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.

Harry goes - what were the odds on that?

To be evicted? According to the bookies Harry was 33 to 1 earlier in the day.

Its a funny old world

There were 4 people up.  I think the prevailing view is that BB would have liked to see them go in this order of importance:

•     Aaron
•     Harry
•     Faye
•     Jay

 But bookies had them in this order:

•     Faye
•     Jay
•     Aaron
•     Harry

Last time the viewers had a choice they gave Harry the most votes to stay.

This week Harry went from a rank outsider to the man out of the door.  The bookies are not normally that far out so there must have been a lot of voting to save the others in the short time voting was running for (if the support for Harry from the previous vote held up, and there was no real reason why it should not).

Was it possible that anyone had the Means, Motive & Opportunity to change things?

There are three possible explanations as to how this happened:

1.     That is just the way it was: the bookies misjudged the mood of the GBP.
2.     It was a scam perpetrated by gamblers attracted by the 33/1 odds on Harry.
3.     It was a scam perpetrated by another organisation who had access to the running vote totals.

We conspiracy theorists don't like the sound of option 1, and in truth you never see a poor bookie on a pushbike; they don't often get it this far wrong. Paddy Power on BBLB used to turn up and explain to Dermot each week who would get evicted and he was never normally wrong more than once a series.  He was never that far out (33/1 v Odds on which Faye was)

Against option 2 we have a real problem.  The gamblers should have no idea how many votes have been cast for who, especially in a 4 way contest.  Without that knowledge they cannot influence the outcome with any confidence.  For someone to have made money they would:

•     have had to know where the voting totals were and,
•     have a method of getting enough votes on quickly enough to swing the outcome.

Option 3.  For this to work someone or organisation:

•     would wish to influence the outcome of the eviction, and
•     know what the voting totals were, and
•     would have a mechanism for block voting.

For Option 2 and Option 3, insider knowledge would have to exist or be provided.  For Option 2 the only motivator is greed.

If Option 3 were true there are very few organisations that would know what the vote totals were.  However the voting mechanism to block vote does exist since the start of this series.  Facebook provides the ideal opportunity to apply large numbers of block votes very quickly.  Each account can purchase and use 500 votes per eviction/week. Costs are as follows (C5 website):

1 vote for 1 Facebook Credit (7 pence)
12 votes for 10 Facebook Credits (70 pence = $1)
24 votes for 20 Facebook Credits (£1.40)
50 votes for 40 Facebook Credits (£2.80)
100 votes for 80 Facebook Credits (£5.60)

So 500 votes cost £28.00 & 1000 = £56.00

You can block vote your 500 votes on the push of a button (and 2 accounts add up to votes 1000 times on the push of two buttons - a truly automated system using software in the form of the Facebook App).
Note: The Iphone and Android Apps charge £4.99 or £5 for 500 votes - slightly cheaper than Facebook

In the Terms and Conditions C5 says:

34. Channel 5 reserves the right to disallow votes if it has reasonable grounds to suspect that fraudulent bulk votes have been cast (i.e. more votes than a human being could possibly submit in the time available without the use of software or other devices designed to make automated votes).

But this does not seem to allow for the use of any of the Application voting systems outlined above.  In theory all bulk votes could be disallowed but that would negate the reason for having the systems in place.

Channel 5 have not said how they monitor block votes from Facebook and other accounts and do not publish either voting totals or percentages cast using the various mechanisms.  Channel 5 sister publications Daily Express and Daily Star have withdrawn from the (voluntary) Press Complaints Commission supervision so it seems unlikely that they will volunteer such information.

On balance it seems fair to say that an individual or organisation could purchase many thousand votes (using different Facebook accounts) and use them using the new software provided with this series. 

I suggest that the Means to block vote exists now.

Motive? 

Big Brother would have to have a preference about which housemate stays in and potentially wins.  Can that be true?  Is there someone that they want to win?  Is there someone they want out?

Opportunity?

Was anybody watching when the votes were cast? Brian said nothing about votes being verified did he? The voting day allowed in the rerun did go by very quickly. Rumours say that voting numbers are low this series so perhaps it never took many votes to swing it anyway.

