On Thursday of this week I was heading up the M40 on my way to a recording studio in the Midlands. Dean and his band Phony are currently in the middle of recording their first album, and I had been invited up there to interview Dean in a break in their hectic recording schedule.

My main concern as I got closer to my destination was not meeting Dean, or what I was going to say when I did, but whether I was going to be able to find the place at all, as the directions I'd been given the previous night on the phone by Phony's manager Dave were sketchy to say the least.

'It's a little village in the middle of nowhere, I can't remember the address and I'm not sure of the phone number but it's a big house by the church.'

The village in question was actually very close to where I had been brought up as a child and it seemed quite strange, as I got closer to my destination, to be driving passed my old school, my mother's old bungalow and various houses belonging to friends and family without them actually being the reason for my visit. I felt almost guilty about the fact that I hadn't told anyone I was coming up and that I was going to be driving back down to London tonight without seeing any of them, I often get nagged because I don't go up there enough and here was me sneaking there and back without letting anyone know about it.

I got to the village and did a cursory look around to see if I could spot the church, with no spire being immediately in evidence I spent about 10 minutes driving around, but eventually found a very traditional looking parish church with 2 large houses next to it. Which one was it to be?

I took pot luck and drove into the drive of the first one, parked up on the gravel and thought, well, either this is the right house, or I'm about to meet the neighbours. I knocked on the door, it was opened almost straight away and I asked,

'Is this where I can find Dean and Phony?'.

By pure guesswork I had made the right choice and a couple of minutes later Dean had appeared, I was introducing myself and he was asking me if I'd has much trouble finding the place, which, by the way, was a lovely big old house with a large garden, swimming pool and tennis courts, and I was smiling and saying,

'Not at all, no problem.'

We went inside and were soon sitting in the studio itself, Tom, another band member had made me a cup of tea, and we were ready to start the interview.

LEE: Thanks for talking to us.

Dean: You're welcome.

LEE: So, as we're sitting here in the recording studio, would you like to tell us a bit about the album your recording here at the moment?

Dean: Yeah, we're recording it to put out ourselves on our own label.

LEE: So, you've got your own label?

Dean: Yeah, well we're sort of setting it up now, mind you that's not complicated, your own label just means coming up with a name for it and registering it as a business.

LEE: What's the album, going to be called?

Dean: The albums called 'A Lifetime of Listening Enjoyment', which comes from when High Fidelity Recordings first came out, they had this really long spiel on the back about how to take care of your record and how to clean it and all this, and the last line was, 'If you follow these instructions carefully it should provide a lifetime of listening enjoyment', so that's where we got the name from.

LEE: How many tracks are going to be on it?

Dean: Probably about 11 I think, so far we've done 9, so we're doing OK.

LEE: When are you hoping to bring it out?

Dean: No definite date yet. Springtime, Summertime, I mean, being quite cynical, it would be great to coincide it with Big Brother 3 because obviously, with being a Big Brother 2 contestant, you get another lease of life publicity wise when the new show starts.

LEE: Josh said similar, that it had gone fairly quiet and that all of a sudden, as the publicity for BB3 has started to gain momentum, he's getting more offers too.

Dean: So that will happen and I think, marketing-wise we plan to put it out around about that time, maybe just before or just after, and try and obviously win some publicity through that.

LEE: So are you pleased with it at the moment?

Dean: It's sounding really good, yeah. Because we've been doing this like little mini tour before we started recording and when you play live you really get to hone the songs, you work out what works and what doesn't work and you end up with a very definitive version of the song, so that when you come back in the studio and, it sounds daft, but everyone knows exactly what to play, there's no kind of grey areas, everyone's just straight there.

LEE: No it doesn't sound daft, it makes perfect sense. If you've been playing the songs night in and night out for however many weeks, you're obviously gonna know what you're doing with them, aren't you?

Dean: Yeah, I mean obviously all the guys knew the songs, but it's getting really, really, really used to the songs, finding out what's best for the song. But it's sounding really good the album, yeah.

LEE: So you're gonna release a single as well?

Dean: We are yeah, we've trying to work out which one to do at the moment, which one is gonna be the single, there's a kind of inter-band debate about which one it's gonna be.

LEE: I mean the obvious one that a lot of the BB fans were presuming you would, is Deluxe, because it's the one everybody knows from the house.

Dean: Yes. We were thinking that, but it's probably a little bit too laid back as a first single, we'll probably do that as a second one. We want something a little more upbeat and that moves a bit faster.

LEE: What are the possibilities at the moment then?

Dean: Two other ones really. One's called 'Sacrifice' and one's called 'Longhaul', and it's kind of between those two I think. We're arm-wrestling about it at the moment - laughs.

LEE: Laughs - Which one do you want?

Dean: I think 'Sacrifice', because it's a much simpler song, it's very, very straightforward, straight down the line.

LEE: So what are your hopes for the single and the album? How are you gonna market it?

Dean: Well, expectations are quite grounded really, because if you put a record out yourself you don't have to sell that many copies for it to be a success as far as you're concerned, financially. But, if you start with a major record label and you sell 20,000 albums, for example, that's considered a failure, but if you've got your own record label and you sell 20,000 albums that's like buying a house, you know?

LEE: Laughs.

Dean: So our expectations are very, modest I suppose is the word. Obviously if it does well then that's fantastic, but it doesn't have to do fantastically well for it to be worth our while doing another one.

LEE: Yeah, understand. But I mean hopefully with all of the exposure that you've had from Big Brother, if it's marketed well there should be quite a lot of Big Brother fans out there that would buy it. I mean I know most of our forum members would.

Dean: Hopefully.

LEE: That gives you a good starting point doesn't it?

Dean: Yeah, it's nice. I think that the positive thing is gonna be that because I was on Big Brother, when I've released the single it's gonna get played on the radio, which is usually the hardest thing about putting a record out. We've kind of got a bit of a shortcut there because just out of curiosity most stations will play it, and then it's down to the public, which is cool, I mean if the public don't like it and they don't buy it well that's fair enough isn't it but at least they get a chance to hear it this way.

LEE: Yeah exactly, cos if it doesn't get played on the radio most of the listening public won't even know that it exists.

Dean: Exactly yeah, and so they're not even making the choice then, they're just not hearing it. So in that way Big Brother will be a positive thing in that it's given me enough profile to sort of sneak in round the back as far as promotion is concerned.

LEE: How long have Phony been together as a group?

Dean: July 2000. We actually went to New York to play in a friend's bar that he'd just taken over, it's quite a famous venue in New York called 'Arlene's Grocery', we went over there to play, just to have a laugh really, you know 5 days in New York and have a mess around. That's why we called the band Phony, because it wasn't really a band we only put it together to go and do this thing, but then it stuck, we came back and it went so well and we kind of gelled, so we just carried on.

LEE: So you all knew each other before?

Dean: Yeah, the other guys were in a band together and I kind of just nicked them out of that band really as a unit, which made it easier for us to get the set together in time. It must have been about 3 weeks or something that we actually just cobbled a set together to go and play you know.

LEE: Who writes the songs?

Dean: I do mainly. I think on the album there will be one song that we've all written together, but the rest of them are my songs from up to 5 years ago.

