CBB - who won & who lost

It was only three weeks.  Definite plus for me as I do get fed up with them living their pampered lifestyles.

Denise
I can't say that I was or am a big Denise fan but I don't vote so really its not up to me who wins.  I had seen her before but I was not really aware of what she does or her past history until she went into the house.  She took a real risk and for her it seems to have paid off in the short term at least because she won.  Of course her pact with the devil has raised her current indiscretion to front page news in the Red Tops.  If she had not gone into CBB I doubt whether her new toy boy would have had his cover blown so soon. But if you want to live on the front pages and bring in the benefits of Zeleb status you have to do a bit more than live a blameless life.  She claims (apparently) that she was going to give her husband the boot before Christmas so that she could spend more time with her new man. Denise doing what she does best

I do feel sorry for birthday boy Tim Healy although he has always struck me as a bit of a dick.  He did not deserve to get this news from the Star not long after offering to defend her (honour?) against Michael Madsen.
The writing was on the wall though.  He brought her a silver plated pen for Christmas.  It was engraved apparently but it looks like he was not prepared to spend more than $23 on Ebay to tell her how little he cared.  If he had any sense he would not care a jot anyway.  He is well rid of her, if only she stays away for good this time.
She spent her time in the house acting drunk and hungover in equal measures - which was not surprising giving the quantities of free booze that BB handed over.  Their plan worked. She was awful and tacky.  Only now do we hear the story of why Michael took against her so noticeably. He says that she repeatedly asked him for sex.  That seems about right.  She is certainly going through a mid-life crisis and lived out part of that on CBB.  Regardless of who she invites to have sex with her, how much booze she drinks or how many drugs she takes she will not recapture her youth but it may take some time before she is clear headed enough to realise this.
She won in part because people felt she was treated poorly and felt sympathy for her.  It looks now that the voting public were misled.  Sad to say that she won the show but has devalued herself in the process, and may well have lost her value in the years ahead.

Frankie 
I think I saw him once on X-Factor. My overwhelming impressions were that:

• he had more hair than he needed, and 
• fewer trouser belts than would be regarded as decent, but primarily
• he could not sing 

Shortly after I saw him he was gone in a blaze of publicity about his admitted drug taking partying lifestyle.  Its one thing to do it but another to brag about it and fail to show contrition.  Denise said she did it and was sorry about it so she is OK. Frankie said he loved it and was kicked off X-Factor and straight into CBB.  I thought at first that he was not a celebrity based upon any definition I could think of.  But I was wrong of course.  He is NEW Celebrity.  He lives the dream on behalf of the many millions like him who have no perceptible gifts or developed talents.  He could sing a bit, but not consistently in key.  He plays no musical instruments and cannot write a single song.  He achieved nothing at school and spends his time drinking & drug taking, having inconsequential sex and dreaming about fame and loads of money.  That is his claim to fame, he does what they would like to do.
It looked for a while as if his offensive way with ladies, generally foul behaviour and unpleasant mannerisms would endear him to the voting public as the winner and it almost did.  He got 2nd place for being himself most of the time.  Well done Frankie.
A wiser person than you would recall the words of wisdom about dissolute lifestyles passed your way by Michael.  But of course you are NEW Celebrity  Frankie does it for his fans and I am sure Michael's words are but a fading dream now.  Sadly also true celebrity status will elude Frankie and after his moment in the sun he too will lose.  He is far too hedonistic to listen to sensible advice about moderation. He has no long term value.

Gareth
He was the long time favourite to win the show.  He looked fit, an ideal ladies man, except he wasn't any more.  He was a friend to all.  He played the game.  The girls liked him, the blokes liked him (Michael even said he would prefer sex with Gareth to sex with Denise).  He never put a foot wrong.  Well, he could have taken sides in the cat fight but who can blame him.  The girls were intent on playing to their own audiences outside the house and if he had provided another target for their grand-standing behaviour he would probably have had the skin flayed off his back by the combined house harpies.  For him to come third to Denise and Frankie is real injustice, but justice has never been a key factor of the Big Brother industry. He apparently found out that it was a game show after leaving the house; perhaps he is too naive?
Did Gareth do himself any harm or good by going into the BB House?
His profile is high already: He became the first man to win 100 caps for Wales, but retired from professonal rugby in October 2011.
He supports Childline, won Stonewall’s Hero of the Year award and was voted top of the Pink List 2010 of the 101 most influential gay people in the UK.
He is a businessman.  Gareth bought the Turbo Drinks company along with London business partner Sean Smith in a deal reported to be worth £7m. He intends relocating from Cumbria to Bridgend and hopes to employ 150 people.
It seems unlikely that he did it for money. It seems more likely he did it for himself and raising his profile in the non-rugby world.  He came across as a genuinely nice bloke who now appeals to a far wider audience.  I would not be surprised to see him on TV sports shows a lot in future.  He is probably the real winner.

