Chanelle Crossing

Listening to the radio the other day, I heard an advert for a new 'reality TV talent show' from VH1. Wannabe pitches failed Big Brother girl Chanelle Hayes as the judge in a contest for pop star hopefuls. This is the 19-year-old student who put so much effort into achieving her goal of becoming the UK's leading Victoria Beckham look-alike that she instantly lunged at fellow BB contestant and former pop-singer Ziggy because of a vague similarity to David Beckham (who is male, with blond highlights and, er... that's it).

According to the Daily Star, less than 20 deluded fools bothered to audition for the show, which might be an indication of how pointless the concept is, or maybe it's an indicator that this could be the car-crash event of the year.

What really worries me about this show is not that Chanelle has been put into a position of power over someone's career without any experience in the field, or knowledge of music beyond the stuff she hears on the radio. It's not even the further exploitation of people who are deluded enough to think that a singing contest on a minority digital channel is their best route to instant stardom, bypassing the much harder method of, y'know, working in clubs and gaining experience. No, my biggest worry is that somewhere out there, there's a record executive who believes they might make money based on both Chanelle's discernment and a wannabe's expanded horizons of expectation.

Is there really a recording deal attached to this show? Does the deal extend beyond the one tie-in record that will inevitably become available at the end of the contest? Is there a follow-up show already lined up as Chanelle pretends to guide her protégée through the terrible maze that is the record industry (a prospect as reassuring as getting Helen Keller to lead you across the mine-strewn wastelands of Bosnia)? Is there an audience for this, and if so, who are they? VH1 was always pitched as 'old people's MTV', so who exactly are they hoping to attract here? The same people who look forward to their weekly dose of power ballads and 80s retro?

Or is it all a bit of a laugh and a chance to poke fun at someone whose sole ambition in life is to be famous, regardless of the costs to their own sanity and well-being? Give her her dues, she's managed to extend her time in the limelight for longer than anyone from this year's Big Brother clan, and she's actually much prettier than the woman she styles herself on... in the same way that Michael Jackson was much cuter than Diana Ross until he took his obsessions to frightening lengths.

When she first walked into the BB house this summer, I thought Chanelle looked like a cute kid. It'd be a shame to discover that she's as cynical and manipulative as she is being allowed to appear, wouldn't it?

In the meantime, X Factor has finally become such a big turn-off thanks to the embarrassing attention-seeking pantomime exploits of judges Louis and Sharon. It's surprising to be able to say Danni Minogue comes across as the only one actually looking after her acts and thinking of them above the usual point-scoring at the expense of her rival judges. If I can bear to miss the biggest entertainment talent show on British TV, I certainly won't lose much sleep in forgetting to tune into Chanelle's vanity project.

And in other news, isn't Strictly Come Dancing fun this year? Who knew?!

... and the Winner is...

The bookies had the twins down as favourites to win, but last night's result for Brian Belo on Big Brother was a really important moment for the show. While the whole Shilpa Shetty incident on the celebrity edition this year led to both an examination of casual racism on TV and the first win for a non-white contestant in the series, Brian won through by just being a nice guy. Painfully, painfully thick, but a nice guy whose response to the question 'what will you do with the money was 'give it to my mum' because he knew she'd look after it.


Reality TV gets a hard time from elitists who think it's low-brow entertainment. It can be, but only if that's how you choose to view it. Ever since it first started, I've watched it as a psychological experiment - even when the producers had clearly given up on the notion of this being anything remotely educational. The situation is as fake as some of the contestants, but you can't live through a character all that time and not be exposed. With one exception, the winner of BB tends to be the simplest, most straight-forward, slightly dim player. Only one woman has won the series (not counting celebrity editions), and Nadia's win was mainly because she was by the most entertaining - and the best headline - even if the producers bent the rules by not evicting her after her part in the infamous Fight Night where she struck another housemate and provoked the carnage that ensued.

This year, the subtle psychology returned with nominations often being open to just a few players and the game largely involving a love-hate Stockholm-syndrome-dependent relationship between the faceless Big Brother and the contestants. There have been arguments, fall-outs and tantrums, but generally the house has managed to avoid the factionalising that made BB8 so difficult (where the house unconsciously divided into white and non-white teams). Although there were a few 'freaks' in the mix, they've managed to keep it entertaining by getting interesting-but-normal people and keeping them entertained with the changing of rules and making them more involved in the way house dynamics play out (for example, putting twins in and then allowing them to choose whether to be counted as individuals or two-as-one player, or creating temporary privileged teams who choose which other contestants receive perks).

One of the most interesting twists was when they asked three of the housemates to choose one of the others to receive 'the prize-fund' of £100,000. So early in the game, none of them knew if this was the prize fund or an additional prize, and the reaction of newcomer Liam McGough at being selected to receive the prize was heartwarming. It mixed things up a bit, because some of the housemates might have decided to quit if the ultimate prize had already been won, but more importantly, Liam was your perfect final winner - good-looking, blokey but sweet and good-natured. Confident enough to stand up to a house bully and not so bright as to alienate the majority of voters. But the fact that he'd already won the prize meant that he was effectively removed from the pool of suitable winners, leaving the floor open for the twins or Brian to scoop the jackpot at the end.

Now, I got all this despite not actually watching an entire edition of the show this year. I used to be an absolute addict, and after BB2 I even considered entering, but bottled out (and later found out that professional writers were barred from entering). I've caught the odd half-edition, and my flatmate has updated me on the gossip, and I found the final last night to be truly awe-inspiring at the sportsmanship and general good nature of the contestants, genuinely happy at the results and al in support of the overwhelmed Brian. And this is why I get a bit defensive of the show when people who don't even watch it attack it for being moronic. Big Brother works on so many different levels that it can attract people from all walks of life to take part and has a relevance to today's TV audiences that shouldn't be under-estimated by anyone in the industry.

