So. Friday night, it's a glorious evening outside (well, it is in Brighton) and yet here we are. Big Brothering. And why? Because it's the first eviction of the summer! Hurrah!
And what's more, they're chucking four more housemates in. FOUR. I'll be updating as the evening goes on, from 8.30-9.30, and then back again at ten for the 'exciting denouement' of the evening. Hit refresh for updates, and do leave comments if there's anything BB-related you just desperately need to remove from your chest...
So, sorry, I just need to get up to speed a bit here:
There was one 'removal', one walk out, two more in, then tonight one out and four in. Next week, ten in, I think. By the end of the summer there will be an army of housemates, hundreds-strong, a veritable chicken coop of high-pitched wannabes, just running round the house, bumping into each other, a screaming, skimpily-dressed brownian motion.
8.31: Is it me, or is Marcus Bentley talking more ad more slowly as the years go by? He used to be a bit chirpy, didn't he? Now he sounds like he's trying to teach toddlers how to make a cup of tea.
8.36: So let me get this right - given a restricted budget, they didn't pool it and get enough food for everyone, they split it and had eight pounds each to buy food. So they all seem to have bought random crap, and not enough, and are fighting like tiresome children over who's stolen a teaspoon of pureed peanut and four hula hoops?
It's bogrollgate in the house. Shabnam, face like a wet weekend and voice like an angry foghorn, was caught stealing a few sheets of toilet paper from Carole's secret stash, and all hell broke loose.
I'd like to pretend that was an over-exaggeration, but sadly, the howling of a million tortured souls and the stench of roasting flesh would be Butlins comparison to this.
8.43: Davina's looking magnificently curvy this evening in very flattering wide-legged trousers, loose hair and a very odd jacket with 978 buttons.
Charley is complaining, rattling off grumps and whinges, grumbling around the house like an articulated lunatic. And what's the problem NOW? Bananas. She says Shabnam stole her bananas. Shabnam says she didn't steal her bananas. Charley says Shabnam stole her bananas. Shabnam says she ordered three bananas. This goes on for five full minutes, loudly, threatening to break into physical violence at any moment. And yet people still argue that this is low-quality entertainment! Amazing.
All the while, I am distracted by the fact that Carole seems to have brown something smeared all over her face. Is this: a) A poorly applied facemask b) A dirty protest at having her bathroom tissue pilfered. c) Camouflage?
8.52: Charley and Shabnam seem to have made up, though to be honest that's mainly conjecture, as I'd have to watch Charley on quarter-speed to figure out exactly what she's saying.
Can they start slipping valium in the drinking water please? If there was ever a group that needed it, it's this one. They're shouty, and unpleasant, the good qualities that any of them might possess drowned out in stupid arguments and pathetic whining.
This is just horrible.
Chanelle is now in the diary room, saying that she doesn't like Charley. Ziggy strides through the living room and announces that Charley and Shabnam, now best mates again, are 'false'. You think?
They discover that either Shabnam, Carole or Tracey will be evicted. It's going to be Shabnam. I bet you many pounds.
8.59: Davina's just promised that it's 'almost time' to let the new blood into the house. Can it be so? Are we to be released from this circular petty-argument cell and let free to roam in the promised land of new housemate utopia soon? Like, after this break? Please? Because it's killing me, it really is.
Hm. Britain's Got Talent starting on ITV1, you say?...
9pm: New housemates! Billi! He's a model, and has that dull greater-London accent, grumbling and somnolent like a Volvo driving slowly through gravel.
He's a model. Good lord, IS he? Really? A hand model? I mean, I don't mean to be harsh, but... Well, whatever. Model or no, he's a complete idiot.
Ideal woman: someone blonde and 'page-threeish with not much to say'. He doesn't like women who think too much, or might challenge him.
I'm not warming, I must say. I'm currently about chilled/bordering on tepid.
9.07: Jonathan... He's a millionaire. And he's from Islington. And unless I'm wrong, he's an owner of some large media company or other and has... Written for Media Guardian.
Well I know I'm not wrong. He is. And has.
9.09: He's posing like a big posing poseur in front of the house, collar up, and the crowd are jeering.
To be fair, the jeering mainly takes the form of shouting 'Get Charley Out', so he shouldn't take it too personally. For anyone wondering who he is, he's this bloke.
9.12: Over on Britain's Got Talent (it's the break, alright?) Seven young men going by the name of Kombat Breakers are being warmly praised by the judges, and seem very happy about it. And now there's a woman spraying sparks out of her back end. Good lord, maybe I SHOULD have been watching this all week.