I suppose we have to trust Channel 5 that nothing untoward occurred don't we?  After all it does say that:

37. All votes are monitored by Electoral Reform Services.

But of course it does not say how and when.

38. Channel 5's decision in relation to all matters affecting the Vote is final.

I certainly believe the last one though.

If I were an organisation minded to carry out that sort of activity and I knew the vote totals I think I would get a large group of accounts under the control of perhaps one person (who I could trust implicitly and contractually).  Then I would get them to sit there and vote when the moment was right. Just before vote close (when I knew how many votes I needed) I would get them to press the buttons.  Of course that sort of activity would show up if somebody monitored it. 
IF.

Telegraph & the FB Rape pages - a useful example for us?

Telegraph & the FB Rape pages
There was a story today in the Telegraph.
This section caught my eye.

Campaigners on both sides of the Atlantic have now switched their attention to businesses as they believe Facebook is inclined to allow the pages to continue because of the viewers and hence advertising revenue they bring in.

"Facebook will only listen to money, so we are now targeting the advertisers who have appeared on their pages,"[..........]"We are delighted with the response of companies like John Lewis that pulled their ads."

Major companies that advertise on Facebook were furious to discover that their advertisements were appearing on the "rape page" and demanded they be removed. They included Barclays, 02, John Lewis, Sony, BlackBerry, American Express, Groupon, Heinz, National Lottery, the White Company and PepsiCo.

After complaints from several businesses to Facebook, the "alleyway" page was "whitelisted" last week, meaning that no adverts could be rotated on it.

Why is this a useful example?
It tells us that Facebook don't really care what people think.  We can pester OBB as much as possible, they are managing the situation between them (Ch5 & FB) as this weekends' cull proves.  If FB can allow this loathsome page (and similar) to exist, us moaning about OBB tactics won't cause them any lost sleep.

What do FB care about?
Money.  How does that help us?  No posting, no advertisers, no FB.

Will the OBB campaign bear any fruit?
Only if there is publicity.  The press have had 5 weeks to pick up on it; it is not generating many column inches.

How do we get publicity?
We need to stop writing on the wall and write to the sponsors.  All that is happening is that profiles are being removed as fast as they are created.  Very soul destroying and effort wasting.

Campaign steps?
We need to bring our list of key players (advertisers and major execs involved in various decisions) up to date and push now.

Why now?
Because BB are increasingly vulnerable as viewing figures are falling.  Voting may bring revenue to the table for Ch5 (if there is any voting)  but unless there is a sizeable audience the advertisers wont want to pay.

'Accidental' Facebook Account Suspension Claims

You may have seen adverts similar to this on the media.

If you've been suspended by Facebook since Big Brother started and it wasn't your fault, the Facebook Accidental Suspension Helpline can probably help you claim, why not find out?

Facebook Accidental Suspension Helpline is the UK's leading name in Facebook claims.

Thinking of making a claim due to an suspension that wasn't your fault? If so, you may be entitled to compensation, and the Facebook Accidental Suspension Helpline™ are here to guide you through the claims process. In the past , we’ve helped tens of thousands of people across the UK (well some anyway) make compensation claims for their accidental suspension - compensation they deserved.

Account Suspension can happen at any time. Many suspensions occur on the OBB, involving simpletons and mods or paid lackeys.

Why make an Accidental Suspension claim?
Victims of more serious suspensions regularly need time off Facebook to recover from their suspension, leading to credibility problems such as struggling to keep up with games and their crops dying. In fact, many people return to Facebook too early due to these problems. That is why it is important that Accidental Suspension victims make an Accidental Suspension Claim and are awarded the compensation they deserve - to give them the time needed to make a full recovery.

We can make an Accidental Suspension Claim if it can be shown that someone in FB or BB has been at fault in some way - that they have failed in a duty or not taken reasonable care - and that this fault or failure caused (or partly caused) the suspension or that the suspension was instigated or encouraged by the Channel 5 employees or their supporters on the Official Big Brother site and carried out by Facebook.