LEE: I knew you did a lot of the writing, but I wasn't sure if the other guys were involved as well.

Dean: Yeah, well like I say it's just the one song at the moment because there's such a backlog of songs to go on the album, some of them are 5 years old and we want to get all those out of the way this time. I think on the next album we'll all be writing together.

LEE: So how much time do you put into the band usually? Obviously at the moment it's a lot more because you're recording?

Dean: Yeah, at the moment a lot of time because it's all just ticking deadlines and having the product ready in time to be manufactured and all that kind of thing. At the moment as well the World Cup song with Bubble is another priority, because that's obviously got a deadline, it's gotta happen before May.

LEE: Yeah, I was gonna ask you for an update on that because Bubble was telling me all about that about a month ago, and he was saying then that you hadn't actually got a deal and that you were touting around various labels etc…

Dean: Yeah that's right. We've got a producer that's worked on it now and he has actually re-recorded it for us. He's had a lot of chart success so he's very much in the business and he's taking it round to labels at the moment, so hopefully we'll hear something in the next week or so.

LEE: That would be good, because like you say it's gotta happen fairly soon because of the World Cup start.

Dean: Yeah, it does and again if no-ones interested then I think there's a good chance we'll do that ourselves as well, because once you've got a profile it's all about what you're willing to do with it. If me and Bubble get that record and go and visit every radio station in the UK then it will get played, and then hopefully more people will buy it because it is a good record, so it's just what you're willing to do, how much work you're willing to put into it. We really believe in the record as a football song, because we're both mad football fans we've heard all the football songs that have been in the past, and we know that it stands up as far as a product goes, and it is just a case of getting someone interested and if not just jumping in our car and doing it ourselves.

LEE: Is there anywhere that we can listen to it? I know we can download a reasonable amount of Phony stuff from the Vitaminic site, but one of our forum members was asking if it was gonna be available for download as well.

Dean: It's not at the moment because I think the final re-mastered version was only finished last Wednesday.

LEE: But you are going to put it up?

Dean: When we start the promotions ball rolling properly we'll get it on a website, we'll probably get a new website with our names one and have people accessing it just for that. We do want to whip up a kind of media frenzy about it, because there's gonna be a lot of other World Cup songs and so there'll be stiff competition, I mean even Ant and Dec are gonna be doing one apparently.

LEE: Ooh, are they?

Dean: Yah, so there's gonna be a lot of competition It's really gonna be a case of who's willing to put the most work in and who's willing to promote it hardest.

LEE: I would imagine Bubble's quite good at that sort of thing though.

Dean: Yeah, he's great at that. Josh: Josh described him as a very forceful and persuasive sort of bloke.

Dean: Yeah, he's very good, he will definitely be 'Head of Gab'! - laughs - I'm gonna let him do the talking, to be honest.

LEE: Also on the music front, when you first came out of the house you were immediately told you were going to be playing at the Virgin music festival, V2001, what was that like?

Dean: It was great. It was really exciting.

LEE: I didn't really hear much about it at all afterwards in the press.

Dean: It went out on the radio live, but it was 11:30 in the morning so it was early and the tent wasn't full by any means, but it was great, and I was on just before Nelly Furtado and I was like, you know, 'whey hey this is cool'. Yeah it was great, it was really good. It was nice just to play music again to be honest, it was nice after all the mad things I've been doing and things I wasn't used to, it was nice just to get my guitar and just get on stage.

LEE: It was like getting back to some sort of normality.

Dean: Yeah. I did the 'Party in the Park' in Birmingham as well, and that was like 30,000 people.

LEE: That must have been mad.

Dean: Yeah it was, but the weird thing was I wasn't really nervous because when I get a guitar and stand up and people are looking at me it's like cool because that's what I do, but when people are like just looking at you and just photographing you because you've been sitting in a deckchair sunbathing it doesn't really make any sense.

LEE: People say you should be used to being in front of people because you were on the TV for 9 weeks, but that's different isn't it? There may be millions of people out there but you're not aware of them.

Dean: Yes that's right.

LEE: I'm sure when you first went into the house you must have been reasonably aware of the cameras, but you must also get to a point fairly quickly where you just forget they're there.

Dean: Yeah, very quickly, you simply just don't realise. You know you're being watched, but you push that to the back of your mind, because if you thought about that all the time, 24/7…

LEE: You just wouldn't do anything would you?

Dean: …you'd go out of your mind, probably. If you were that paranoid and introspective all the time and were having to watch your p's and q's, I think the stress would just be too much.

LEE: BUt at the end of the day if you were going to be like that then you wouldn't have applied in the first place.

Dean: Absolutely, you've got to be a bit of a show off and bit of an exhibitionist to go in there in the first place.

LEE: Why did you apply?

Dean: Laughs - I'm a bit of a show off and a bit of an exhibitionist - laughs.

LEE: OK, stupid question!

Dean: I think I needed kind of shaking up to be honest. I needed something to shake me up a bit.

LEE: Was it something you thought of yourself, or did someone suggest it to you?

Dean: I thought of it. When I saw the first series it was very, very strange because I watched it and I just thought 'I should be on that', it wasn't even like 'I could be on it', I felt like it was something I should do. It was like a 'fate' moment and Vanessa she said the same thing, she said when she saw it she just felt like I should be on it, and that's very odd. I don't know why we both felt like that but, there you go.

LEE: Really quite spooky.

Dean: Yeah, very, but I didn't really think about that too much. Once I'd sent the video off then that was it, it's the last proactive thing you do, you send it off as a bit of a laugh and the next thing you know is that you're called to do this and called to do that, and suddenly you're on this kind of roller-coaster and you're like, 'Could I jump off now?'

LEE: At what point did you think, 'I think I'm gonna get in here'.

Dean: It's weird, because I had a feeling from the start I was gonna get in, right until I went to my audition, but then there were so many people jumping around and I was so laid back and sitting there thinking, 'What the bloody hell am I doing here?' it just felt like I wasn't right for this at all. When I came away from that audition I thought 'No, definitely not', I'm not gonna get in at all, but that was my only real doubt period, because when they phoned me back and I started to go to more auditions, I just thought then there's no way they'd be spending all this money making films of me and stuff like that if they're not seriously considering me. So, even though we were only told 5 days before the show we were definitely in, I had been so gearing everything towards being in there I think if I hadn't got in it would have been really, really disappointing.

LEE: Yeah, and I know you said you were looking at all Helens and Brians jumping around at that first interview, but you've got to have a good mix of different types of people for it to be interesting.

Dean: Yeah, you do.

LEE: As funny and entertaining as Helen and Brian were to watch, a whole house full of them would have been an absolute nightmare.

Dean: And it wouldn't have worked, it's just like when Elizabeth went and no-one knew how to turn the cooker on, that's how ridiculous it was, cos I mean Helen and Brian hadn't done any cooking, I hadn't done any cooking…

LEE: Yeah, you did manage to get away with that didn't you?

Dean: Yeah I did - laughs. Mind you in the house people fought over who'd do the cooking, because it was something to do. So I didn't really get a look in to be honest, even if I'd wanted to.

LEE: Yeah one of the things that Josh said was how boring it was in there.

