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| Letters From London |
| Humorous Views on London Culture, Royals, Gossip and Politics |
YOU SPIN ME ROUND - 2 February 2007
“My nerves made me do it…I was a guinea pig. It’s ruined my life. How is Shilpa Poppadom
racist?” Ah, no mea culpa at the Celebrity Big Brother house then. “I don’t remember.” “Did I
really say that?” Yes. And a lot more.
When the former S Club 7 Celebrity Big Brother co-conspirator, Jo O'Meara panicked at how the
possible press coverage regarding their co-ordinated scornful sneers and sniggering might affect
their stellar careers, Jade Goody was nonplussed. "It doesn't matter, in all fairness, there is
always a way that you can justify it. I'll have a word with John." Warms the heart, doesn’t it?
John being John Noel, her all-powerful agent who has made an ignorant, uneducated, enraged,
nasty and mostly pathetic 25 year old a millionaire and the darling of the press and the public…
until caught in a morass of self-expressiveness. Oops. Noel also represents several presenters
involved in the presentation of the reality TV show and past contestants as well. Some say he is
Big Brother. Jo and Jade are now both under the loving care of a team of round-the-clock
psychiatrists. The former at a hotel of her choice and the latter at celebrity home-away-from-
home clinic, the Priory. Ah…congratulations on creative collusion and complicity. And you thought
all those streaming tears and hysteria were genuine. All this spin is making me positively dizzy.
I must confess I have managed to avoid the compulsive viewing of Big Brother up until now. The
simple act of flipping through channels and pausing for a mere few seconds causes me to feel
restless and pointless…sending me into a state of terminal ennui, overcome with exhausted,
listless and misanthropic. I question the very meaning of life.
All that lying about in pyjamas and bathrobes…all that burping and farting in bed, on the sofas, at
the dining table. Auggggghhhh! Off my party list. So-called celebrities no one could give a toss
about, except maybe their biological parents - and that’s to be verified - swaggering to reveal
their ‘true selves’. Tell me again. Why exactly do we want to witness smug, supercilious
solipsism?
Hands up. I must confess, I did see the infamous rant and rage on TV, on the news, on the front
page of the magazines, the tabloids and the broadsheets – Jade bellowing like a hungry
Neanderthal inspiring her hunting posse. “Slay! Maim! Slaughter!” And Miss Great Britain
housemate, topless model Danielle Lloyd’s response: "That was fucking fantastic! That made my
day!" So beauty is just skin deep.
Curiously, even with 45,178 complaints against the cruel and inhuman treatment of Bollywood
star, Shilpa by Jade and her band of bitches, Jo and Danielle, the attention–seekers have
climbed out from under their rocks to help out the hideous, the horrid, the harpies. One ex-
housemate, journalist Carole Malone, who had been in there all of five minutes, pops up on TV
every time presenters and a camera crew share the same space to defend the ‘young girls’.
While their behaviour may have been that of nasty 12 year old bullies, they are 23, 25 and 27.
‘Young’ compared to whom? Carole Malone? The Queen?
And speaking of royals, even the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, telephoned GMTV to
declare her support for Jo. "I didn't watch the show and don't condone anything she has
allegedly said or done," said Fergie, "but I know what it's like to be vilified. She is a broken girl,
she should be removed from the stocks…” This after seeing Jo in tears during an interview on
the morning show. Well darling, perhaps you should watch the actual footage…foot-age…sorry
but some tabloid images just never seem to fade even years later.
The lovely chain smoking Jo, who appeared to have had her bathrobe spray glued onto her
body, has reportedly received death threats. “I hope I’m not going to be attacked in the street for
what has happened in CBB.” If she doesn’t wear her bathrobe, she’ll be safe. “My nerves were
bad... the game is you go in there and show people who you really are…I was myself. I wouldn’t
change a thing…even now, because I know the truth.”
Wait. Spin added: it’s all BB’s fault. "I think that as a group we would all have coped better if
some of the surprise stunts hadn't been pulled by Big Brother. Jade and her family entering the
house late and the introduction of a slave/master culture is bizarre by anyone's standards and
automatically creates tension and a divide. There were many instances of manipulation by the
programme makers and they have to take responsibility for their actions too. In a goldfish bowl,
clever editing, boredom and manipulation can result in issues on several levels.” Silly me. I had
thought she was meticulously monosyllabic. At least now we can all sigh with relief to know she
can read.
“Indians are skinny because of eating undercooked food?” Not to be undone by Jo’s brilliant
insight, Danielle’s contribution: “You don’t know where her hands have been.” “Is a potato a
vegetable?” No chicken tikka masala take-away for them then.