There are reported instances of Facebook suspending accounts and when challenged backing down and admitting they made a mistake.  This suggests that the suspension is not a random occurrence  but a targeted selection of an individual, probably from the Official Big Brother Wall as this seems to be a linking feature.  The likeliest sequence of events if that someone on the OBB wall is reporting people that they do not agree with and claiming that they are fake profiles.  The speed with which Facebook is now backing down suggests that they have had some practice.  If they cause you inconvenience by suspending your account you should be entitled to compensation, not some feeble apology in an email.


How about it Facebook?  
Is it time to stop the suspensions and more emails saying that you have made more mistakes?
Is it time to identify the individual or individuals who are instigating this process and suspend them instead?
Or is it time to pay compensation? 
I am sure the ambulance chasers would love a new group of clients.

Facebook or Fakebook - you decide

Should you be unlucky enough to be blocked by Facebook and you have no idea why, you have probably been reported by 'holier than thou' Official Big Brother for not agreeing that 'New Improved Channel 5 Big Brother' not only washes history whiter than white but it also removes all unsightly stains in the freezer.
No warning, just a disabled account.
They will ask you for a cell phone number or photo ID, or you will be set a quiz to identify photos in your mates' albums, or photos your friends have been tagged in that are in someone else's album.

You need Help!
 So you go to the Help Center.  You are sure you have not broken the Rights and Responsibilities of course.  You wouldn't do that because it is hard enough to keep your profile even when you do conform.  You arrive at this page

And you notice the text,
If you have not posted violating content or otherwise violated the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, click here.

And you notice that....... Submit this contact form ONLY if your account was disabled for violating Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

And you realise that they are in fact Fakebook and they don't want you to find the way to speak to someone.

What they meant to say was:
Write to:

disabled@facebook.com
and
appeals@fb.com

Write to disabled@facebook.com with a cc to appeals@fb.com and then as soon as you get an answer from appeals continue to use the reply as it has a reference attached to it assigned to the disabled account and a record of all you are doing rather than a new mail each time.

Keep on writing, don't be rude but be persistent. Say how much the account means to you and how important it is to get back in and that if you don't hear anything in a day or so you will come back to remind them as you know how busy they are and you don't want your appeal to be overlooked.

Just a little note about a big inconvenience & some selling out

The Inconvenience.
The new OBB tactic is to target Live Feeders by reporting them as Fake.  The sycophantic Facebook team, who cannot bring themselves to take down a Facebook page that tells jokes about rape, have no hesitation in blocking the profiles of the Live Feeders for asking for something sensible on the OBB site.  I am not sure who comes out of this smelling more like the contents of Jay's cigarette packet in the freezer; Official Big Brother or Facebook.  Neither of them are covering themselves with glory though.

Selling out. 

Some of the stalwarts on Twitter who have been fighting for Live Feed seem to have changed their tune. BB_Superfan for example has been a key player on the Twitter Live Feed campaign for the last month but now has now decided to give BB a chance.  Nikki Cowan who was treated very badly by Big Brother for mentioning Live Feed on BOTS is now welcomed back into their arms.   I have asked him if he is back in again.  I await his response.

I saw this post on Facebook: 


"Two of my Twitter chums received DMs purportedly from you-know-who suggesting they ought to consider being housemates, as they clearly have the requisite qualities"

 If this is fact it suggests that Big Brother are willing to 'buy off' the opposition with worthless offers of being a future housemate *LOL*.

What does it tell us if these rumours are true? 
I think it was in Calvin and Hobbes that our stripy hero said that "I don't know which is worse...that everyone has his price, or that the price is always so low.." (The Days Are Just Packed p56 (08 Apr 92) )

The OBB Mods seem to have blocked every feeder last night (12/10/11).  I know I mentioned that this was their intention in my last blog but it still comes as a shock when it happened.  Another little inconvenience.

In summary then.  Buy off (cheaply) as many people as you can (people who may have a following) then block the rest.

The battle lines are drawn up - CH5 & FB versus decent people

The following represents my recollections of a month of Facebook conflict (and this weekend's hostilities) and my interpretation of what has occurred behind the scenes.  I know more of the actions of the Live Feeders because I am one.  I also know more of the Live Feeder's discussions than are mentioned below.