9.15: Aaaaaaand, back to Big Brother. Liam is a tree surgeon. He has climbed the tallest tree in Britain, and has a freakishly pointy tongue. He's a bit dull, and I now think he may win.
He doesn't hang around to pose very much, and this pleases the crowd. They show their appreciation by shouting 'Get Charley Out' at him, merrily.
9.20: Brian is 19, and from Essex. He lives at home with his mum, and people say he looks like 50 Cent. He may look a *little* bit like Fiddy, but he sounds like, well, a 19-year-old from Essex. He's currently bobbing up and down in front of the photographers and crowd and shouting 'Oy-oy!' at them.
The photographers respond by shouting 'Brian! Brian!' And the crowd respond by shouting... Well, you can probably guess. Enough to say that he enters the house talking to himself, wandering down the stairs, saying "Blimey, they're Mental out there... 'Oo tha fuck is 'Charley'?"
9.25: There's consternation in the comment box - no bugger's believing that Brian's 19. Sure he is, he's having a bit of a cry, he's a little boy, bless him. Still, I have to on one level agree with MyNameIsJames, with his fabulous comment:
Brian is NINETEEN?! Sod off, he looks like he's a few years away from his pension. "Everyone says I look like 50 Cent" No, everyone says you look, like, FIFTY SEVEN.
Very good indeed.
9.30: And, twittering away like crazy, we leave the housemates for a happy hour, while they get to know Billi, Brian, Liam and That-Bloke-Who-Has-Written-For-Media-Guardian, and we toddle off and do pactically anything else.
Britain's Got Talent, for example.
Back proper at 10.00 (probably hanging about in the comment box till then...)
10.00pm: And, after all standing to attention, hand on heart, for the Ceremonial Reading of the Ofcom Adjudication Against Channel Four, we're back in the room...
10.02: Brilliant. It's another highlights show. This time: Highlights of the new housemates' first half hour in the house. There is no narration by Marcus Bently. I feel lost and bored without it.
Davina is talking to the house, and the first person to be evicted from the Big Brother 8 house, is...
10.04: CHARLEY!
Oh, no, that was the crowd again.
10.04: Bye bye Shadnam!
10.06: This is the longest goodbye in HISTORY. She's just hanging around the door, saying 'I love you I love you don't forget me!' For approximately forever. Or about three minutes. She walks up the stairs saying 'they're booing, why are they booing, I haven't done anything wrong!' (Apart from steal delicate-paper, that is)
On leaving the house, she stands, miked up and dancing, on the gangplank for a further two minutes, singing tunelessly, slapping her own bottom and wondering out loud why people are booing. We hear every confused, desperate mumble, and it goes on forever, and it's quite literally painful to watch.
Eventually, Davina comes to collect her, and, holding her firmly by the hand, pulls her down the stairs into the sea of boos.
10.14: The Exit Interview Davina fawns a bit, touches knees, hands, and smiles a great deal. Yeah, D! Treat 'em nice, Keep 'em, um,
Anyway. Shabnam says she's curvaceous. Davina disputes this, and says that on the contrary, she has lovely thighs. This is as confrontational as it has got so far.
I'm still reeling from the hideousness of that eviction. I'm worried that I won't be able to get up and get a drink when this finishes, so tightly are my toes curled around the chairleg.
10.19: Running through footage of arguments, and more arguments, and flat-faced whining about bananas, make-up, all kinds of everything.
She says that all she's ever wanted is to be famous. Davina announces that she's going to show her a showreel that she can possibly use in getting 'The Deal' she so desperately wants. Ooh, are we going to see all the clips of the fame-hungry animal on 'Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses', 'Britain's Got Talent' and god knows how many other reality shows?
No. It's her pretending to be a television presenter in the house for the benefit of any agents who might be watching. And she's predictably terrible at it. Really terrible. Utterly dreadful. She'll be on UKTV in a month.
10.26: We see 'Shabnam's Best Bits'. They aren't. Well, they're bits. They're just not very 'best'. We see Shabnams 'Bits'
And suddenly it is the end. Davina trails the various weekend shows, and through it all, Shabnam keeps on jibbering away in the background, terrifyingly intense, nauseatingly irritating, like a hamster trying to get into your abdomen through headbutting alone.
And there we have it. First Eviction of the Season. Deflated? A little. I just don't like them. Any of them. At all, really. And one of them's a colleague. Well, *kind of*. Anyway. It can only get better, right? Right?
10.30: Hurrah. End titles. Thanks all, for comments and for reading. And good night.
Have lovely weekends all - don't forget, the lovely Stephen Brooks will be here on Sunday for the live final of Britain's Got Talent. Surely unmissable. Or More unmissable than Big Brother's Little Brother (or anything with this woman on for the next week), anyway.
