Hands up if you’ve ever thought about being a housemate on Big Brother…

Go on, admit it, you’ve wondered what it would be like to be a contestant on BB. You’ve considered how you would deal with the situations. You’ve started a sentence with “Well, if I was in the house…”

I have too. Only, there is no way in hell I would actually contemplate auditioning for the programme. No way. I don’t want that sort of attention; I don’t want the press on my ass. I don’t want to ever be famous.

Except, of course, here on the internet.

As much as we may all imagine living in that little multicoloured house in Elstree, in reality we don’t have a clue what its like to be trapped in that camera-coated pressure cooker, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a potential 13 weeks.

It all sounds beyond horrible to me.

Yet, I sit here, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, watching the highlights show, not believing what I’m seeing and thinking, “well, if I was in the house, I would never say/do/touch/eat…”; to whatever I was reacting to at the moment.

Talk about bullshit!

The truth is most of us would come apart at the seams under that sort of pressure and scrutiny. I also think a great number of us wouldn’t get beyond the psychological screening and I’d put myself in that group too. I’d crumble like a rag doll in days; or worse, snap, in a big, bad scary way by snapping a few annoying necks with a swift, deft, unexpected jerk of my arm.

I’m not fucking joking!

You wouldn’t want to see me in the house, anyway. Limited cigarettes, no dope, potentially naked and/or erect plus homicidal? Let’s leave all that to your furtive imaginations and not mine, because it is all far too foul for me to contemplate.

Please try to remember, we’re not in there. They are. We don’t know what it’s like for them, because we’ve never been in an environment like that.

But then, again, we don’t know any of them that well either.

We’ve got to be around day 21 now, which means we’ve really only had 19 days of highlights programmes (day 20 should be tonight – Tuesday).

If you’re like me, you watch the prime time, Channel 4 daily highlights programme. Its where I get most of my BB info because it is the official record of that day as put together by the producers.

To date, I’ve seen 19 evening highlights programmes, less 3 Friday night evictions shows and the Weds - £100,000 special. That means I’ve actually seen 16 normal highlight shows, 3 Friday night ½ hour/ one hour combos, and the one hour Weds big-money extravaganza.

Here comes the science:

16 highlights x 45 mins = 720
3 Fridays x 45 mins = 135
1 x Weds x 23 mins = 23
Total = 878 minutes

(all times are less commercials, Friday and Weds timings also allow for live interviews and Davina links, as well as adverts)

I can’t be bothered to work out the average number of people in the house over the course of those days, so I am going to pull a number out of my ass: 13.5 housemates on average per day over 19 days. If someone wants to be more accurate, I welcome your correction.

If we divide the number of minutes of actual house coverage by the number of average housemates, we come up with the average number of minutes we’ve seen of each housemate since the series started.

65 minutes.

That’s how much time, on average we have seen each housemate featured.

If you really think about it, the Ziggy/Chanelle romance tips the scales heavily in their favour, thus reducing the average for other housemates.

And if you then add Charley to the mix with the amount of screen time her tirades take up, you discover just how little you really know most of them.

Don’t worry, I’ll return to Charley shortly, but first I want to mention a couple of the nearly invisible people.

Wangers.

I just like the word. It makes me laugh. Say it out loud; it will make you laugh too.

Wangers.

Unfortunately for all of us, the person who owns that nickname isn’t as amusing. I can’t be the only one who finds her a complete misery guts? She never has anything nice to say about anything or anyone. She’s one big, blimp-chested bummer, man.

Maybe that’s just the bits they’re showing, maybe the footage of her turning cartwheels and telling funny stories is strewn across the (virtual) cutting room floor? Maybe, she’s the real entertainer of the house and they are hiding it away with the editing?

Nah!

And speaking of non-entities, how about Tracey?

Tracey features in the highlights so infrequently that one night I actually started to wonder if she quietly went out the backdoor and I somehow missed it. I’m not joking!

“Bring it on”.

“Well up for it”.

“Deal with it”

“’ave it”.