Dean: Phenomenally, yeah.

LEE: So I suppose cooking was just something to do.

Dean: Anything to be honest, I mean I was quite into cleaning which, well you could ask Vanessa, I'm simply not - laughs. But in there you do things like that, like all the stuff with cutting the grass and everything.

LEE: Oh yeah, they made a big thing out of that didn't they.

Dean: Yeah and you know it's not me, it's just that when you get someone and you lock them up with nothing to do they're gonna find something, they're gonna make anything interesting - laughs - I mean you'd make washing your sheets interesting because you were so bored. That was one of the hardest things the boredom, people watching didn't realise, even people who watched a lot of the live coverage could dip in and out when they wanted to, we couldn't. All the people who said, 'All you ever did was sit in a deck chair', but that was all there was to do, it wasn't like, oh I'll think I'll go and watch some TV or go to the spa. That's all there was to do in there, it was very, very, very boring.

LEE: Even though they gave you a certain amount of things to do, tasks etc, that is only a very small percentage of the total amount of time you are in there.

Dean: A tiny percentage.

LEE: Most of the time you're just there with nothing to do, I don't think I could do it.

Dean: There's not many people who can appreciate what that's like, people who've been in Jail would be able to, maybe people who work on oil rigs might do but even then not really. There were times when I just wanted to do a days work, I would have loved to have done anything, sweep the roads, anything! I wanted to do something because I was thinking, 'God, I'm just wasting away'. That was why I had my little fit when I was just 'Whaaaaahhh'! It was just the tedium you know, it was the combination of nothing to do physically and then nothing to talk about.

LEE: To find new things to talk about you need new input, after you've had all the getting to know you type conversations it must have been quite difficult.

Dean: And with most of the people in that house, like Brian, Helen, Amma, Paul, their scope of interest was really narrow, so once you'd had 6 weeks of talking about cars with Paul, being an air steward with Brian, glitter with Helen, you've exhausted those topics of conversation completely. It was like that apart from Elizabeth there was no-one I could talk to about anything, I felt like my brain was just gonna explode with no input, I was just like you know, aaaargh, kill a chicken or something! I think that for a lot of people watching that outburst it didn't really make any sense, here's this laid back guy and he's just gone mad at everyone and said everyone's stupid and gone a bit crazy you know. But for me watching it back afterwards, it made perfect sense, the pressure was getting to me around about then and that was how I snapped.

LEE: What did you think of the fact that you were tagged as boring?

Dean: I was amazed, I've got to admit. I think I'm old enough to know myself, I know what my bad points are and I know what my good points are, and I thought I'd be seen as, 'oh, he's always moaning'. I thought it'd be, he's the moaner, he's the winger, moaning about tasks, moaning about how much we've bet, moaning about everything. And I do you know, so that would have been so fair, there'd have been nothing I could have said about that at all.

LEE: And, don't take this the wrong way cos I'm from a Brummie family too, but there's something about the Birmingham accent that can sound incredibly moany - Laughs.

Dean: Yeah, it totally, gives that impression, and there's something about the Birmingham sensibility as well that's like, 'it's all crap ere' - Dean says this in a very exaggerated Brummie drawl - and you don't really mean it, we're just having a laugh. Like Tony Hancock, you always look on the negative side but you're only really joking, and I think the rest of the country don't really get that sense of humour, they think you're being more literal than you are. When I came out and I was walking across the bridge Vanessa just whispered in my ear before I had my interview, and thank god she did, that I'd been perceived as boring when I was in the house, and when she said it I was just thinking, 'Me, boring!!' - Laughs. It was incredible really, my friends, everyone who knows me just couldn't get their heads around it at all. But I think I think that you lived and died by one mistake, one thing you did. I saw back as well when I went into the diary room and asked for the nut to fix the lawnmower, and you know I was taking the piss, I was going, 'that would be really great for me', but I wasn't serious!!

LEE: But they took you as serious, or at least they chose to portray you as being serious.

Dean: Yeah they did, and I think in the house, once you'd been seen as one thing or another they kind of reinforced it, they'd pick stuff specially. They'd pick a shot of Dean being boring, pick a shot of Brian being funny, pick a shot of Stuart being a bit spiteful, and you know they'd started looking for it then because they needed to fill the character they'd adopted for you.

LEE: At least there was E4 this year, a lot of people didn't have to just rely on the edited shows.

Dean: Yeah, that definitely helped.

LEE: However, there is still a 20 minute time delay, so they could still be selective to a certain extent.

Dean: Yeah, they can, but I meet people who watched E4 who get where I'm coming from and I mean people who didn't and they don't really get me at all.

LEE: I think if I'd have only seen the Channel 4 shows I would have had a completely different perception of, not just you, but most of the other housemates as well.

Dean: Yeah, you're probably right.

LEE: Actually I don't think I'd have really got into the show much at all if it wasn't for E4, I certainly didn't with BB1. I said this to both Bubble and Josh, but I was doing a lot of work from home over the summer and I had it on in the background and it was almost like living it with you.

Dean: Yes, cos you're there aren't you, you get a feel of it, you get a sense of the pace of life in there. You also get a sense of conversations that happen that aren't sensational, because they're gonna choose to show conversations where something happened, where it was loud or entertaining, whereas you can get a real sense of someone by the ten little conversations they have, not the big argument they have, because that's not real life is it?

LEE: But it makes good television.

Dean: Exactly, so that's what they show. But I think people who watched E4 would have had a much better idea of the personalities of the people in there, and that like every 3 dimensional human being in the world there's good and bad in everyone.

LEE: How much of it have you watched?

Dean: I've watched all the Channel 4 edited shows, I think I had to because I was so confused as to what happened that I had to watch it all and work out what had happened as far as the nation was concerned.

LEE: You're the first person I've spoken to who's said that. Bubble has watched a bit but not much and Josh actually said that he didn't want to watch it at all, he's got loads of tapes but he's just boxed them up and put them away, he said he might watch them in 10 years time, but he's not interested at all now.

Dean: Really! No, for me it was absolutely essential, because it was so apparent that what had happened in the house was one thing, and what the public had thought had happened in the house was another thing. It was so apparent I had to watch it, and as I was watching it I was going, 'Oh, I see, oh right, OK, that makes sense.' I did that right away when I first was so amazed at being labelled boring, and I think at the press conference I tried to dispelled that straight away, but you know it's really quite simple to dispel that kind of tag and I think I got off quite lightly really, because that's an easy one to dispel, but when I was watching like how Josh was portrayed and Stuart and I was thinking god imagine how hard it was for them I know how hard it was for me to try and dispel false impressions of you.

LEE: You haven't had a great deal of bad press since have you?

Dean: I haven't had any at all really. I mean to be honest when I came out, I got married virtually straight away so that was the next big thing that happened and that was all really, really positive, and heat magazine were fantastic, they were really, really good.

LEE: Yeah, I saw all the spread in heat.

Dean: It was handled with just the right amount of tongue in cheek and it was a laugh, it was fantastic the way they did it. We'd talked to 'OK' and 'Hello' but they were all really quite stuffy and serious and we thought we just can't do this seriously because it's not serious. Having your wedding in a magazine is just not a serious thing.