The area for fighting against Channel 5 appears to be Facebook at the moment.
Rightfully it should be on the desks of newspapers and magazines, and on the desks of the advertisers.  I am sure that the written media (both paper based and on the Web - excluding the Northern & Shell titles of course) would be anxious to have a good story that showed Channel 5, Big Brother and/or Northern & Shell publications in a poor light.
The advertisers need to have a real understanding that their potential market place is far smaller than it would be if the programme we were watching was similar to the one which has traditionally been provided by Endemol and Channel 4 (especially if it was in the style provided before Channel 4 lost their nerve). The beginning of Channel 5's involvement with Facebook coincided with a cull of many accounts by Facebook.  Some of them were previously involved in Big Brother on Facebook.  For many accounts the choice presented by Facebook was simple: trust us with your photo ID or cell phone number or your account remains blocked.  For many people this was something they never wished to do.

The Sides
On the one side you have Channel 5 and Facebook who have formed a group with linked interests, common purpose and financial agreements.  On the other those people who think that Channel 4 did a better job of Big Brother than Channel 5 (the so-called Live Feeders).  The place chosen for conflict is the Official Big Brother Wall on Facebook (OBB).

The Beginning
It started off fairly evenly balanced.  There were far more Live Feeders than Admin on OBB.  The only assistance that Channel 5 could count on was a group of posters on OBB, often similarly poor spellers and given to text speak, who could be guaranteed to applaud each item delivered by Channel 5 to the OBB.   In response to the vigorous posting by Live Feeders Channel 5 started to delete anything which did not carry the message that Channel 5 wished to publish.  This led to a major escalation in posting by Live Feeders.  This in turn led to Channel 5 blocking people from posting on OBB.  Many posters responded by rejoining Facebook to get back onto OBB and openly discussed when they should concentrate their efforts.  Friday was chosen as a good day to focus their efforts.  

The Middle
In response OBB raised their game and staffing levels.
They identified the group of people that are real thorns in their side and they seem to be trying to get that group isolated from anyone else who comes in to harangue them by asking for Live Feed. A classic divide and rule.
In response to the improved organisation of the Live Feeders Channel 5 seemed to adopt a new strategy on that Friday evening.  They began reporting any new posters on OBB to Facebook as spammers.  FB responded by putting those accounts through the Verify hurdle where you need to provide a phone number, or identify 5 of your friends from random photographs from their albums that they have been tagged in (not their profile pictures).  I was shown pictures of a car bumper and a mobile phone in my set.

It is my belief that once they have just the 'thorns' isolated they will add them to a group and switch them off as a single entity if they wish knowing that nobody else will come into OBB to replace them.  Anyone who arrives on OBB and then is put through and passes the Verify step will either be blocked or added to the 'thorns' group.  Since Friday many Live Feeders have lost their accounts.  As I write this on Monday OBB appear to have resorted to blocking again as I suspected they would, and are still selecting accounts to go through the Verify process to regain their profiles.  They believe that they now know who the core members of the Live Feeders are.  They also must know that arranged against them are a tenacious group of resourceful and articulate people.  The writing abilities of some of the sycophantic OBB supporters group are not obvious and many of them seem to be angry and habitual flamers who readily abuse anyone who does not agree with whatever they are trying to say.

The battle continues.  Channel 5 are not prepared to listen to reason and to engage in any dialogue.  They are behaving like petulant children who insist that it is their game and their rules.  Channel 5 are oppressing the free speech of the OBB posters and Facebook are acting as the removers of those who Channel 5 do not like.  If it looks like censorship and acts like censorship it is censorship.

Channel 5 have also put in place (with Facebook's assistance) a non-UK IP block to prevent anyone from outside the area from having any sort of say in how the programme is presented to us.  Americans, for example, are not only prevented from seeing any highlight shows, or web/YouTube based clips but they cannot even say anything about it on the OBB.  Northern & Shell say on their website: "Northern & Shell was founded in December 1974 with the vision of becoming a significant force in British and worldwide media."  and they are "determined to maintain all its products and activities as benchmarks of excellence to its readers, customers, advertisers and business partners."  These seem laudable and lofty ideals which are not very obvious to me in the way Channel 5 is conducting its Big Brother business.