Michael 
Michael reminds me of a story I wrote about a British man who inadvertently finds himself in Chilean mine that has collapsed and trapped the occupants. A miners tale.  He seemed bewildered to be there, had no real idea what he was there for and genuinely looked likely to leave early - probably to find and slice the ear off his agent.  But he stayed and it was a far better show for his presence.  Why was he there? He alluded to it being a money thing.  He said that he spent a lot but he still lives in the best places.  It would have been good if he won but it will have cost him nothing to lose.  He left with his head held high.  He was Coolness Personified and it was a pleasure to have him on the show.  And even more of a pleasure for us to have his in-depth analysis of Denise on Live Nominations.

The Shannon Twins
They came, they played the game brilliantly and they left.  They showed nothing and said what they wanted.  They plotted and they delivered.  They are truly self made women.  They are strong and self assured.  They came on the show to stick the money in the bank and stick it on their CVs.  They sell what they have and what they can do.  I enjoyed their strategy.  I even enjoyed the way they did nothing domestic till about the last day, then they did cleaning, then they spoke about it in their final plea.  "We should stay because we do cleaning".  Brilliant.  It was exactly the way they work on US BB.  None of this mealy mouthed British idea where HMs are not allowed to talk about nominations or plot.  Its 'in your face'.  Well done girls, I am sure you will do well and make a lot of money.

The two American acts made it for me.  It would have been a dreary show without them.

Twins to win?

Just imagine that someone wanted the Twins to win-money no object.

How much to would it cost to make sure they win?

Last CBB they got 500,000 phone votes total all series.

How much would it cost to win now using FB? Imagine that 250,000 votes will do it this time.

56 GBP = 1000 votes (2 accounts) so if the twins need  250,000 votes to win,, how much will it cost?

Answer
It will take 500 fake Facebook accounts and a spend of just 14000 GBP.

And if that sounds like a lot of money, it is less than the cost of  2 first class fares from Heathrow to Los Angeles on British Airways (From about 15000 GBP)

It would have taken a lot more work dialling and 90,000 GBP to get that number of votes using phone in votes.

I do hope some old bloke with loads of money and a Mansion full of Bunnies does not get to read this lol

Good luck girls.

UPDATE:
Some people believed that I am anti-twins.  Not so. I think they are brilliant game players.
I seldom think that anyone deserves to win because they don't.  I generally have no strong feelings about who gets what.  Much of what I write about is the interplay between people and about BB itself.  What has occupied a lot of my thought since Channel 5 took over is the blatant manipulation and the potential for BB dishonesty.  That especially extends to the voting introduced by Channel 5.  With low numbers of voters (for obvious reasons) the potential for voting fraud is greater than it ever was in the past.

To set the record straight here is an update to the article above.

The full size Image is here: All the Housemates to win?

Bullshit is Bullshit, it just goes by different names.

As I was finishing my last post I reflected on the fact the BB were pouring free alcohol into the housemates to generate some sort of response, either in violent language or behaviour, or in some sort of sexual activity. I thought at the time that:

"the aim of the production team is to ensure that there is every chance of drunken frolics every night ...  And of course, alcohol does not only lead to chance sexual encounters, it also leads to verbal violence and possibly physical violence as well.  BB UK has certainly had some examples yet they persist in pouring endless drink into the HMs."

And as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end. (Paul Weller: Beat Surrender)
Finally BB got what they wanted - a reaction that generated headlines and gave them what proved to be a headlining share of the audience. It was long overdue: the BB budget for HM's booze must have been well overspent.  When it happened BB were totally unprepared. It seems that there was not a single Senior Producer to hand and the much vaunted 'Social Media Interactions' ceased immediately as BB went into defensive mode.  The Tweeting team advised us to watch this space and for more than an hour they said nothing.  The next day they and the mighty FaceBook OBB team drummed up interest and said not much.  But the story appeared anyway and by the next evening much of it was known.  Frankie 'won' a task which got them free booze. He did not win free music but they got some anyway. The drink was drunk as were some of the HMs.  Denise pulled down Karissa's pyjama bottoms.  As far as I could see they came down far enough to show her underwear.  There was also some boob feeling by Denise and discussions about toplessness between Denise and Nicola.
It appeared that Karissa had suffered an indecent assault according to her Diary Room appearance.  Threats of legal actions were bandied about, lawyers were summoned, never had such a modest person showed so much ass to the world.  BB stonewalled until sobering up took place. Nicola got changed into her shortest night dress and then demanded to be let out the front door mortified that her selfish behaviour had been challenged etc etc.