LEE: Laughs, yeah I suppose if you've had years and years of a celebrity life to get used to it, it might be, but to have that thrust on you…

Dean: …from nowhere…

LEE: … you come back out in the real world and then all of a sudden all of the world wants to know who you are….

Dean: And plus of course you know you're really opening yourself up then for the kind of criticism and you could believe your own hype and think you're a celebrity. We just did it tongue in cheek and thought it would be great for someone to pay for the wedding, that's fantastic, who wouldn't do that if they could.

LEE: And I don't blame you for that at all.

Dean: We still wanted to do it within our framework you know, of how we are, and I think it worked which was good.

LEE: Heat has always done a lot of positive BB coverage anyway so I suppose that was another good reason for choosing them.

Dean: Yeah it was, they were very behind the show. Yeah, the wedding has been the only real press I've had, there hasn't been really anything bad about me at all.

LEE: Yeah, with both Bubble and Josh I'd asked them what the worse thing they'd seen written about themselves, but there's really been nothing much about you at all.

Dean: Not since I came out no. I suppose the music thing has been the only sort of press I've had really, which is great because that's what I do.

LEE: Yeah and the music has taken up a lot of your time since you've been out anyway, now with the album and before with the gigs.

Dean: Yeah, absolutely and you know that's cool, I don't mind. It's not that I don't want to be a celebrity, there's nothing wrong with being a celebrity, but I don't want to be the kind of celebrity who can't escape from it, and who can't step back and say, 'OK, I don't want the paparazzi taking my picture'.
LEE: Do you mind people coming up to you in the street and saying stuff like, 'Hey are you that guy out of Big Brother?'

Dean: No I don't, not at all.

LEE: Do you still get it a lot?

Dean: Yeah I do, I still get it a lot, you get it everywhere, I think that's there for the duration. But it's like if I said to you, 'do you mind meeting new people?' I like meeting the ones I like, and the one's I don't like I don't like meeting. Sometimes when they come up to you they're lovely, they're funny, they're great, they watched the show and they got where you're coming from and they're fans of the show which is fair enough, and sometimes you just get complete idiots.

LEE: Well like you say it's just like meeting people in real life, sometimes you meet really nice people and sometimes you just meet complete prats.

Dean: Yeah, and that's it. I know a lot of other people out of Big Brother are afraid of saying in public that you meet people like that, but you do, I'm not gonna say that everyone you meet is great cos they're not, sometimes it's just like, 'Get a Life, you know!'…

LEE: Yeah.

Dean: …and people who are drunk as well, which never helps, you're out having a drink and as soon as people get drunk they're all, 'Yyyyyehhh!' and stuff like that, you walk into a bar to chat and it's, 'Deano, Deano,' for about 10 minutes and it's great really because they're behind you, but what do you do then? What do you say?

LEE: You just sit there with this grin on your face, I guess, feeling a bit of a prat.

Dean: Yeah exactly, with 30 blokes going 'Yyyyyehhh!' at your side. You buy 'em all a drink I suppose, but those are the parts of it that are difficult and hard to deal with because we've had no training. People say well you knew what you were going into, you should have known what to expect, you should have known what it would be like, but you didn't know what it would be like. You knew you'd be recognised, you knew you'd be more well known than you were before, but you had no idea what that meant.

LEE: And this notoriety, it does seem to have been far more long lasting this year. Maybe it's just because I didn't really watch BB1 and so I never noticed it, but there didn't seem to be anywhere near as much hype after that finished and, with a couple of minor exceptions, the housemates went back in obscurity far quicker. The recognition stage seems to have lasted far longer for you lot.

Dean: Yeah, the people going into BB2 in the first place were people who knew it would be successful, mind you we had kinda talked ourselves out of that while we were in the house, we though that it would probably be, well, that they'd hate us, that it was gonna be like a pale sequel you know, that's how you thought because it was so quiet in there you couldn't believe that anything was happening outside.

LEE: So while you were in there you all thought it was gonna flop?

Dean: Well we definitely thought it might do, but I still think that the people who went into BB2, they knew that you were more likely to be well known and famous when you came out, so immediately I think it attracted more people like that, and I think they chose more, what's the right word, more 'extraordinary' people for the second one. There were a few characters in the first one who could easily just fade away because they were so ordinary, in this house it was different, Penny, Amma, anyone you name really, weren't just ordinary people. There weren't really that many ordinary people in there, they were all extraordinary in a certain way, and I think they were all ambitious, all thinking, 'When I go in there I'll do this, and when I get my notoriety and get my profile then I'll do that.' So I think everybody went in with a plan, I mean even I had that plan, I was always gonna do music full stop, so I'm thinking, if I do get into Big Brother when I come out it can only really help that.

LEE: Like we were saying before it gives you more of a profile.

Dean: Yeah, but I mean if you're talentless it's not gonna make you successful, but if you think you've got some talent and you've not been recognised…

LEE: It gives you a higher platform to start from.

Dean: Exactly, just gives you a starting point. So I think it attracts people like that in the first place, so I think there's more chance of people from BB2 going on to do stuff cos they knew what to expect.

LEE: Do you think BB3 will be successful?

Dean: I don't know, but I don't see why not to be honest.

LEE: Yeah, I mean the obvious thing is that it does depend on the people they select.

Dean: Yes, that's the trick isn't it? I think for me what they should do is stick to the formula which works, which is ten people in the house, and concentrate on that.

LEE: We've had all these rumours of weird and wonderful formats, all these stupid odd things they're thinking of doing this time around.

Dean: I think they've just got to go for the format that they know works, people like watching other people. That's all it is. And then you've got to pick 10 people that compliment each other and let them get on with it and see what happens. They need to have some faith in the people as opposed to trying to edit them to fit some sort of role.

LEE: And you think they did that?

Dean: I think it was very apparent, I mean it was apparent to me when I was first in there, that Brian was so extraordinary, I didn't think he'd win because I didn't think the public would vote for a gay man, but that's my stupid prejudice cos I got it wrong and the public did vote for him, so it's me underestimating the public really, but he's so extraordinary, such a television friendly character it was unbelievable, but I still feel that he was edited to be made to look even better, to look funnier than everyone else. In the house there were some really funny people, Naz was really funny, but she was seen as a bitch so they cast her in the bitch role, Stu was funny, he made us all laugh loads of times but they never showed that, and I feel that they put all their eggs in one basket in a way which made it much less good TV towards the end. But because it was obvious that Brian was going to win, cos until Helen had the thing with Paul she was nowhere in the picture, I can just imagine the production team panicking going, 'Hang on a minute, we've got this one guy who's gonna win it easily, what's the point of carrying on for the last how ever many weeks'. So I think what they should do is show a much broader base and have 5 people who, from their portrayals, potentially could win it.

LEE: So you're saying that they shot themselves in the foot really, because they had made Brian so popular and it was so obvious he was gonna win, it made the show more boring in the final stages?

Dean: It's like with me, they portrayed me as boring, so in the last two weeks they can't suddenly go, well actually he's quite interesting and funny, we'll show him being funny now, but oh no, we've cast him as the boring one so we can't. So I think that they did cut their odds down in a quite negative way, I think they need to give everyone a fair crack at it and whoever is funny in the house show all of them fairly, don't pick someone to be the comedian, someone to be the grump, someone to be the bitch etc… People aren't like that, people have got all these different facets.