Danielle is out and about spewing ‘sorry’ to every camera she can find. It was “all in the heat of
the moment. I wasn’t laughing at Shilpa, it was just nerves. I didn’t realise Jo didn’t like her
either.” Right. Oh dear. The room is spinning again.
Upon viewing the loathsome footage, disbelieving Shilpa raised her hands to her ears. "Why are
they laughing? Why did no one step in to help? What had I done that was so wrong?"
Exactly. Where were the other housemates? For starters, Jermaine ‘I-am-perfection-incarnate’
Jackson was continually praying and fasting. Jade’s fiancé Jack Tweed, waiting in some
existential state on a brain, referred to Shilpa as a Paki, but Channel 4 reported he had called
her a ‘c***t. Oh. That makes it all alright. After all, he “didn’t like her ‘squeaky voice”. A-team
star, Dirk Benedict “had trouble understanding the accents,” which surely explains why he didn’t
intervene when things got intensely vitriolic; “Yer a L-I-A-R!” Cleo ‘does my hair look big enough
in this’ Rocos, professed to have found her soul mate in Jo – draw your own conclusions -
thought they needed “a man there…” and that Jo and Danielle “were two people in the wrong
place at the wrong time. Theirs was laughter of nervous disbelief.” Oh not that ‘nerves’ crap
again. Is this Noel’s work or just more stupidity?
‘The Three Witches’, as they have been renamed, have displayed a not so surprising shared
characteristic beyond the obvious unimaginable ignorance: egotism beyond measure. Did we
even once hear those four little words: I am sorry, Shilpa. All the theatrics, hand wringing,
streaming mascara tears, hysterical protests. My my. In point of fact, it has been nothing but
poor me. Poor celebrity me. Poor misunderstood celebrity me. Poor misunderstood celebrity non-
racist me. Poor misunderstood celebrity non-racist career-over me. Or simply put: me, me, me,
me.
Director of Television, Kevin Lygo has decided “the controversy” had saved the show from being
“boring”. Indeed. Then it’s not about money. At the end of the day, it is really the unimaginably
stupid fused with the manipulatively greedy, parasitically bound by a blinding egoism. Perhaps
they all should have taken a clue from Jade’s now defunct perfume: Shhhh.
“My nerves made me do it…I was a guinea pig. It’s ruined my life. How is Shilpa Poppadom
racist?” Ah, no mea culpa at the Celebrity Big Brother house then. “I don’t remember.” “Did I
really say that?” Yes. And a lot more.
When the former S Club 7 Celebrity Big Brother co-conspirator, Jo O'Meara panicked at how the
possible press coverage regarding their co-ordinated scornful sneers and sniggering might affect
their stellar careers, Jade Goody was nonplussed. "It doesn't matter, in all fairness, there is
always a way that you can justify it. I'll have a word with John." Warms the heart, doesn’t it?
John being John Noel, her all-powerful agent who has made an ignorant, uneducated, enraged,
nasty and mostly pathetic 25 year old a millionaire and the darling of the press and the public…
until caught in a morass of self-expressiveness. Oops. Noel also represents several presenters
involved in the presentation of the reality TV show and past contestants as well. Some say he is
Big Brother. Jo and Jade are now both under the loving care of a team of round-the-clock
psychiatrists. The former at a hotel of her choice and the latter at celebrity home-away-from-
home clinic, the Priory. Ah…congratulations on creative collusion and complicity. And you thought
all those streaming tears and hysteria were genuine. All this spin is making me positively dizzy.
I must confess I have managed to avoid the compulsive viewing of Big Brother up until now. The
simple act of flipping through channels and pausing for a mere few seconds causes me to feel
restless and pointless…sending me into a state of terminal ennui, overcome with exhausted,
listless and misanthropic. I question the very meaning of life.
All that lying about in pyjamas and bathrobes…all that burping and farting in bed, on the sofas, at
the dining table. Auggggghhhh! Off my party list. So-called celebrities no one could give a toss
about, except maybe their biological parents - and that’s to be verified - swaggering to reveal
their ‘true selves’. Tell me again. Why exactly do we want to witness smug, supercilious
solipsism?
Hands up. I must confess, I did see the infamous rant and rage on TV, on the news, on the front
page of the magazines, the tabloids and the broadsheets – Jade bellowing like a hungry
Neanderthal inspiring her hunting posse. “Slay! Maim! Slaughter!” And Miss Great Britain
housemate, topless model Danielle Lloyd’s response: "That was fucking fantastic! That made my
day!" So beauty is just skin deep.