Well that's what we saw.  But was it what happened? Two real 'fight events' took place.

• Fight 1. Denise versus Twin 2 and Twin 1 &
• Fight 2.  Denise versus Nicola.

Fight 1.
If you subscribe to the Karissa version of events her modesty was severely challenged.  It seemed she was only a couple of steps from the Nunnery and certain beatification when she was shamed by uncalled for and never revealed before 'assification' when her butt was revealed.  A little research proves that she makes a living out of showing her ass, her boobs and her scrupulously waxed lady-garden to the world.  She has also recently suffered from the misappropriation of her movie camera and the subsequent release of a sex tape she had made to the Interweb.  Her ass is no stranger to publicity and indeed has gotten paid for many, many personal appearances.
So why was she going on so much?
In my view the twins decided in a late night twin visit to the bathroom earlier this week that they would target the other female members of the house to increase their own chance of winning.  What we saw was a completely false fit of modesty as part of gameplay.  The twins are strategists.  To win they have to be the last woman standing and then see off the male challenge.   It was, to quote Mr Weller, "Bullshit".  The aim was to make her seem sadly wronged and to gain some sympathy from the voting public.

• Leaving? Bullshit.
• Lawyers? Bullshit. 
• Hitherto undisclosed asset? Bullshit. 
• Modest, shy, retiring and badly wronged maiden? Bullshit.

Fight 2.
Denise and Nicola had a disagreement, principally about Denise showing her boobs in the pool whilst drunk, and flashing her bra on the 'Japanese Game Show' while sober.  Nicola is also now the very model of a born again virgin who admits to frequently getting naked on many occasions for the titillation of the reading, leering and viewing public for magazines, videos, publicity shots etc etc.  This paragon of modesty (Nicola) took Denise to task because her behaviour was offensive to? ............ Nicola.
Difficult why she should set herself up as the arbiter of decency and what has it got to do with her anyway?  Unless of course she feared that a willingness to engage in slightly nude behaviour could encourage the voting public to support the bare-chested HM that she will never be (anymore).  Again her threats to leave were mere Bullshit.  Anybody leaving in January would be advised to wear more clothes anyway.
As I said last time:

Nicola was exactly as we imagined her to be, shrewd, grasping and self centred. Whether cleaning the house to get air time, weeping over the children she chose to leave behind, playing to the cameras in the DR or shredding the other HM's letters from home it was all about her. She won't win but she played well for her moment in the spotlight.

She continues to play her game.  Comparing herself favourably to Denise over their respective numbers of sexual partners and the difference between taking your clothes off for money and on the beach (or on BB) for example.  Denise managed to play the 'shredding letters' card but she was well outclassed.  She is quite good on 'Loose Women' with her cutting remarks and withering glances but I am guessing she does not do the show after having a few drinks.
These trivial arguments, fuelled by alcohol, led to some handsome viewing figures for Channel 5.
There was plenty of in your face verbal violence but nobody came to blows.  Ideal conduct really.

What did we learn? And what did we learn that we did not know already? Who were the predators and who were potential snacks?


1. Twins. Brilliant gameplay, absolutely self centred and ruthless destruction of anyone perceived as opposition.  Playing short game tactics in support of long game strategy. Truly the lionesses in the house. Top predators.
2. Denise. She could be good but when she is drunk she is hopeless.  Poor decisions setting her up for ruthless attacks by the best game players in the house. She is like a 3 legged Antelope - staggering from here to the place she becomes dinner.  Outclassed.
3. Nicola. Excellent attacking strategy.  She joined in to give Denise a kicking while she was down.  If Denise had decided to walk Nicola would have laughed herself to sleep.  Her feeble attempt at 'let me out of here BB' was pretty transparent but as before she is very shrewd, used to living on her wits.  Without a close ally like the Twins have she has to take her chances when she can - more of a Hyena than a lioness but to be feared anyway.  Played the fight well.
4. The men.
Michael, Gareth and Romeo stayed out of the way. They all realised that it was a no win situation taking sides and the rule is simple: Never step between fighting women.  Any real contributions they did make never made the edit.  Of course Michael would not lose too much sleep if Denise left.  If Romeo was any more laid back he would enter cardiac arrest.  Gareth seemed genuinely uneasy with women shouting and that is probably directly attributable to the recent break up of his own marriage.  So despite the wisdom of using camouflage to avoid being eaten they did run the very real risk of splinters up the ass from fence sitting.  Plus of course the evenings highlights had no male contribution at all to linger in the voter's minds.  Good game by the girls producing all female highlights and the best viewing figures Channel 5 have managed.  Men? Drawing their rations under false pretences, apart from...
Frankie. He did his best and it was probably the hardest thing he has done in his young life.  He tried to step in between them and offer some consolation where he could.  He was very lucky that the predators never ate him and spat out his bones.  He changed a lot of people's opinions of him on Fight Night and may well have eased himself from 2nd to 1st place.  He may not be a real predator but he is certainly not a snack for real beasts - and that is not Bullshit.