LEE: Everyone's a bit of everything.

Dean: Yeah, and I think if they've learnt anything from BB2, they should have learnt that. With BB3 put 10 people in there and let them all have a fair go at getting their personality across, the public aren't mugs, you know, if they see someone who's really funny and they don't like them they won't win the show, but you'll still have some good TV while they're being funny, do you know what I mean?

LEE: Were you surprised that you lasted in there for as long as you did?

Dean: I wasn't that surprised really, I mean that may sound a bit conceited, but I knew I got on with everyone in there. When you're in there you really know if you get on with people and I knew I didn't rub anyone up the wrong way, and in that house there's always someone who is gonna rub someone else up the wrong way. You can see people not getting on and little cliques forming, niches being filled and alliances being made. I never really saw myself in the frame for being nominated from inside the house, but that didn't really matter because at the end of the day the public were gonna vote.

LEE: Yeah, but the public can only vote if you're nominated in the first place.

Dean: True, but in retrospect I could have quite happily gone out in week six because I knew I wasn't gonna win, so you kinda think well I could save myself three weeks, I can get out early, which I would have quite liked.

LEE: Yeah, but once you're there surely you want to finish it? If it was me, part of me would want to go but an equal part of me would want to stay in there for as long as possible.

Dean: You're absolutely right, cos that's exactly what it was for me. You did want to get to the end, you felt that if you had got to the end, the last day, you had achieved something, which you had you know.

LEE: Definitely

Dean: It was a real test, but like I say, in retrospect, if I could go back now, I would have just gone straight over the wall without a doubt, well probably week seven, I'd have just strapped my guitar on my back and just climbed over, it would have been good fun.

LEE: If you knew what you know now, would you have gone in there in the first place?

Dean: I don't know at the moment, I must admit I'm not sure, I'd have to wait and see what the tangible gains are. Personally it's been good for me character wise, and finding out something about myself was the main reason for going in there really, to put yourself in a position that you don't normally put yourself in, because at my age my life's so organised and so controlled, I don't speak to anyone I don't want to, I don't do anything I don't want to do, generally when you get to your mid 30's you've sorted yourself out, you're in this neat groove. There were no tests in my life, and I thought it would be a really good test, and it was as far as that went, but it also caused a lot of pain, a lot of pain for Vanessa, and it did distress my family. The press weren't very good.

LEE: So Vanessa was having a hard time while you were in the house?

Dean: Yeah very. Just lots of digging up things from your past, and the press knocking on your door with various headlines saying, 'What do you think about this?' She's a much more private person than me and so she didn't like that. So there's been a good and a bad side to it, but I think that, at the end of the day, if the World Cup song is a big hit, and the music becomes successful and we make a load of money and we can be sitting on a beach in Barbados in two years time, it might seem worth it. Laughs.

LEE: Well, I tell you what, if you get there I'll come and do a follow up interview on that beach! Laughs.

Dean: Yeah, I definitely think you should do a follow up interview then. Laughs.

LEE: You just mentioned the World Cup song again, and it reminded me of a question one of our forum members wanted me to ask you.

Dean: Oh, yeah.

LEE: You're a big Birmingham City fan. Since coming out of the house have you got to go out on the pitch?

Dean: Yeah, I did get on the pitch, it was at the first home game against Millwall. It was fab! Laughs.

LEE: So you got to meet the players? Bubble was telling me about how he felt after he met all of the Chelsea team.

Dean: Yeah I did, I went training with the lads and, I don't know whether you heard about this at all, but I was there when Darren Purse was messing around and broke his arm, I was there at the training ground.

LEE: Great, cos Bubble's landed this Chelsea TV job hasn't he?

Dean: Yeah, but I should be doing some live commentary with Tim Ross at BRMB soon as well. Dream stuff let me tell you. Laughs.

LEE: Getting back to what you were saying before, you said you went into the house to try and learn about yourself. What did you learn about yourself?

Dean: I learnt that I was boring - laughs. No, I learnt that I was better at getting on with people and that I was more tolerant than I thought I was. Normally I don't suffer fools generally on the outside, but I did have to suffer situations in there that I simply would not have tolerated out here, I'd have just walked away and said 'I can't handle that', so I was quite pleased with myself as far as that went. I also feel like I've satisfied a certain kind of desire for celebrity, for being well known. I've been in bands for years and you always think you're gonna make it, so I kinda think I've satisfied a bit of that. It makes complete nonsense out of the fame thing as well and that is good, because you think, oh it means nothing to me now, there's absolutely no point in pursuing those shallow transient image things, it should all be about the reality and what you're like and what your family are about and stuff like that.

LEE: Another thing I've been asked to ask you is if there was anything you wish you could have kept from the house as a momento?

Dean: A chicken! Laughs.

LEE: Laughs. What for Sunday Dinner?

Dean: Absolutely. I could have chopped its head off! Let's think, from the house? I mean I loved all the decking and you know that would be fantastic if I could have ripped that up and stuck it in my house, and those patio doors were cool as well, they must have cost about 3 grand - laughs. It's a shame they knocked it all down now didn't they.

LEE: What about things you made, things like the sculpture etc… Something specific that held a memory for you,something that looking back you might think, I wish I still had that.

Dean: The painting was good, I liked the painting, and of course the sugar cube tower!

LEE: Of course!

Dean: The sugar cube tower yeah, it would have to be wouldn't it, if I could have stuck it together! In fact I wonder whether I could have just poured hot water over it or something and it would have got sticky, and maybe it would have become one thing and I could have kept it.

LEE: Your big achievement in the house. Laughs.

Dean: Yeah, that's it! Laughs. It's great though, I've got the certificate on the wall, it still makes me laugh to think I'm in the Guinness Book of Records, it's funny, really funny.

LEE: Another question from the site, something I was actually asked to ask Josh but I thought it was a good question so I'd ask you as well. If you had to sum Big Brother up in three words what would those words be?

Dean: Ooh blimey, that's hard.

LEE: Yeah, makes you think.

Dean: Gosh that is hard. - Long Pause. OK, Big Brother's like an 'amplified reality microcosm!' There you go!

LEE: Laughs. That's three very long words!

Dean: Yeah, it is. Laughs. But it was very much like your life, and everything you go through, all the ups and downs, in a tiny little framework but really, really intense. If you laugh it's hilarious, if you cry it's heartbreaking. It's real extremes.

LEE: Very intense.

Dean: Very, very intense yeah, and hard work! I mean I've had people phone up who are thinking of applying, asking for advice and you just think, god you really don't know what it's about. Most people don't think, they just go in blind. You really have to think about it, because it's very stressful, it's not just the coming out and what happens to you then, but actually being in there can be really, really stressful because it is really hard, and if you've got anything about your personality that you're not sure of, any kind of chink in your armour it's gonna be exposed, it will be, there's no question about that.

LEE: And not everyone did cope well, I think Penny was a very good example of that.

Dean: I think she had insecurities that she had to deal with that she hadn't dealt with before. That's the point.

