[LEE]

Ben Elton's latest novel is about reality TV. It's about a very 'Big Brother' like TV show called 'House Arrest'.

I bought it today as I thought it looked interesting.

This is what the inside cover says:
---------------------------------------
One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones.
Yet again the public gorges its voyeuristic appetite as another group of unknown and unremarkable people submit themselves to the brutal exposure of the televised real-life soap opera, House Arrest.

Everybody know the rules: total strangers are forced to live together while the rest of the country watches them do it. Who will crack first? Who will have sex and with whom? Who will the public love and who will they hate? All the usual questions. And then, suddenly, there are some new ones.

Who is the murderer? How did he or she manage to kill under the constant gaze of the thirty television cameras? Why did they do it? And who will be next?
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When I've finished it I'll let you know what I think.

[Edited on 30-11-2001 by LEE]

[LEE]

I've just noticed that he thanks all of the house mates from BB1 & BB2, along with those from the Australian BB.

He lists them all and says "without whom this novel would not have been written."

[Mark]

I went and bought it today as I am not reading a book at the mo, and thought it sounded good!
I have read the first 11 pages on the bus (im a quick reader!) and its really good, classic Elton style!

Three words to describe the book so far...

"Bold, provocative and controversial"

hehe

Mark

[Di2001]

Ben Elton was on Parkinson talking about this book a few weeks ago. It does sound interesting so I think I shall buy it too!!

[Mark]

Cool!
Then once we've all read it we can post on our best bits etc.!

It cost me £16.99 over here...is it the same in England?

Mark

[LEE]

Originally posted by Mark


It cost me £16.99 over here...is it the same in England?

Should be, but I got it for £9.99

[Di2001]

Originally posted by LEE

Should be, but I got it for £9.99

Where did you get it at that price, LEE?

[LEE]

There's two chains of Discount Bookstores that are in most decent sized towns:

British Bookshops/Sussex Stationers - £9.99
BookWorld - £9.98

[Di2001]

Can't say I've heard of these shops. Not around here anyway!

[LEE]

I'm not sure exactly how far they spread, but I do a lot of work travelling and I've seen them all over the place - not just London.

I could get it and send it to you if you want?

[sweetlittlesara]

im in the middle of reading it, a couple of the characters remind me of ppl from bb, o g2g will continue this later

[Mark]

Doh! Looks like I was overcharged!
Evil s

I don't really mind though, as its not often I buy books, I usually use the library!

Mark

[LEE]

No, you just paid list price, which is what most places are selling it for.

I'm obviously more of a cheapskate.

[Feefs]

I promised I would write a bit about a Ben Elton interview I heard on the radio last week in another thread (Helen’s interviews), and although some of it is relevant to that one, I thought it fitted better here. Helen and Elton being quite different people could have confused us. It’s been a few days since I heard it and there’s been some revelry in the mean time, so I apologise for any vagueness.

It was on Scot FM, which is a station I don’t normally listen to, but I think it normally does a mixture of vaguely intellectual chat and music and covers the Scottish Central Belt. The interview was on for an hour, and although he was plainly there to promote his book, they covered a very wide range of subjects and reviewed his whole career. I was in my cousin’s car at the time, so I missed bits when boring things like ‘which way now?’ disrupted my listening enjoyment, so again apologies for gaps or minor inaccuracies.

Back to book. Ben admitted that the idea of a murder on a reality tv show wasn’t original, it was just a setting. It was an old-fashioned murder mystery of the Agatha Christie variety, but instead of a country house or an island with strangers pushed together, it was somewhere like the BB house. By putting it in a setting like that made it contemporary and added the extra dimension of surveillance and additional scope for humour. He spoke of how in circumstances like the BB house it’s inevitable that you get frustrated and might flip at one of the others. He mentioned the knife incident in the US BB, but that it’s central to the viewing experience that you dislike at least a few of them and might at least utter that you’d like to strangle so and so.

Sometimes it sounded like he watched quite a lot, but at other times he managed to sound like he only caught the odd show. He certainly acknowledged how easy it was for perfectly intelligent and cultured people to find themselves glued to the tv watching people to mundane chores, but I suspect he only caught himself doing it once or twice.