Curiously, even with 45,178 complaints against the cruel and inhuman treatment of Bollywood
star, Shilpa by Jade and her band of bitches, Jo and Danielle, the attention–seekers have
climbed out from under their rocks to help out the hideous, the horrid, the harpies. One ex-
housemate, journalist Carole Malone, who had been in there all of five minutes, pops up on TV
every time presenters and a camera crew share the same space to defend the ‘young girls’.
While their behaviour may have been that of nasty 12 year old bullies, they are 23, 25 and 27.
‘Young’ compared to whom? Carole Malone? The Queen?
And speaking of royals, even the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, telephoned GMTV to
declare her support for Jo. "I didn't watch the show and don't condone anything she has
allegedly said or done," said Fergie, "but I know what it's like to be vilified. She is a broken girl,
she should be removed from the stocks…” This after seeing Jo in tears during an interview on
the morning show. Well darling, perhaps you should watch the actual footage…foot-age…sorry
but some tabloid images just never seem to fade even years later.
The lovely chain smoking Jo, who appeared to have had her bathrobe spray glued onto her
body, has reportedly received death threats. “I hope I’m not going to be attacked in the street for
what has happened in CBB.” If she doesn’t wear her bathrobe, she’ll be safe. “My nerves were
bad... the game is you go in there and show people who you really are…I was myself. I wouldn’t
change a thing…even now, because I know the truth.”
Wait. Spin added: it’s all BB’s fault. "I think that as a group we would all have coped better if
some of the surprise stunts hadn't been pulled by Big Brother. Jade and her family entering the
house late and the introduction of a slave/master culture is bizarre by anyone's standards and
automatically creates tension and a divide. There were many instances of manipulation by the
programme makers and they have to take responsibility for their actions too. In a goldfish bowl,
clever editing, boredom and manipulation can result in issues on several levels.” Silly me. I had
thought she was meticulously monosyllabic. At least now we can all sigh with relief to know she
can read.
“Indians are skinny because of eating undercooked food?” Not to be undone by Jo’s brilliant
insight, Danielle’s contribution: “You don’t know where her hands have been.” “Is a potato a
vegetable?” No chicken tikka masala take-away for them then.
Danielle is out and about spewing ‘sorry’ to every camera she can find. It was “all in the heat of
the moment. I wasn’t laughing at Shilpa, it was just nerves. I didn’t realise Jo didn’t like her
either.” Right. Oh dear. The room is spinning again.
Upon viewing the loathsome footage, disbelieving Shilpa raised her hands to her ears. "Why are
they laughing? Why did no one step in to help? What had I done that was so wrong?"
Exactly. Where were the other housemates? For starters, Jermaine ‘I-am-perfection-incarnate’
Jackson was continually praying and fasting. Jade’s fiancé Jack Tweed, waiting in some
existential state on a brain, referred to Shilpa as a Paki, but Channel 4 reported he had called
her a ‘c***t. Oh. That makes it all alright. After all, he “didn’t like her ‘squeaky voice”. A-team
star, Dirk Benedict “had trouble understanding the accents,” which surely explains why he didn’t
intervene when things got intensely vitriolic; “Yer a L-I-A-R!” Cleo ‘does my hair look big enough
in this’ Rocos, professed to have found her soul mate in Jo – draw your own conclusions -
thought they needed “a man there…” and that Jo and Danielle “were two people in the wrong
place at the wrong time. Theirs was laughter of nervous disbelief.” Oh not that ‘nerves’ crap
again. Is this Noel’s work or just more stupidity?
‘The Three Witches’, as they have been renamed, have displayed a not so surprising shared
characteristic beyond the obvious unimaginable ignorance: egotism beyond measure. Did we
even once hear those four little words: I am sorry, Shilpa. All the theatrics, hand wringing,
streaming mascara tears, hysterical protests. My my. In point of fact, it has been nothing but
poor me. Poor celebrity me. Poor misunderstood celebrity me. Poor misunderstood celebrity non-
racist me. Poor misunderstood celebrity non-racist career-over me. Or simply put: me, me, me,
me.
Director of Television, Kevin Lygo has decided “the controversy” had saved the show from being
“boring”. Indeed. Then it’s not about money. At the end of the day, it is really the unimaginably
stupid fused with the manipulatively greedy, parasitically bound by a blinding egoism. Perhaps
they all should have taken a clue from Jade’s now defunct perfume: Shhhh.