I had a glance at a thread on OBB early this morning before the Live Feeders had stirred themselves for another day of posting.  I saw what happens when they are not there to post.  It was not interesting, not thoughtful, not stimulating or witty.  It was bland, insipid and banal.  That is what OBB will be without the Live Feeders who represent the philosophical, educated and articulate wing of the Big Brother audience.  If the Live Feeders leave Facebook the OBB page will be nothing.  The audience for the show is evaporating week on week.  Channel 5 have pinned their hopes on Social Media interactions as the stimulus for the show but it looks doomed to failure. 

The End
One of my colleagues spent an interesting hour or two going back through past threads the other day.  I say interesting only because all the older threads had been carefully examined and any post that was not to Channel 5's liking had been removed.  History had been rewritten.  No doubt future historians, combing through the Facebook archives will realise what a great success this series has been, universally acclaimed and enjoyed throughout the land.  The more astute amongst them may ask why it was taken off the air if it was such a great success, but the past is written by the Victors.  And nobody liked him very much at the time did they?  Channel 5 are going out of their way to portray the Live Feeders as anti Big Brother but nothing could be further from the truth.  They are just decent people who enjoyed the show in the past and would like to enjoy it again.  They want it to be the show they loved before Channel 5 provided their scripted reality BB version of TOWIE.

As I said at the top, this is my view.  If you have anything to add or subtract please leave a comment.  I will read it and if I think that you are more correct than me unlike Channel 5 I will do something about it.  Thank you for reading. 

Absolutely pathetic BB, you are hopeless and you must know it by now

Many things are doubtless occurring in the BB house that Dirty Desmond and his underlings would prefer that we did not know about right now. Our moments of revelation will arrive in the magazine scoops afterwards. Scoops indeed, and not just for scooping out the freezer. But by their actions you can get an insight into how they are thinking though.

Consider this. We don't have live feed because they have a pathological obsession for controlling every aspect of the show. That works while the lab rats are in there but when they come out the game is up. Two housemates have told tales about Jay.

BB has tried to supress all mention of the second incident. They have edited videotapes and have employed extensive filtering on Facebook to stop anyone mentioning freezers and shit and a wide variety of synonyms for those words. But the world prefers to enjoy the words from the lips of Heaven than the BB spin machine. She may be as batty as a cave full of bats but she is honest. He did shit in the fridge. Fact 1.

Fact 2 is that Jay was told off for saying the 'deeply offensive' word 'black'. Well deeply offensive to the chattering classes perhaps. He used it in the context of telling a joke by using a poorly remembered film quote. So what? No more offensive than his stories about fisting, muff diving and five in a bed romps to most people. The only interesting thing is that BB chose to show the incident and his resulting admonition.

A poster on Facebook took this to mean that he did not crap in the freezer because we would have seen him being told off for being naughty. Abject bollox of course. The reason BB showed the incident and the Diary Room sequel was to show us that they are as tough on naughtiness as they were when Emily got the boot for saying the N word to the C woman.

The insight into BB is that they thought that we would swallow this feeble bit of spin. The freezer crap never occurred because if it did we would have seen Jay being told off.

And one gullible poster actually said it, although it is very doubtful if that was his own thought, expressed in the particularly inarticulate way so beloved by many of the posters, or if he was used to plant it into our consciousness.

Either way no dice BB.  You thought that if you showed us Jay being told off for one massive crime, we would realise that we had not seen him being told off for taking a dump in the freezer, therefore it could not have happened.  You are as hopeless at spin as you are at many of the other aspects of the programme.  We see nothing except what you choose to show us i.e. very little.  You chose not to show us the freezer dump and you chose to show us naughty Jay being told off for that worst sin in the whole world.   Social Media will be your downfall CH5.

BB is sponsored by Andrex toilet tissue, so soft you can use it straight from the freezer

Heaven: "Jay is cool, apart from him shitting in our freezer and having to get all our food bloody taken out"

Company Stooge "Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly"

Heaven: "No he actually did do that for a joke"

Company Stooge ""Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly, keep going"

Heaven: "Come on, you lot saw that"

Heaven on BBBOTS

We never saw it Heaven.   No live Feed thank goodness.  It makes Sandy pissing in the bin pale into insignificance though.

