syndrome. This is simply a statement of fact.

I turn to Michael, who I've roped in to watch this train wreck with me, and say: "I hope they're going to introduce the contestants because I don't recognise anyone except Scott (Jason Donovan) and that guy who was once married to Liza Minelli (David Gest)."

My prayers are answered.

First up we meet Cherie Blair's sister, who does something in her own right as well, but no one can really remember what it is because she's overshadowed by her sibling's marriage, something I bet has shit her off for most of her life. I think her name is Lauren.

David Gest - who I'm convinced is truly going to make this show the most entertaining show possibly ever - appears and starts banging on about how he hates people who need to "ride on his fame". I'm not sure exactly what he's famous for aside from once being married to Liza and for being a complete and utter freak. But it's his miguided arrogance that will make this show a reason not to go out on Friday nights.

David has a go at Lauren BEFORE THE SHOW HAS EVEN STARTED - something about how she wrote a newspaper article about him having cosmetic surgery and this is what he means about "people riding on his fame". In an act of revenge, he asks her if she's Cherie. Miaow.

We're introduced to a bitchy male fashion designer - undoubtedly gay - who says he hopes there won't be any fat people on the show. I can't remember his name (Scott?) and I can't be arsed doing the research. It's much more fun to learn as we go along, isn't it? Well, that's my stance and I'm sticking to it.

Scott and his Technicolour Dreamcoat, the only Australian on the show - did I mention it's filmed in Australia? - appears. What in all that's holy has happened to his hairline? It's like Paul Keating just got all up in his forehead and said "this is the recession we had to have". I, like probably the entire rest of the world, feel sorry for Dreamcoat, because one can't help but compare his success to that of Kylie's and just think, surely she could afford to let him have just a little bit. But she didn't and that's why he's here. I imagine Kylie watching this show and I wonder if she's embarrassed that she ever went out with him, or if she's thinking "If you needed some cash, you should have just come to me."

Phina Oruche - who says we would recognise her from Footballer's Wives - says she wants to "crush people like bugs". I hope the 10 million bugs she is about to encounter in Australia's outback didn't hear this, or she will be fucked.

A blonde, older woman called Faith Brown, apparently an impressionist, is next. I don't really know anything about her, but she has cans to rival Bianca's from BB.

Toby Anstis is a radio presenter and will give Scott the fashion designer a run for his money in the camp and bitchy stakes. I can't wait.

Then there's a woman who says something like: "I'm a TV presenter, classical composer, something else and something else". And Michael says: "Jack of all trades, master of none." Because I can't remember her name, I'm going to call her Jack.

Finally, we have newsreader Jan Leeming. She says she wants to "grow old disgracefully" and Michael and I cheer. We love her. She's intelligent, charming, cultured, educated. She says to Dreamcoat: "I saw you in (maybe Dreamcoat?) and you were fabulous." Yay. She likes the theatre. She has confirmed our reasons for rooting for her. She is eminently charming and Michael, who is 23, says she is hot, despite the fact she's probably old enough to be his grandmother and I agree. I suppose growing old disgracefully is the reason she's on this show and I love her for it.

The first challenge for the nobodies is to bungee jump from a helicopter over some amazing terrain that no one in Australia recognises. The people who are making them jump speak with New Zealander or South African accents - the way the rest of the world speaks when they are trying to imitate an Australian accent - and my suspicions are instantly aroused as to whether this show is actually really being filmed in Aus. I look at Dreamcoat for some sort of clue, but he's just sitting in tired and ashamed resignation, holding his receding hairline in his hands, wondering how his life came to this.

So they all jump and Dreamcoat's jump is by far the funniest. "Yeah, I'm calm. Quite calm. Calllmmmmmm. Calllmmmmm. [This sung in falsetto]. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. [Repeat ad nauseum]." At first, he refuses to let go of the helicopter but they push him (invoking screams of hilarity from my loungeroom) and as he free falls, his legs are running. Running. In the air. I will laugh like a hyena on crack about this for at least a week.

After the jump, they all have to paddle in some Aboriginal canoes or kayaks through some once more amazing scenery that I'm sure doesn't exist here. And I've been to the NT and Far North Queensland. Oh well, let them have their pretense.

Phina Oruche - or maybe someone else - sorry, but I'd consumed about five glasses of wine by this stage - is sharing a canoe with David Gest, who is growing increasingly irate with his own inability to steer a canoe, her inability to steer a canoe, the heat, the bugs, the humidity, and the fact that his career has come to this. He is a prime candidate for a heart attack. He is also sporting a bald patch resembling the hole in the ozone layer, sort of surrounded by woolly frizz. It's a tough call as whether to his ozone patch is more astounding than Dreamcoat's receding hairline (his hair starts, STARTS, at the top,middle section of his head). Jury is out.

Anyway, whoever it is that is sharing his canoe pleads: "Please don't be mad at me, David," and he says: "It's like a bad dream. You wake up and you wonder."

He follows this up with: "That newswoman has got her head in her vagina. Some people are born with their head where their vagina should be and their vagina where their head should be." If you don't agree with me that David Gest is the funniest thing on television, I will fight you.