What do you think of it so far?

Its a week to go to the end of the 2012 CBB as I write this. What have we learned from our frugal allowance of contact and information? The show continues to exist in two places which are interconnected by some very small and regulated tunnels of information exchange.

From Borehamwood, the nightly show continues its heavily structured way through the week.  BBOTS staggers from evening to evening with its random mix of generally irritating and occasionally informative guests.  Emma enjoys herself, which she does well; and Jamie irritates most people, but that may be his forte.  We have been allocated some Live feed after evictions. Not a lot, but some at least.  That is what comes our way via TV.

Social media - specifically Facebook and and Twitter are unmitigated drivel.  The video clips linked back though Facebook are pointless.  The topics in FB and the Tweets are so pathetic it would be funny if it were not for the fact that very well paid and powerful people allegedly believe it is a good idea and a valid replacement for what the fans actually want.  The newspapers and magazines owned by Desmond cover the programme, but few people read them. The other papers and magazines largely ignore it.

The other place the show exists is in the fan community. The fans are held together by two things, the love of the show and the desire to persuade Desmond and his patronising team that we are right and he is wrong.  The fan base that the show has generated for years continues on forums and chat rooms but the information paucity has led to a significant drop in the amount of 'water cooler' chats and office discussions that increased the viewer numbers in years gone by.

So, what have we discussed and what have we learned?
Firstly we have discussed the absence of real Live Feed which is seen as an unwelcome opportunity for the production team to be dishonest and manipulative of story-lines shown. The subject of Live Feed has not gone away regardless of Channel 5 and the attempts of Jamie East to belittle anyone who brought the subject up on his BBOTS segment.  Jamie has said since that it was an attempt at humour but if true he lacks the comedic touch in some matters.  Generally speaking asking someone their opinion on something and then hanging up when they respond is considered bad manners.  Live feed  has obtained the largest figures ever for 5* and beat the viewer figures for BBOTS.  The numbers (not far short of a million) were achieved despite the miniscule length of the broadcasts.  The segments were also broadcast right after evictions, a time when the HMs are normally principally concerned with getting out into the garden to smoke.

The mix of Housemates was eclectic to say the least. The claims of Natasha, Frankie and Andrew to any kind of celebrity status are not strong - they (especially Frankie) were plainly out of their depth.
There did not seem to be a significant USA/UK divide except at the level of game play.  The twins by virtue of who they are and their background were absolutely determined to play the game US style and did it very well.  They know well that their price in the market place is determined by what they do and what they reveal (or don't).  The twins were conspiratorial, devious and Machiavellian at times and kept enough clothes on to preserve their market value.  I never warmed to them and they are unlikely to win but good game Kristina and Karissa.
Michael Madsen was rightly held in awe by the rest of the HMs.  He is the only real celebrity in the house and I hope his fee reflects that. He (with his supporting actors) supplied much of the entertainment. Good game Michael.
Nicola was exactly as we imagined her to be, shrewd, grasping and self centred. Whether cleaning the house to get air time, weeping over the children she chose to leave behind, playing to the cameras in the DR or shredding the other HM's letters from home it was all about her.  She won't win but she played well for her moment in the spotlight.
Denise revealed herself to be a truly troubled soul as her background suggests she is.  She was foolish to get involved in the show. Romeo came across well whenever we got to see him. Gareth is the likely winner and has been since day one. Kirk was fairly unpleasant and slightly ugly of spirit, and Georgia was pleasant and pretty of face. Perhaps there was more to them, perhaps not.
Natalie has probably done herself not too much harm by going in.  Her alliances in the house may have cost her a place on the final eviction night.