I have a headache brought on by BB - bring back Luke Marsden

I am a week older.  I have seen no Life Feed (in truth I haven't watched much of the HL show either).  Many of the show participants have previously appeared in some sort of acting video or song video or are registered as actors - whatever that means.
The OBB FB posters have revealed themselves as pretty incompetent and their admin/moderation policies towards non-"approved content" posters have been confirmed as consistently ruthless.

The show is absolutely dire (all 45 minutes of it) regardless of the soundtrack selected.  It is so bad that I popped into my Time Machine to 2008 to look at the Live Feed and have a browse on the C4 forum.  At the time we never thought things could get any worse, but we were badly mistaken.  We saw the stream and set our own agendas in the forums.  We decided what we would talk about and as long as we were not really nasty we could say what we chose..  Choice was the key issue.  We could watch what we wanted and the discussion topics we wanted were the ones we had.  Compare that to Twitter and Facebook now.  We cannot see what is happening and we are supposed to sit like Pavlovian dogs responding to each new inanity set by poorly trained simpletons employed by the very people who deny our requests for Live feed.

The viewing figures are dismal - earlier today there was talk about the summer like weather causing people to not come in at 10pm to watch the show (sunset is about 18:45 now).  If that is their best excuse it will be interesting to see what it is when the weather returns to Autumn normal next week.  There was even a suggestion that they may pull the show rather than admit they are doing something wrong.

They seem unable to accept that it the how they are doing it rather than the show itself that is at fault.  They can turn it round if they push that stream they are providing to journos out to the public - red button if they can.  Then sell the stream on the web to whoever will pay for it, regardless of country.  If that is at odds with their broadcast license terms then they should do something about it rather than going down without a fight.  They are taking the cowards way out if they drop the show because of the piss poor decisions that they have made so far.  And if there is one big fat ego at the root of it all then they should put him and his team of whizzo 'blue sky' thinkers out to grass and get in some people who understand that the show is only one thing - a social contract between the viewers and the show providers.  If they do not provide what we want we walk away.

Today I read a thread I wrote about Luke Marsden on C4 Forum in June 2008.  We loathed him and we watched him.  The posts in the thread were so funny that I had tears rolling down my cheeks.  It was a subject that we chose, we had observations to talk about, we had humour, sarcasm and a community.  Regardless of what Channel 5 and Big Brother may think, we have little of that now.  I never cared much for Luke but he was funny then and he probably is now.  He may have been a pain but he never gave me the headache that this load of bozos is; and the HMs are pretty irritating as well.

Thoughts from a Small Island - a digression

Dr Detroit reminds us that there is another market for the BB product which is severely disadvantaged by Channel 5 and their absolute control tendencies.

I have many friends who do not live in the UK and no longer have access to any Big Brother, certainly Spain, Ireland and America have had little access in the past, and if Desmond and his cohorts have their way, will have none in the future.

What have they to gain from this?

The programme will certainly have no resale value in the future, so they cannot be holding it back for Big Brother xx - The Director's Cut dvd.  And they don't want anyone offshore from our Small Island to watch it now.
I feel the fell hand of the Multi-Nationals behind this.  There has certainly been a desperate scramble on the Internet to regionalise the delivery of material.  It isn't driven by governments because they are like the giant supertankers - it takes them forever to slow down and change direction.  Multi-National corporations however do have the resources to force through this process and have the money and skills at their disposal to make it happen.  It certainly happened with the dvd market.  But that was to ensure that differential pricing would not lead to grey market imports.  There is no profit to be had from blocking BB alone outside of the UK.  It must be a side effect of something else.

The something else.
This seems to be driven by the need to separate markets so that particular products (TV shows for example) can be made available on subscription streams at some time in the future.  Their default setting seems to be that it will only be available in one country and they are perhaps just testing the system.  (This is regardless of the fact that if it can be streamed it will be re-streamed by third parties because the people who are good at diverting the system largely work outside the system).

It does not seem to be wholly a Ch5 issue, BBC iPlayer is the same and I dare say the other TV channels also are closing it down.

Can we sway them with a well chosen argument?
I doubt it.  The Big players seem to be impervious to common sense arguments,  But that does not mean we cannot follow the well trodden pathways of aggravation and avoidance.  We aggravate them and we also circumvent their controls.  They are irritating but we are resourceful.