LEE: And that sort of hothouse atmosphere brings anything like that out.

Dean: Absolutely. There's no escape from it you know. You've got to be prepared to bare your soul and prepared to be judged by the nation, and, not only that but be prepared to be edited before you get judged by the nation. That's the interesting part you know, it's not just them watching you every day and getting an unbiased and total view of you, you've got to go through this filter first.

LEE: They see Endemol's view of you.

Dean: Exactly yeah, and it is, and that's the bit where the control is out of your hands because ultimately whatever you are in there, at the end of the day you can come out and be totally misunderstood, that's the scary bit I think.

LEE: It must be really difficult knowing you're not in control of something like that.

Dean: Absolutely, but then that's part of the test as well, well for me it was. I'm always in control in my life and part of the test was giving up that control and surrendering it and seeing how you cope.

LEE: Going back to our music conversation of earlier, who would you say your main influences have been musically. Who do you listen to?

Dean: This will sound like a bit of a cop out, but it's so eclectic, it's so wide you know, it's everyone, it's like Louis Armstrong to Punk!

LEE: So there was nobody, however many years ago, that you listened to and you thought, I want to be a musician because of that person.

Dean: No, I've just always liked Music. My mum used to play Country and Western and I used to like that, my sisters used to play Stevie Wonder and Motown and Funk and I used to like that, and then I got into Punk when I was 14. It's literally you know from Jazz to Death Metal.

LEE: So, what are you listening to now?

Dean: At the moment that new Strokes album I really like, that's good, I like the Foo Fighters, I like some of Lincoln Park and Alien Ant Farm and those kind of rocky American things, cos they're always quite musical, which I like, the melodies are always there and the songs are always there. Yeah, and then my back catalogue on my computer, I've just like got my Juke Box set up with all these genres and mix 'em up you know and play 'Stardust' by Louis Armstrong and then, god knows, whatever! That's how I like it.

LEE: One of the forum members said that she was listening to you playing on the night of the dinner dates and that there were two people who sprung to mind that you reminded her of, one was James Taylor and Cat Stephens. What do you think of that comparison?

Dean: Oh Yeah, both of those, cool. Yeah, very cool.

LEE: She said to say that and see whether he goes 'Oh My God!! No not them!!' Laughs.

Dean: Laughs. But then that wouldn't happen with me, cos anyone who's good you know, it doesn't matter what genre it is, anyone who brings a certain something to it and is sincere I'd think 'Great'. I mean I think James Taylor writes some great songs, really, really good songs and I like Leonard Cohen, I really like Leonard Cohen, anyone like that who can sit down with a guitar and entertain you just on their own, when the song is absolute paramount, I'm very impressed with people like that.

LEE: Sorry to keep changing subject, but I'm just flicking through some of the questions that have come in. Do you think 70k is enough prize money for Big Brother?

Dean: No it's not.

LEE: For giving up 9 weeks of your life to public scrutiny.

Dean: Definitely not, no. I mean a million pound for Survivor is fair enough cos they were eating grubs and whatever, which you think, 'Bloody hell you really have earned that'. But no 70k, it's very stingy.

LEE: Still I suppose it is a lot of money to someone like Bubble who hadn't been on a huge salary. 70k can sound like a lot of money.

Dean: But it's not considering what you put yourself through, and it's more than that, it's what the show earns, the revenue that it generates, it must be an absolute mint.

LEE: Yeah, it must be a phenomenal amount.

Dean: So if you think of it that way, it's very stingy. But they are quite famously stingy, it's just the way they go.

LEE: What do you think would be a fair amount?

Dean: I think 250,000 that would be more like it.

LEE: Yeah, that's about the figure I would have said.

Dean: And I think, and this is not just cos I finished third, I think that anyone who gets to the final day deserves something. I think it should be staggered, I mean, Helen was in the house one hour shorter that Brian, you know what I mean. If you've endured the same amount of time, the same amount of scrutiny, you've been there as long, I don't think that's particularly fair.

LEE: I agree, shades of Anne Robinson, 'You are the weakest link, goodbye', where only the last person gets anything.

Dean: Yeah absolutely, and it's not like you're trying to outdo each other in there, cos you're not.

LEE: Well certainly by the time you get to that stage you're not.

Dean: Oh no, not at all.

Dean: When you first go in maybe you are trying more, and are a little bit more wary of the others, but by the time you get to the end you know each other so well, you've been through so much together…

Dean: Yeah exactly, by that stage it's not about trying to outdo someone to win a prize. I think several prizes would be fair, and to be honest I think it should stagger all the way down, I mean everyone should get something who leaves. You got into the house and they chose you from 58,000 people, you should get something for being there, even if it's like the first person out gets a grand and it goes like that, it'd be fairer, because you do go through a lot. Everyone looks at the show and thinks it's a bit of a laugh, you're sitting round in a deckchair all day long, but you go through so many emotions in there, you go through so many highs and lows, so you would earn every penny that you got.

LEE: It's not as easy as it looks.

Dean: It really isn't, no, it's not easy at all.

Dean: Like I said before, I don't think I could do it.

Dean: I meet lots of people who say that, and I'm sure they're right, you have to be very, very confident about doing it before you do it and even then I think you get your confidence shaken. I did, I was like, 'Yeah, yeah, I'll do it, yeah, no problem,' but six weeks in I was like, 'I don't know, I don't know if I can stay in here.'

LEE: Yeah, you said earlier that you nearly walked that week.

Dean: Yeah, that was the one. That was when I felt like going, I really did. When Bubble went, for me it was like, god, that was really the only person who I had connected with completely, we really, really understood each other. Everyone else, even Brian who I got on with famously, and Elizabeth, they didn't really know me I couldn't really relax totally with them, you're always making concessions. But with Bubble there were no concessions, I could just say 'blah' and he'd know exactly what I meant, so when he went it really felt like a big chunk had gone and it got a lot harder for me from then on.

LEE: Most of you seemed to think there was a very big hole when he left.

Dean: Yeah there was, and I mean no offence to Paul Clarke, but I just couldn't believe it when it happened, I was shocked, I think it was plain to see on the TV, for a moment I was just like, 'How can you go?' And then, as well, you got a very weird perception of what was going on outside, so you were thinking if they wanted Paul to stay and Bubble to go, well what do they want then? You're thinking obviously I'm gonna go next, cos I'm much more like Bubble than Paul, you're thinking, I'm not gonna win this show, you can't choose Paul over Bubble and then choose me over Paul, it won't happen, it didn't make any sense. Me and Brian, we were saying that when that happened it all got very, very, very confusing for us.

LEE: You said earlier that as mush as you liked Brian, you didn't actually think he was going to win. Who did you think would win?

Dean: Well to be honest I thought Bubble for a long time, I thought he would have a very good chance. I thought it would be between Bubble and Brian, I didn't really see Helen winning, but then as time went on you kinda thought, god she's just so endearing, she's so simple and so honest and so innocent, that you think, that's gonna be appealing to people. When it was between Helen and Brian, I did think Helen would win it.

LEE: Really?

Dean: Yeah, yeah, I did definitely. Not when I came out and saw all the banners and stuff though, I thought bloody hell!

