JohnnyBB
02-04-2013, 01:25 PM
It’s British summertime (yes, really) and time for the round of traditional sporting events that make us feel all gooey and patriotic, a bit like a Royal Wedding that our taxes don’t fund.
The Boat Race has been and gone with Oxford taking a soggy win this year. The London marathon, which I’m running, is just three weeks away - shame that the demise of my aching knee joints is scheduled for two weeks' time.
This coming Saturday sees the Grand National, the race that persuades even the most vocal anti-gambler to stick a £1 on the 500/1 outsider "because you never know what might happen".
Even the Barbour-clad animal huggers will be at the fences waving placards declaring the race cruel, while keeping one eye on their betting slip and the other on John McCririck (if he's not there at all, that could be hard going). The country will grind to halt for 15 minutes as we watch the nearest television screen to see how many of the starting horses will make it round all 30 gruelling fences.
Yet despite every improved safety precaution brought on by the previous year’s race, sadly some of the starting line up will fall. And not get up again, there is no point flogging a dead horse.
And that brings me neatly on the subject of this article – Channel 5’s Big Brother, a dead horse that should have seen the inside of a dubious meat plant long ago.
This morning’s announcement that Emma Willis will be, pardon the pun, taking the reins from Bryanair Dowling is one which will have come as no surprise to many.
Emma has been quietly plugging away at spin-off show Big Brother’s Bit On The Side since the show moved to Channel 5 - and she's been pretty good with the presenting hand she's been dealt. She's been spoken about as the natural heiress to Davina McCall’s throne, and now she’s been given her chance to be ringmaster of the Elstree freakshow.
Yet just like the jockey of a 500/1 Grand National outsider, Emma has a gruelling ride ahead of her. Big Brother’s glory days are long gone.
Characters like the wonderfully stupid Jade Goody (God rest her soul), Nasty Nick Bateman, irritating Nikki Graeme and Kinga Karolczak simply don’t make the grade anymore. Those sorts of characters are now heading for Simon Cowell’s auditions instead.
The Big Brother house is full of the blandest members of society. It’s no longer special to have a pair of super-camp bickerers, a playboy, or a dumb blonde because the world has moved on and those types are ten a penny on The Only Way Is Essex. The bonus for the viewer being they seem perfectly capable of evicting themselves on a regular basis, with no cost to us.
Even the celebrity specials aren’t special anymore. Celebrity is used in its loosest terms as C5 seem to use it as an excuse to roll out wannabes who'd have to be hard-pressed to be considered as outshining the cast of Babestation.
C5 will never top a purring George Galloway drinking milk from the cupped hands of Rula Lenska – that was classic TV. MPs like Nadine Dorries prefer a free trip down under to the I’m A Celebrity jungle courtesy of Ant and Dec these days.
Big Brother used to be a platform for instant fame just like the X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, TOWIE and The Voice are today. It’s now just a TV irrelevance lost in time to a channel nobody watches.
Channel 5 are clearly hoping that by spicing up Big Brother’s recipe to include a fine filly like Emma Willis it will make a dead horse palatable again.
I suspect like a Findus Lasagne, it will simply leave a bad taste in our mouths.
Source the mirror
The Boat Race has been and gone with Oxford taking a soggy win this year. The London marathon, which I’m running, is just three weeks away - shame that the demise of my aching knee joints is scheduled for two weeks' time.
This coming Saturday sees the Grand National, the race that persuades even the most vocal anti-gambler to stick a £1 on the 500/1 outsider "because you never know what might happen".
Even the Barbour-clad animal huggers will be at the fences waving placards declaring the race cruel, while keeping one eye on their betting slip and the other on John McCririck (if he's not there at all, that could be hard going). The country will grind to halt for 15 minutes as we watch the nearest television screen to see how many of the starting horses will make it round all 30 gruelling fences.
Yet despite every improved safety precaution brought on by the previous year’s race, sadly some of the starting line up will fall. And not get up again, there is no point flogging a dead horse.
And that brings me neatly on the subject of this article – Channel 5’s Big Brother, a dead horse that should have seen the inside of a dubious meat plant long ago.
This morning’s announcement that Emma Willis will be, pardon the pun, taking the reins from Bryanair Dowling is one which will have come as no surprise to many.
Emma has been quietly plugging away at spin-off show Big Brother’s Bit On The Side since the show moved to Channel 5 - and she's been pretty good with the presenting hand she's been dealt. She's been spoken about as the natural heiress to Davina McCall’s throne, and now she’s been given her chance to be ringmaster of the Elstree freakshow.
Yet just like the jockey of a 500/1 Grand National outsider, Emma has a gruelling ride ahead of her. Big Brother’s glory days are long gone.
Characters like the wonderfully stupid Jade Goody (God rest her soul), Nasty Nick Bateman, irritating Nikki Graeme and Kinga Karolczak simply don’t make the grade anymore. Those sorts of characters are now heading for Simon Cowell’s auditions instead.
The Big Brother house is full of the blandest members of society. It’s no longer special to have a pair of super-camp bickerers, a playboy, or a dumb blonde because the world has moved on and those types are ten a penny on The Only Way Is Essex. The bonus for the viewer being they seem perfectly capable of evicting themselves on a regular basis, with no cost to us.
Even the celebrity specials aren’t special anymore. Celebrity is used in its loosest terms as C5 seem to use it as an excuse to roll out wannabes who'd have to be hard-pressed to be considered as outshining the cast of Babestation.
C5 will never top a purring George Galloway drinking milk from the cupped hands of Rula Lenska – that was classic TV. MPs like Nadine Dorries prefer a free trip down under to the I’m A Celebrity jungle courtesy of Ant and Dec these days.
Big Brother used to be a platform for instant fame just like the X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, TOWIE and The Voice are today. It’s now just a TV irrelevance lost in time to a channel nobody watches.
Channel 5 are clearly hoping that by spicing up Big Brother’s recipe to include a fine filly like Emma Willis it will make a dead horse palatable again.
I suspect like a Findus Lasagne, it will simply leave a bad taste in our mouths.
Source the mirror