[Red Moon]

The dunces of the jungle (or how the I'm A Celebrity... stars failed their spelling and maths tests)

You might think that reality TV contestants prove they're not exactly the brightest of the bunch simply by agreeing to go on the programmes in the first place.

But if ever evidence was needed of how bird-brained some of them really are, it was provided by this year's Z-list crop on I'm A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here!

Over the last couple of nights some of the collection of wannabes and faded stars on the ITV programme have shown themselves to be duffers when it comes to maths and English.

They failed to work out the correct answers to basic sums and fluffed attempts to spell simple words such as broccoli.

They even drew unfavourable comparisons with Big Brother star Jade Goody, who became notorious for her verbal gaffes on the Channel 4 programme.

The first test to tax the celebrities' brains was a spelling competition which offered up the prize of chocolate brownies.

Former boyband singer Jason Brown had claimed he would excel in the contest because as a singer he was used to dealing with words.

He claimed: "I'm very good at spelling.

"I've got a good command of the English language, it's one of my favourite things on the planet. I write songs, I write poetry all the time, I play around with words, words are my favourite things."

But despite his proud statement, he was seen on the show misspelling liaison as "liason", battalion as "battallion", broccoli as "brocolli" - and illiterate as "iliterate".

Former supermodel Janice Dickinson also made a fool of herself after she claimed she kept dictionaries in her bathrooms and tried to learn ten new words a day.

Despite this, she spelt pretentious as "pretenchish".

Soap actress and model Gemma Atkinson misspelt potato as "potatoe" and singer Cerys Matthews thought privilege should be "privelidge".

The results were even worse last night, when the hungry contestants were offered the chance to win cake as their maths skills were put to the test.

They had to work out the answer to sums to open padlocks on the Perspex chest which contained the cake, which was balanced over a nest of cockroaches.

All seemed to be going well when pantomime dame Christopher Biggins answered correctly that 10x12-12+90 was 198.

But when Atkinson was next up it all started to go wrong, after she was asked to work out 6x7+5-20.

She managed to multiply six by seven and add five, which made 47, but could not work out how to take away the 20. Despite being given clues by her fellow celebrities, she panicked and ran to the chest thinking the answer was 24.

In the end the others got her to run through a stream of numbers and stopped her when she hit upon the correct figure of 27.

Next up was Dickinson, whose maths proved to be no better than her spelling.

In fact, her efforts to work out what 20 per cent of 60 was caused a row in the camp over the correct answer.

Biggins told her to think of 10 per cent of 60 and then double it. But Dickinson thought 10 per cent was ten.

The contest turned into a shambles as she began randomly chanting "40, 30, 10, 5".

When she hit the number six, Matthews told her to double the number, but Dickinson now thought the answer was 66. She then tried again, claiming the number was 16 and then 22.

Brown, undeterred by his embarrassment in the spelling test, then entered the fray, mistakenly telling Dickinson the correct answer was

As she fiddled with the padlock the cake fell into the cockroaches beneath it, provoking a further row about what the answer was.

All of which proved that you don't have to be Jade Goody to astonish viewers with your ignorance. Goody was 21 when she appeared on Big Brother in 2002 and left the watching public open-mouthed as she said she thought "East Angular" was "abroad" and asked: "What's asparagus? Do you grow it?"

She also said: "Rio de Janeiro, ain't that a person?" and at one point claimed she was being made an "escape goat".

After the rigours of the maths test, the celebrities did at least get the chance to unwind with a little light-hearted fun.

The five remaining contestants got to perform their own pantomime and were given a selection of costumes to try on for size.

As the ladies donned fairy tale princess oufits, the remaining men got a less fetching array of outfits, including sumo suits - and a koala costume.

Source, Pictures and More: Daily Mail