LEE: Was it a bit of a culture shock when you came out?

Dean: Oh totally, it was like, what on earth's happened? Where have I landed? It was very, very bizarre. And it was bizarre sitting in that audience watching the big screens and watching Brain in there thinking, wow, Brian's famous, and then I had to suddenly think, now that's how people see me as well, that's how people see all of us! That was bizarre.

LEE: Of course, because you came out right on the last day, you wouldn't have had chance to see any live coverage before the final, no time to get used to the phenomenon.

Dean: No.

LEE: At least people who had come out in the earlier weeks would have been able to have watched it, and would have had time to get some sort of perception of it. Would you have liked to have been able to do that?

Dean: I think I would have actually, that would have been quite good, you would have got the whole rounded experience. But I think in a way I came out at absolutely the best time, because there was so much attention on Brian and Helen that I was kinda overlooked, which just suited me, really suited me.

LEE: You could slope back off to reality quietly.

Dean: Yeah, I kinda sneaked out through the back door you know, which is cool. I wouldn't have liked all that attention, that would just have been too much, holed up in a hotel room with cameramen outside, no that's not for me really.

LEE: We've talked about what's happened in you past and what happened in Big Brother, what do you think is gonna happen over the next few years? Do you think you'll still be recognised as Dean from Big Brother?

Dean: I think it depends on what you do.

LEE: In ten year's time where's Dean gonna be?

Dean: Where am I gonna be? I don't know, it's hard to say, but you talk about being recognised, it's like Ant and Dec, now they were in Byker Grove and I'm sure now most people don't go Ant and Dec from Byker Grove, it's just Ant and Dec now, so you can make it whatever you want I think, it depends on whatever you then go on to do. Ten years time, I don't know, I'll be retired and on that beach hopefully.

LEE: What about this time next year?

Dean: This time next year will be, let's think, onto our next album would be good, having been to the World Cup in Japan and had a hit with 'Standing Tall', our World Cup song. Yeah, that'll do. It would be nice to get some of these TV ideas off the ground as well.

LEE: Yeah, I saw the mention on your website of possible TV things coming up? What are they? Can you tell us?

Dean: One will be covering the World Cup with Bubble. I'm not sure if that's gonna happen the way we want it to at the moment, but the plan is that we're gonna go over there and maybe do a video diary type of thing.

LEE: Who would that be for?

Dean: Well I think we're gonna make that ourselves. We've given the idea out to a few people but they don't seem to quite get it at the moment. I think it might be quite expensive to do as well, to have sort of live coverage from Japan all the time, so I think we'll probably do that ourselves. Another thing I'm doing is 'Celebrity Jogging'.

LEE: Laughs, that sounds like a wind up!!

Dean: No, just a very silly TV idea, it's a bit of a joke, I kinda just take people jogging, famous people, and talk to them, and that's it. Find out what they're about.

Dean: OK, then, who's that for?

Dean: Again, I'm doing that with Dave, Dave works in TV. (Dave is David Harpham, Phony's manager).

LEE: Yeah he was telling me about his work the other day, he does video production doesn't he?

Dean: Yeah. So we're doing that together and we're gonna try and flog it to someone. I thought it would be ideal for a breakfast show or something, a 10 minute slot, we've got Chris Moyles lined up for the pilot.

LEE: Chris Moyles jogging would be funny

Dean: But he does, he goes running. I was thinking you'd want Christopher Biggins or somebody like that who doesn't go jogging, just doesn't stay fit. But seriously, I've got a few other people I'm talking to about actually doing the show, and it's just talking to people really and the jogging part's just a bit of a laugh, cos you know everyone knows that they should do exercise but know one does.

LEE: Yeah, like I've been saying I'm going back to the gym for about the last 2 years and it never really happens.

Dean: Laughs. Yeah, well the idea is just to go around and grab them out of their house and say, 'Come on, come and do some running with me and tell me what you're about'. So that's one show we're thinking about and then there's one that's kinda linked to the website a bit, about guys proposing to girlfriends.

LEE: How's the website going?

Dean: It's going good yeah, it's just been re-designed.

LEE: Yeah we saw, we were commenting on the site that it was looking good.

Dean: Yeah, nice one, thanks. I'm gonna employ someone to start managing it soon because I haven't really got the time to do that.

LEE: So it's busy then, you get a lot of business through it?

Dean: Yeah, we get lots of hits. I think it's always there you know, I think the people who use it as a service will always use it and they'll keep coming back to use it cos it does what it says on the tin. Laughs.

LEE: It's a good idea, and I remember the very first time I looked at it last year I thought it was very funny, I was sitting at my desk in the office giggling away, getting some very funny looks.

Dean: Cool, thank you, yeah. I wanted to make it funny. With most blokes we reckon it's four times a year they're gonna be there, Valentine's, Birthday, Anniversary, Christmas. If we get those hits and we get enough people that should be fine.

LEE: You don't sell anything from the site do you? I presume the revenue is commission based?

Dean: Yeah, commissions, affiliates and advertising.

LEE: Another question from the site for you. When you were in the house you were talking with Brian about how you would both like to go over to the Third World to bring awareness of the needs of the people over there.

Dean: Yeah, I've got a date. I'm doing that in April.

LEE: Really, that's great. I was about to ask if that was something you were serious about.

Dean: I'm going to Western Sahara, which is near Algeria. I'm delivering toys with these people called 'Rainbow Rovers' who've been collecting the toys. We're going over and it's going to be filmed. It's a real travesty, these people are in the desert, they were refugees from a war in 1974 in the country of Western Sahara, and they were given sanctuary in Algeria where there are refugee camps, and they've been there for 25, nearly 30 years now. There's no armed struggle now, they're not fighting to get their homeland back but Morocco have invaded Western Sahara and are there as occupiers, so these people just live in the desert and there's like 150,000 of them and they've got no proper homes. They're all living in these camps and they've been there for 30 years, there are people of say, 25, who've never ever seen where they come from.

LEE: It's difficult to imagine that.

Dean: It is isn't it? And the worst thing is because they're not violent, because they just get on with it, the world just ignores them and they're not getting any sort of publicity.

LEE: They get overlooked.

Dean: And they've really got there stuff together, they're like 98% literate, they're really organised, but the fact of the matter is they're not in their own country, which is where they should be. I'm going over there through 'War on Want', the charity, that's who I do most of my stuff for. And I am gonna phone Brian and see if he is still into coming, I'm sure he won't be able to because he's just so busy with his commitments and stuff. I'll make him feel crap if he doesn't come though - laughs!! April the 20th I think we're going.

LEE: Talking about Brian, have you seen him on SM:tv?

Dean: Laughs, No!! I just do not get up that early! I've never seen him but I've heard he's really good though, so I'm sure he is.

LEE: I've watched a few of them and even though he was quite nervy at first, he just looks as though he's been doing it for ever now.

Dean: Of course. That's just Brian though isn't it? That's what he's supposed to be doing.

LEE: Yeah, an ideal sort of job for him where he can just behave naturally, just be Brian.