So, they get to their camp and choose where they're going to sleep and there's some argument about who's going to get the tree house, but some people don't want to sleep in the tree house because it's swaying. David bitches to someone about Cherie's sister and how she took a ride on his fame. Newsreader Jan Leeming (our hero) seems to be about to hook up with Toby. Toby is going on about how every boy had a crush on her and she keeps going on about how there's nothing going on between them and it is seriously a case of she doth protest too much. Being quite partial to the younger man myself, I find this even more reason to love her. I love you, Jan.

Michael does too. He calls her a GILF. And then we miss an entire section of the show because we're laughing so hard.

Back to the fantasy land they're still pretending is part of the Australian Outback and someone has to volunteer to undertake a task to collect food. GILF volunteers because she says she can't handle the indecision and apprehension. Really, it's because she's a hero. So, she has to do "mineshaft misery", which means she has to be lowered down a mineshaft (by Toby), which has no light and water in the bottom and on the way down has strategically placed bowls full of spiders, cane toads and a snake and she has to reach her hand in to the bowls and collect a small star. They will get one meal for each star she collects.

She collects three stars, but when she gets back up and Down Robbie and Down Ronan count them, she has dropped a star and, despite the producers having the whole thing on video, and despite the fact she endured hell down there, they will only allow her two meals. This is really mean.

And is exactly the sort of thing BB should be doing when they talk about being all tough in the house this year, but only punish Knob head for entering the house by making his Friday Night Games prize 20,000 in Zimbabwean rand, instead of giving him 20,000 floggings with a cat'o'nine tails, like Australia was hoping for.

Anyway, she gets back to the camp and they eat and then she gets allocated the tree house and she gets to pick someone to be there with her and she doesn't choose Toby. Playing hard to get. Everyone argues about where they're going to sleep, the prime motivator seeming to be that they don't want to keep moving their shit around everytime they swap beds.

I currently live simultaneously in two houses 400km apart from each other so I have no sympathy for this bull shit argument.

The show ends with the British public choosing who should undertake the food challenge the following week and there are are undiscovered tribes in undiscovered nations who knew that they would pick David Gest and Scott the gay fashion designer. It will be delicious.

Party pest Corey releases Beastie Boys cover

Is this a belated April Fool's joke? Party Pest Plague & Pestilence Corey is releasing a cover of Beastie Boys Fight for your Right? Ad Rock? MCA? Mike D? You don't need the money that bad, do you? Me and my Beastie Boys obsession feel dirty. I want to scrub my vinyl with a loofah.

• I wonder if he'll sing it when he enters the house on Sunday night?

• Heads up to Sam at Culture Strain, for the info.

• Looking for Big Brother news? Scroll down. Also, let me know who you think will win this year by voting in my poll.

Tell my brother Michael I said hi and say sorry I could not send the e's.

"So long and thanks for all the fish."

"Japan has the best mull, I only need two or three puffs of a joint and I am wasted".

"I think when I get home I might go on a speed diet".

"Tell my brother Michael I said hi and say sorry I could not send the es."

Oh dear. Letters allegedly written by Mercedes Corby to former best friend Jodie Power and read out in court today at Mercedes Corby's money grubbing defamation case against Power and Channel 7.

"(He) is a rough diamond with a robust sense of humour."

WA Deputy Liberal leader Kim Hames describes WA Opposition Leader Troy Buswell after Buswell admitted to lifting the chair of a female colleague and sniffing it after she had sat on it in his Parliamentary office.

"The actions by the state government in instigating such a raid betray a serious misjudgment about a free press and is an assault on the public's right to know about how their government spends taxpayer dollars."

Fairfax Media Corporate Affairs Director Bruce Wolpe comments on the actions of the WA State Government after 16 police officers raided the Sunday Times newspaper trying to find who leaked information about a $16 million advertising bill for taxpayers to help get the WA government re-elected.

"We have been bullied and intimidated for the last 18 months. We have been bullied and intimidated by previous governments. It hasn't stopped us in the past and it won't stop us now."

Fiji Times editor Netani Rika on the deportation of Australian journalist and Fiji Times publisher Evan Hannah from Fiji after publishing articles critical of the Fijian Government.

Laura Boyce claimed that Sheryl Lowe subjected her to "sexually offensive and hostile conduct" by walking around at home naked in front of her and asking her questions about her sex life.

Second nanny files sexual harassment claim against actor Rob Lowe and his wife Sheryl.

It has not been confirmed that Australia will receive the much-anticipated 3G iPhone, which is expected to be launched by Apple boss Steve Jobs on June 9.

I am very excited about this news, despite the fact that it will probably cost $3000 and I won't be able to afford it and stupid Optus probably won't let me out of my contract anyway without wanting my first-born child. But it is still very exciting just the same.

Racist aliens shun Big Brother

In last night's BB, Anglo-Saxon admitted to the others that he was a racist and a bigot, telling Knob Head that he wouldn't have spoken to him in the outside world, because he is Asian.

Personally, I wouldn't speak to Knob Head in the outside world either, but it has more to do with the fact that he's a complete tool, rather than his ethnicity.

This is what I love about Anglo bigots. "We were here first. We fear hate outsiders."