After a couple of complex roundabouts and junctions the conversation had moved onto fame, specifically in relation to reality tv. There was the discussion about celebrity and fame and how there was a lot of snobbery about it, but ultimately we like glamorous people and tend to find excuses to talk about who we want to talk about. He used the example of how people went on about how much charity Princess Diana did, but that she didn’t do nearly as much as Princess Anne. Anne was overlooked by the press because Diana looked great and she doesn’t. He was quite rude about Princess Anne’s looks which deeply offended my Auntie who did a rant.

It came back to the old 15-minutes chestnut. This is when Ben said that although many reality tv people will be forgotten very quickly, some people had made it into the national consciousness. He first spoke of Nasty Nick saying that everyone still knows who he is, so what is it that would make us forget him for at least a few years. That’s when he described the level of fame experienced by Helen and Paul as phenomenal and that we’d all still know who they are in 5 years time, even if it’s only for what they’ve already done. He said that at that level he didn’t really think it did you any favours, because you become notorious (or something). I think it was something to do with how people just see you as the one thing, which I think is particularly true for Nasty Nick. He’s not even allowed a proper name!

Ben was doing an excellent job of being unsnobby about things, but then spoilt it a bit by saying he thought that that level of fame might be sought after by loads of people, but could be what makes them unemployable. There is something in that, at least in show business where they are fickle and you don’t have something more solid to rely on. He was of course forgetting that before they became famous they all had jobs. I could see how Nick might have difficulty being taken seriously in (unshow)business, but Helen could always get a job as a hairdresser and we know Paul’s managed to go back to his job part-time without too many hassles.

This is when the conversation turned to people like Ben who are authors or whatever and fame is incidental to the skilled bit of their job. Without the fame he’d still be an author. I wanted to shout at the radio that Paul was still a car bits designer and that his fame was also incidental. If his fame disappeared he’d be no less good at his job. Even though the comments were possibly a bit snidy, showing-off his understanding of the media and secure place within it after many years of service, he managed to show a distinct lack of understanding of real jobs. Because Helen and Paul have specific skills and training which society requires, they are probably two of the people who’s jobs would suit them returning. I can see it might be difficult for Bubble who worked in a more anonymous call centre where they don’t value the individual employee so highly. I worked in a call centre one summer holidays and there were plenty of people who assumed myself and the other students thought we were superior because we were doing a degree and took pleasure in trying to bring us down a couple of pegs. I hate to think what would happen if you were actually famous.

I don’t want to be too critical of Ben, because he’s got a much more healthy attitude than most people in the media. Far from making comments out of jealousy he seemed quite affectionate towards most people in reality tv and I think wishes them well. It gave some food for thought.

I think it’s true to an extent about the dangers of being very famous for doing something quite narrow. Given that BB people at least, and definitely Helen, Paul and Brian will be famous for some time, even if they want some anonymity, they will be wise to do a few higher profile things from time to time. It won’t make them more famous, just give people a chance to see a side to them not covered by The Sun, or at least to remind people they do things other than run around shouting and flirting or sleeping. The person who would probably benefit from that most is Liz. She needs to show people the fun, less snobbish side to her. She won’t manage that by writing drippy, moaning articles for the Sunday broadsheets. Amma has managed that to an extent, and maybe Stuart although it’s been quite low profile.

Anyway, I think this is when Ben started talking about how although he was left-wing he was wary of the term socialist, and that moderately regulated-capitalism was the least worst practical way of running the market, but Thatcher was still evil. I don’t imagine many of you are that interested, so I hope you don’t mind if I stop my spiel.

[Kaz]

Feefs - please excuse my ruudeness!! I read your post a couple of days ago and completely forgot to thank you for doing it - it was really interesting.

Thanks again.

[Feefs]

Well, it probably took you a couple of days to read it. I enjoy a good pontificate, but not as much as Mr Elton!

[Janette]

Has anyone finished the book yet?

Was it good?

Is it worth buying?

[LEE]

I finished it ages ago, and have been meaning to write a review ever since.

I don't usually like Ben Elton's books very much, and especially after all the comments I'd heard about 'Dead Famous' I wasn't holding out much hope that I'd enjoy it, but much to my surprise, I did.

It wasn't always that complimentary to BB, but it was nowhere near as bad as I expected, and most of the negativity was directed at the production company and the awful scheming money making woman who ran it.

Some of the characters did share several traits with real housemates, from both BB1 and BB2, and even though I might not always have been pleased if I had been one of them, I think it was mostly meant in good humour and not in a nasty way.

I'll try and write up a proper review over the next couple of days and post it up..