Friday Night Blog: Here we go again!

So, Big Brother 10 launched yesterday, with probably the most ethnically diverse bunch of freaks, I mean housemates (except they're not housemates yet...), ever assembled in the house in Elstree.

So, who have we got this year? Well, amongst others, there's Angel, a 35-year old boxer from Russia (and, gasp, she's a woman...); there's Beinazir, a Muslim Londoner of Pakistani origin; Rodrigo, a student from Brazil; Siavash, a flamboyant events organizer from Iran and Sree, a business student from India. Add to them the usual mix of gay men, glamour models, upper-class twits and you've fairly much got it all.

As I said, none of them were automatically housemates, and they have to become official housemates one way or another. Until then, they have to sleep on the floor in the lounge, and only have access to the garden. No kitchen. No bedrooms. No hot water.

Then Big Brother asked someone to go to the diary room, and Rodrigo stepped up. He was told that in order to become a housemate, he would have to convince another contestant to let him shave their eyebrows and then draw glasses and a curly moustache on them within four minutes. After the usual shouting over each other, and Rodrigo's broken English, Noirin (25, Retail Manager from Dublin), volunteered, and got herself a place as a housemate too.

What happens next is anyone's guess. And whether I keep watching is another thing. I gave up last year, but loved Celebrity Big Brother at the beginning of this year. We shall see...

For up-to-the-minute news, go to Channel4.com/BigBrother

Oh Brother...

Yep, summer's here, and that means the return of Channel 4's Big Brother. This year there are 16, yes 16, wannabees, I mean, contestants, and to be honest with you, I got fed up with watching them all traipse in after we'd had about half of them.

The surprise thing is how "normal" most of them appear to be, as if the producers have finally given up trying to shoehorn as many "diverse" (ie. irritating) people in there as they can, but it's still early days.

The first four housemates have already been given their first secret mission - the two people that are a couple (Mario and Lisa) have got to pretend they're not a couple, and Mario has to pretend he's having a relationship with Stephanie, a 19 year-old student. If they succeed, they all are saved from the public vote, but if they fail, they face the vote along with their co-conspirator, Luke.... Thyey're bound to screw it up.

Here we go again...!

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