Dean: Absolutely. It's not long before the Brian Show will be on for real. I mean, we always talked about that in the house, that we were in the 'Brian Show', and I suppose the reality was that we were in the Brian show. Yeah, fair play to Brian, I mean he so totally deserves to do that, and that's what it's about, that's what he's good at. I mean, I just can't imagine him being an air steward, just wasted doing something like that. Not that that's a bad job, but you know a character like Brian should be doing what he's doing now, working on TV, making a show of himself.

LEE: Who have you seen most since you've left the house?

Dean: I've seen a lot of Bubble and a fair bit of Josh and Stuart, but I've seen everyone.

LEE: I remember reading on your website that you hadn't seen much of Elizabeth and that surprised me because you'd always been seen as being quite close to her while you were in the house.

Dean: Yeah, that was like a popular misconception really. Me and Elizabeth got on in the house, but then I think we had to get on in the there because we were two people who, as the numbers dwindled, were always gonna get on on a certain grown up level, cos we were kind of the only grown ups in there towards the end.

LEE: Yeah, it was quite funny in the last week when it was definitely like the two parents and the two children.

Dean: It just simply was though, wasn't it? But I think we've both realised that on the outside we're not really that similar, we don't move in the same sort of circles, we don't have the same interests and we're not the same sort of people. It shows you know, cos I meet Bubble and we're doing stuff together and that's who I see most by a long way, then possibly Stuart I see next, then Josh and really they're the people I've got more in common with and Elizabeth really wouldn't feature in that. For example, I don't know what we'd do, if we said, 'let's go out somewhere', I don't know where we'd go, because (gesturing with his hands to the two far corners of the room) she'd probably want to go there and I'd want to go there. But when you're in a house like that you form alliances to survive and I think that's very much what both of us did. It's certainly what Brian and Elizabeth did, because I mean they didn't really get on but they both knew that I got on with both of them and through me they had to get on. It's a very artificial social setting because you are doing things that on the outside you simply wouldn't do. You'd meet someone on the outside and you'd go 'I've got nothing in common with you, Goodbye.'

LEE: Even though the whole concept is called 'Reality TV', it's actually about as far moved from reality as you can possibly get.

Dean: Absolutely, true Reality TV would be just filming someone going about their day to day life, all the time, but without them knowing. This is more 'Surreality TV' isn't it really?

LEE: I like that phrase.

Dean: I was thinking of writing a book actually, and I might call it that. I'm talking with some literary agents at the moment.

LEE: Really?

Dean: Yeah, just about writing a book about what happened, because it's such as extraordinary thing.

LEE: Have you done any writing before?

Dean: Yeah, I've always done it, since I was 14, I've always written stuff so there's a lot of bits here and there. But I will write this, I want to document this, everything that happened.

LEE: I suppose you're starting to be far enough removed from it now to be able to look back a bit objectively.

Dean: Yeah, it's probably just the right time, because it's all still fresh, but like you say I've got a bit of space. I'm very much back where I was before, in lots of ways, so I can take a good look at it and I think it will be a really good insight for people because everyone thought they watched it and saw what happened, but no-one knew what people were thinking, no-one knows what conversations housemates have had since they've been out and what our opinions of it are. No-one really knows the story of what happened in Big Brother Two.

LEE: Quite a lot of people on various BB boards have commented that there has not been a follow up 'where are they now' type program for BB2 like they did the year before for BB1, but even if they did one it wouldn't be from your perspective, it would be what they wanted to show.

Dean: That's the thing, it's got to be said from us really. The only people who know what happened in that house were the eleven people who were in there, and Paddy - laughs, and the chickens!

LEE: and the fish - laughs!

Dean: That's all, and that story hasn't been told yet, in any of the paper interviews. I mean to be fair, it's not gonna happen if someone like me doesn't do it, Brian's not gonna tell that story and Helen's not gonna tell that story, because they've got a very limited view on life. Their reference points wouldn't be further than Posh or Becks, and I'm not having a go at all, in it's own way that's lovely and simplistic, but that's the kind of people they are and that's what they're into, which is completely cool. But to tell a story like that which is a very, very complex set of social circumstances and there are so many things to consider, you really have to get your head round it and it takes a while. I think also you probably have to be older, I think maybe someone like Stu could do it, but I think maybe he's got a very coloured perception of what happened because he was treated badly

LEE: He was treated badly but also he wasn't in there for as long. That doesn't belittle his experience…..

Dean: But it's very different.

LEE: ….. but someone who leaves in the first few weeks is going to have a very different perception of the whole show to someone who was in there to the end.

Dean: Absolutely. I think Elizabeth could do it, I think she could write a fairly succinct account of what happened in there, but I really think you have to be removed, you have to take away things that you feel were things that happened to you which were unfair and you've really got to try and put them out of your mind

LEE: That's difficult

Dean: It is difficult to do. I mean, if I was doing it I'd concentrate a lot more on what happened to other people that I considered unfair. I do think there were things that happened to me that I would consider unfair, but I'd concentrate on things that happened to other people because that's how I'd illustrate my points. I think there were four other people in that house who I thought were treated very badly and I'd show the examples and then you can decide whether or not I was treated badly as well, it's up to the reader, I don't need to say whether I was or not, other people can make that decision. I think it's a very interesting story, and hopefully it will be interesting reading when it gets done.

LEE: I'm sure it will be. Are you going to get any input from anyone else, or is it just going to be Dean?

Dean: I'm not sure at the moment, but I was thinking of that. I might interview some people, but I don't know, I might just do it from my point of view and then I can say, well that's just my opinion and I wouldn't want anyone taking umbrage with how I take their account and interpret it, I'd rather just say, look that's what I think and if I'm wrong I'm wrong and it's only me to blame then.

LEE: So who were your 4 most hard done by people, you mentioned Stuart and Amma earlier.

Dean: Stuart, Amma….

LEE: Amma wasn't portrayed very well at all was she?

Dean: No, not at all.

LEE: She is, in my opinion, the person who seems to be the most different outside the house.

Dean: Really.

LEE: I wouldn't say I disliked anyone, but if I was using your 'bus queue' analogy she would have probably been fairly near the end, but since she's come out I think she seems really nice. It's another example of how they chose to represent someone, it can colour your views.

Dean: Yeah, and she is, nice I mean. Again it's how people react in a really foreign environment, some people react to it better than others. Me, I became very insular when I was in there, and quiet and quite laid back. I was withdrawn for a lot of the time.

LEE: Well as we're got through about one and a half sides of tape this afternoon, I'm not sure I'd say you were quiet in real life!! Laughs.

Dean: Laughs. Yeah, as you can see I'm really boring, laid back and very quiet - laughs. But yeah, you just reacted to it in a certain way to survive, you couldn't just go into that house and react exactly the same way you did on the outside, it's impossible, it was just so unusual and you were always aware of how odd it was. Some people reacted better and it suited them, OK, I mean it suited Brian great - you're on show now, 'Dah dahhh' - fantastic you know. Amma didn't really suit it, she felt very self-conscious, Penny, it didn't suit her either at all.

LEE: I think we're only just seeing most people's real personalities coming through now.

Dean: I think you're right.

LEE: Anyway, it's been really nice meeting the real Dean, and I'd like to thank you again for finding the time to talk to us here at thisisbigbrother.com, it's been a really interesting afternoon.

Dean: Thank You