Housemates' standards of behaviour seem far lower. For example, in the last series we were belatedly given the information about 'Freezergate'. We found out only because the efforts of C5 and Jamie East to silence Heaven were not successful.  In this series Denise certainly raised her fist in Michael's face, which would have been threatening behaviour when C4 ran the show. The show may be above reproach, or it could be as unsavoury as BB Brazil, we will never know.  In Brazil it was Live feed which enabled the production team to be belatedly held to task. Possibly under C5 management, external scrutiny is to be avoided. Certainly Richard Desmond has no intention of subjecting his newspapers to Press Complaints Council scrutiny either.
Poor behaviour is also amplified by another change under the C5 stewardship - the shopping budget task which is now a farce.  It is futile to pretend that there is any intention of not supplying food and alcoholic drinks to the HMs every single night.  There is no doubt in my mind that the aim of the production team is to ensure that there is every chance of drunken frolics every night, for there is not much frolicking with tired HMs on a diet of water and chick peas. However the stark warning of BB Brazil should be kept in the minds of the team.  And of course, alcohol does not only lead to chance sexual encounters, it also leads to verbal violence and possibly physical violence as well.  BB UK has certainly had some examples yet they persist in pouring endless drink into the HMs .  The overtly sexual behaviour of Frankie and Kirk was unpleasant and it was well dealt with by the females targeted.  Perhaps Kirk will eventually learn that laying around being verbally offensive while scratching his genitals is unlikely to win the hearts of fair maidens even if in the world of TOWIE it is socially acceptable.

Voting and evictions seemed to raise peoples interest as always. Friday's double evictions of Kirk and Natalie had an overtone of Harry's eviction last series and the ever present spectre of FaceBook enabling voting scams is again in people's minds.  It seemed the ideal time for someone to make some money by betting shrewdly. There were lots of people up as well - more than the 4 when Harry got the unexpected boot despite being 33/1. Perhaps last night's eviction was an aberration - but it was certainly an ideal time for an unexpected result perhaps because Natalie was about 3rd or 4th favourite to win.
It would be an understatement to say that surprise was expressed within the house and outside as well when Natalie went.  So voting is still under suspicion and it remains blatantly unfair that phone voters pay more than 5 times the price of Facebook users anyway.  It may have been designed to encourage Facebook 'social media interaction' but in reality Facebook users are Facebook users and phone users are phone users. The only likely effect is that phone users will feel even less inclined to vote because of dissatisfaction with the Facebook discount. It will be interesting to see the voting percentages when they are released to see if there is a change in the Facebook/phone ratio.
If I was of a suspicious mindset I would have said that Friday night's eviction was the one good chance they would get for a 'surprise' outcome in this series. Before now its been 1 v 1, and after now its running totals till the end.
Perhaps Natalie was a result of a shrewd bet and some good information on how the totals were standing and the very useful FaceBook block voting.
Perhaps we will never know.

What do we think of it so far then?
CBB is seen as a holiday camp - with free food and free booze aplenty.  Fans are generally opposed to talking about nominations although it is popular with the housemates to a point.  BB have certainly used it to their advantage this series - a rare well done C5, but its not BB as we know it.  There is something of the night in all of Desmond's doings. There seems little doubt that they have a view about who they want to win but I don't know if they can control it anymore having let the genie out of the bottle with FaceBook voting.  Desmond (Northern and Shell) is wholly about control and money - nothing else.  I am sure he would like the LF money but his production team does not dare to risk losing control of story lines and outcomes.  Even though Mr Desmond's newspapers are not subject to the Press Complaints Council (because he has withdrawn them) I suspect he does not want another Shetty shambles on his TV channels.

Perhaps Live Feed will make or break the next series.
Perhaps we are deluded in our attempts to change the programme back to what it could be and should be.  Certainly we have not 'moved on'.  The sad thing for Channel 5 is that we are right (and we and they know it) and they are wrong.  The sad thing for us is that there is no real way that the Channel 5 owners and the BB production team are likely to have the balls to admit who is right and do something about it.  Live Feed please BB.  Not 45 minutes once an eviction BB.  Live Feed means that; as near to 24/7 as you can manage.  Then we will shut up.  And if you would like to make the Social Media just an add on like it is in other countries that would be good.  And if you were honest and did not cover things up we could believe you so that would be good too.  And if someone has a valid point to make on Facebook and you disagree with it the correct response is to put your side - not delete the comments and block the poster. 
Overall your tasks were a pretty good in places.  Some of your Big Brothers were good.  It does not have to be totally frenetic 24/7 to get us on-side.   We like the longer tasks with real rewards or deprivation.  We don't mind the quiet times and the conversations.  And finally remember, we are the most loyal audience you could ever wish for but perhaps you would be well advised to have us inside the BB tent pissing out and not outside it pissing in.