I’ve just saved you the trouble of watching her best bits, because they are her only bits!

For fuck’s sake woman! Do something!

I don’t think Tracey is stupid, I actually think she’s trying to be clever. She’s put a lot of thought into her behaviour in the house and arrived with a very simple game plan.

Tracey’s aim is to stay off everyone’s radar and coast as close to the final as she get, possibly even reaching it. And then, once that final hurdle is in sight, we’ll finally get to see a more life-like version of the real Tracey, though again filtered through her long-term game plan.

If Tracey can pull this off, it will be impressive, but I think there’s a good chance the rest of them are going to get sick of the catchphrases and she’ll be nominated again soon.

I think one of the weirdest aspects of this year’s series is the total lack of groups. In this house, it’s every man and woman for himself!

They all have allies and enemies, but it is far from tribal. Each and every one of them has a different friends and enemies list, with overlaps happening all over the place.

Zak and Chanelle are the closest to any sort of real allegiance at the moment, even if only based upon lust and yet they typify this weird dynamic. They both have different people they like and different people they hate and neither one of them really blinks any eye at the other over this.

Ok, Ziggy’s reaction to the Billi/Chanelle rumours not withstanding, but I think we’d all agree that romantic jealousy should be an exception to the hypothesis. The green-eyed monster can only fuck you up!

The best example of this “every man for yourself” phenomenon is Charley. See, I told you I’d come back to her.

Charley will claim to love each and every one of them, while telling them that that, “she’s not being funny, right, but…” insert insulting, profanity-laden shrieks at anyone else.

Charley is nice to people when it suits her and horrible to them when it amuses her. Just look at how she enjoyed humiliating poor Brian when he showed her his erection, which she knew she inspired. Then, commenting on his maybe-wank, with gleeful spite, while knowing the guy is 18 years old and her dirty, suggestive talk got his hopes up. Urghhh!

Or worse, taking the piss out of him because he pissed the bed. Not nice!

And by the way, can Brian really be that stupid? I can’t imagine anyone over the age of, oh I don’t know, birth…not knowing who Romeo, Juliette or Shakespeare is!

Was he putting it on? Was it an act, meant to make him popular?

If it was an act, it didn’t work.

If it was genuine, then oh my god, the future is fucked! Thankfully, climate change and global warming will mean that it won’t matter how stupid tomorrow’s generation is, because they’ll all be too busy killing each other over the last few drops of drinking water.

Ah, happy days.

The reason I’ve titled this abortion of a BB column “The Charlie Show” is simple, that’s what I’ve been watching.

You’ve been watching it too, only I bet you’re reluctant to admit it.

I was the same, but then I thought about how little we actually see and how much she dominates everything. I don’t like her, but I like watching her.

Think about it.

Really, take a moment, and ponder what I am submitting for your consideration.

Charley has been the star of the show. She’s the wannabe it-girl, you love to hate!

Check out my friends, the tabloid newspapers. She features prominently almost every damn day. The red tops are usually a good barometer for public opinion and on that basis, we are all enjoying watching Charley. We just wouldn’t want to invite her ‘round for a cup of tea.

That’s so cool with me.

The kind of people I’d invite over for a cuppa (wink – you know what *I* really – an exotic ciggy), are not the kind of people I’d want to watch on BB. My mates are all fairly well adjusted, sorted, normal types.

You know, like me!

Ha!

I think there’s a very good chance our girl, Charley, is going to be up for eviction this week and dammit all to hell, its too soon for her to go!

It’s week three and there are ten more weeks remaining. It is way too early for Charley to go. I’m not saying she has to win; I’m not even saying she has to make the final, but for the love of god, can we please not be stupid and vote her out too early?

Please?

PLEASE?

We’ve made this mistake in previous series, getting rid of the mad, crazy, (un)likeable ones first, only to complain it’s become boring a week or two later. Let’s just avoid this scenario, ok?

There will be other chances to get rid of Charley, I promise you.

Let’s all agree to leave Charley alone this week.

I will, if you will?