Last night, when Davina asked Brian why he entered the contest, Brian blurted 'what other show is there? It's the best thing on TV!' It speaks to people with low intelligence who like the gossip and bitching, to people who like the gameplay and the competitive angle ('what's her gameplan?' 'Ooh, he's blown it now, the girls won't vote for him') and also people who like to examine the psychological reactions to the players under pressure. The producers make mistakes and we get to judge them on it. In many ways, it's one of the most important TV shows on at the moment, simply because it's a great leveller. You might be smart, you might be talented, but if you're not coming across as genuine, the public won't like you.

I'm glad I didn't go into the house for BB3. That's when it changed and became more of a scramble for celebrity. It also became the point where the housemates were teased, abused and denied the luxuries that had been available to previous contestants, which also made it the most captivating as one by one they cracked up. I know I wouldn't have been able to cope with Jade, who apart from being painfully stupid, was also a nasty, vicious bully - something that most of the viewers forgot when she won sympathy after her affections were spurned by PJ after a drunken fumble one night. I also know that the very nature of the nomination and eviction process would have left me traumatised. The rejection's the cruellest thing in that show, and you have to be one of two types of people to survive it - either hard as nails, or so bloody lovely that you don't get nominated.

I know I'm neither. I'm happier being an armchair psychologist, wincing and gasping at the antics the real housemates put themselves through.

BBC Journo Released - Jim Breathes Easy

It's difficult having comedy Tourettes; to have been grown up in a peer group where everything's fair game so long as it gets a laugh. It means that so many things leap out with comic potential that really, really shouldn't. I'll explain why...

Four months ago, a BBC reporter was kidnapped in Gaza - a terrible thing. Instantly, Alan Johnston became more famous within the BBC than he'd ever been for reporting - everyone knew his name and what he did. Everyone felt anxious about him, everyone prayed for his safe return.

Something struck me one day as I came into work though - what would he make of it all? How would he react to seeing the huge pendant posters of his face that suddenly appeared on the face of TV Centre; the weekly vigils; the front-page news and TV news bulletins about him, rather than his reporting. The videos that his captors made of him showed a man who was incredibly composed under impossible circumstances and I'm sure I'd have been sobbing my eyes out whereas he was so, so dignified. And of course, my first thoughts were always 'Please God, let him be released, safe and well,'

For a moment, my head became full of images of the nearest thing most people have seen to that moment when someone is released from captivity and is faced with a media hungry for news. No, not Terry Waite - Big Brother.

It's not the same - nowhere near - but the questions might be. How did you cope? What were your relationships like with your captors? What did you think of the food? Did you think you'd be in there for so long? It's what they asked Terry Waite and John McCarthy, and it's what they asked Makosi and Nadia.

A few weeks ago, these thoughts became too strong and I knew I had to channel them somewhere or else risk saying them out loud at the wrong time. I found myself writing a comedy sketch for my own amusement, in which Davina was there, interviewing Alan about his time in captivity. I asked a comedy writer friend of mine to read it, and while he was encouraging, he said that no-one would touch such a script until they new Alan was safe, and by then it'd be no longer topical. Even then, it'd probably be in bad taste and he couldn't think of a single team that I could send it to.

Quite right.

But now that we do know he's safe and alive, I can't help wondering again what he'll feel about the banners and the vigils. Wondering if any of the Big Brother contestants will get to see his reaction on TV and maybe consider that their own reactions to voluntary incarceration in a gameshow were perhaps a little over the top in comparison to the very real terror that Alan Johnston faced every day of those four months.

Coincidentally, this week saw the nearest the Channel 4 reality gameshow has ever got to having a housemate leave for genuine life-changing reasons, as businessman Jonathan was informed of his grandmother's death and chose to quit. That made difficult viewing on Channel 4 last night, yet I think it was handled well; we didn't see the moment that Jonathan was informed of her passing, which would have been way too invasive, and the shots chosen were distant, but even then, watching a contestant deal with something real was very upsetting - compared to the usual tantrums over who-ate-whose-chocolate-bar and who-said-what-about-who.

With that in mind, I hope the media doesn't rush too fast to be the first one to get Alan Johnston's 'exit interview'. I for one am not all that eager to hear about his 'best bits'...

A Week in Politics

I'm dipping out of the 'past life' and into this one for a bit. Last weekend, a whale swam up the Thames splashed around for a day and then died, largely (I suspect) to piss off those lovely people trying to haul its onto a floating platform to get it out of there (a bit like my friends trying to get me into a cab after a night on the lash). So, then the press begins to speculate why the whale died.

Durrr - it was swimming in the Thames! With the needles and used rubbers and the poo!

Then we had Celebrity Big Brother, where the winner was a non-celebrity who two days in was already more famous than four of the other eleven. He might be cruel, grotesque and merciless, but for my money Pete Burns was an absolute winner. The first evictee ever to *get* that the boos should be encouraged, not feared; who knew that being funny and dramatic made for better television than being 'a nice person' (catch yerself on, Traci Bingham); and who gave us such wonderful phrases as '[Traci's extensions] look like Tina Turner's arse hairs' and '[to Rula Lenska] You're just a dried-up old husk' and '[to pretty much everyone] You get right up the crack of my arse' (meaning 'you're a little annoying today'). Pete, we love ya, and we agree that You Spin Me Round has been done to death. But Lover Come Back to Me and In Too Deep should be rereleased NOW!

And then this morning I received a lovely DVD box-set through the post - Doctor Who: The Beginning. 13 episodes of lovely, restored black-and-white clunky TV that kick-started the most important cultural event to have touched my life.

Or to put it another way, we're still trying to work out whether this was the cause of my degree of autism or just a symptom of it.