Never mind the fact that Anglo-Saxons were Germans who set up camp in Great Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire around AD 410. I'm sure the original inhabitants didn't care too much for their invasion either.

And, you know, Dixie might have had something to say about invasions and just who the outsider really is too, if she wasn't too busy crying about the fact that she is crying all the time.

Anglo at least is trying to change, says he doesn't like the person he was and that that person will never come back. Complete overhaul of values and life turnaround and they've been in there three days. Three. But, it seems a turnaround for the better so let's allow him his easily-influenced, unprincipled character.

Some memorable moments so far:

1. Rima, talking about her fears, says: "I'm afraid of my own shadow". And some idiotic bint (I haven't learnt all their names yet) goes: "You're afraid of eye shadow? But, you're wearing it right now?"

2. Bardot tells Screech: "You're more gay than my gay friends. You're .... you know .... that word that people use .... flamboyant." The entire house (except Ben, I guess, who was probably nursing his giant intellect somewhere and lamenting his unappreciated grey cells) want to know what "flamboyant" means. Knob Head saves the day. "It means when you know how to express yourself", he tells the house authoritatively. Ohhhhhh ...........

3. Anglo wants to communicate with L. Ron Hubbard and asks BB to turn off the back lights, which are scaring the UFOs away. BB says: "If UFOs want to be seen they will make it clear to you."

rofllolbmxunicefbbqlmao

I wish I was BB sometimes.

Face it, Anglo. Aliens don't want to know you because you're not one of them. But, you know, give them a few days and maybe they'll completely change their values too.

If they're trying to win a game .........................

Big Brother: mildly more interesting

"The theme (of Lord of the Flies) is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable." -- William Golding.

Well said, G-dog. And while BB does have a dictatorial system of Government in BB himself, it's the ethical nature of the individual that I call upon to demonstrate my BB argument.

Which is simply, that there is no hope for mankind, we are essentially evil, sadistic beings, with a mob mentality, who rejoice in the torture of others conducted for our entertainment. From Romans in the Colliseum, to modern day man watching an episode of Big Brother, we delight in their agony.

At least, I certainly did watching BB last night. I positively revelled in Knob Head's segregation and decided that maybe I might enjoy this year's show after all. I thoroughly enjoyed his misery.

Don't try to deny your sadistic impulse. It's natural. If you don't agree with me, you are probably either (a) a dirty hippie, or (b) a young person full of misguided optimism and delusions of a world made of chocolate where people are kind and do the right thing and don't try to stab you in the back by trying to steal your job from under your nose, while pretending to be your best friend (Are you listening, Pete? Yes, I am still angry with you) and, in which case, you and your wholesome, happy-go-lucky attitude should realise that you are naught but a plague and pestilence upon society as a whole.

And speaking of plagues and pestilence upon society (clever segueway, me 1: Anna Coren, still counting), professional party pest Corey Delaney Worthington enters the house this Sunday, thereby elongating his 15 minutes.

Conversation in my office today:

Me: Corey's going to enter the house this Sunday.

Colleague: I hope he goes on there and acts like a complete tool, so the world sees him for the complete arse-hat he truly is.

Me: You say that as if there's some doubt as to his acting like a complete tool?

WTF is Knob Head complaining about anyway? He gets all the benefits of the BB experience without the excruciating pain of enduring others in the house. That man is looking a gift horse in the mouth.

So anyway, I still don't have it in me to get that excited about it all yet. Ku Klux Terri will join Corey on Sunday night. The hate has begun (it's Orwell, people. Look it up). Ben hates David and all the women hate Bridgette and Dixie is crying a lot while bleating: "I don't want to be the girl who cries all the time. Everyone hates the girl who cries all the time," demonstrating a remarkable insight and self-prophesy, but still not refraining from the water works.

Meanwhile, a number of self-righteous media types berate this year's BB as exploiting P.T. Barnum's cavalcade of Garden of Unearthly Delights carnies, despite never having had a problem with BB's previous exploitation of middle Australia bogans, because they were attractive. The lesson being, I guess, that it's OK to rejoice in the torment of "normal" people, but political correctness demands that we pretend we like a bunch of vapid fame-whores because it would be immoral not to.

Big Brother 2008: I don't think so

Look, I tried to do the whole Big Brother recap for you. I really did. I sat (impatiently) watching the launch, taking notes, recording the moment for posterity, if by posterity, you mean blog fodder.

I've done the research, scanned the official site, checked the unofficial site, read the news, checked what the peeps are saying, and in the end, all I can say is - New? Different? Interesting?

I. DON'T. THINK. SO.

Seriously, I've attended wastewater management presentations at council meetings that were more interesting than this year's Big Brother is shaping up to be.

And it seems Australia shared my ennui, with the 1.5 million audience - the worst launch ratings in the show's history - tuning out to watch Border Security.

It's the equivalent of removing a Missy Higgins CD, only to replace it with James Blunt. The lesser of two evils and all that.

Some viewers were so disgruntled, they even switched over to watch Australian Story, setting yet another record as middle Australia forsook commercial reality television for an ABC show that didn't contain The Chaser.