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Big Brother 2004

 
  

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Nobody's girl
14:31 / 15.06.04
Flyboy: Vanessa must stay, right until the end so she can lose- to Emma. Just think of how humiliated she'd be.

OK, OK, so I'm antagonistic to Vanessa cos in my head she's begun to represent every manipulative "popular" girl I've met. What of it?

Ugh, I should get out more.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:14 / 15.06.04
Can we get rid of Jason, the face slurping incident has left me with the creepy shivers and I can't look at him without making a disgusted remark. He should have stuck with Dan, that was far more entertaining, he doesn't work well as a womanizer.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:28 / 15.06.04
Oh and have I mentioned how bloody annoying Vanessa is. I didn't know why but then I checked her profile: She's a self-confessed adrenalin junkie and was South African Archery champion for two years in a row. She loves rugby and runs for an hour every morning. Ugly.
 
 
Ganesh
16:23 / 15.06.04
This week's nominees for eviction: Dan and Vanessa. I did not see that coming - but then, the bedsitters got to vote too, and they're pretty down on Vanessa. Dan, on the other hand, must've been targetted by Fagbangle's harem on the grounds that he's been viciously saying "how are you?" to Marco, and is a rabidly anti-food-fight bigot.

It's all about Spambo, then, innit? Do we like the vulnerable, insecure (back)side that began to open up, like a flower, under Dan's tender ministrations - or do we like the more stereotypical (and rather passionless) blond-on-blonde hettery he "enjoyed" with Vanessa?

I like Dan a lot, but suspect his intimate chats with the Spambot provoked a degree of homosexual anxiety, hence the reestablishing of Hetero Lurve Machine credentials by tonguing Vanessa's toned tonsils - and the Great British Public are gonna go with the latter, fake as it might be, and vote the trilbyed one out. Which is a shame, because the house is becoming less queer by the week (and I'm not counting the various bi-try girlies, whose supposed bisexual potential hasn't been much in evidence, and is seeming more for Victor's benefit than anything else).

Elsewhere, the nicotine deficiency is actually making me laugh, particularly with regard to YouShell's drippily-hilarious rages. Nadia's laugh has increasingly taken on a nails-on-blackboard quality, so the fact that she's taken instead to lying face-down, sobbing at the terrible unfairness of a World Without Cigarettes On Demand, works for me.
 
 
electricinca
16:54 / 15.06.04
Interestingly the house seems to be dividing not down the middle anymore but into pairs that vote for nominations the same way.

Emma and Michelle both nominated Victor and Jason for similar reasons.

Marco and Nadia both nominated Dan and Vanessa, as did Stuart and Victor.

Interestingly Dan and Vanessa nominated the same with both choosing Ahmed and Nadia although I don't think they actually constitute a pairing the same as the others I mentioned above.

I really don't want Dan to go but as Ganesh said maybe the public will vote him out in order that Jason and Vanessa can finally get it on. When will the bedsit duo emerge into the main house again?

I'm assuming that the evictee will actually get evicted this time but maybe Big Brother can play the bluff and stick them into the bedsit if Emma and Michelle have moved out by then.
 
 
Ganesh
17:49 / 15.06.04
I really don't want Dan to go but as Ganesh said maybe the public will vote him out in order that Jason and Vanessa can finally get it on.

And the sad thing is, I really don't think they will - not in any particularly meaningful way, anyway. Intelligent as Vanessa might be (and I don't think she's more than averagely insightful), I think the Spambo/Vanessa 'affair' is hideously hollow, born of the former's homosexual anxiety than anything else. 'Homosexual anxiety' is a psychoanalytical phenomenon: it most commonly occurs when a heterosexual-identifying male patient has a male therapist; as the therapeutic relationship deepens, the patient starts to panic (consciously or unconsciously) about exposing his tender vulnerabilities to another male; he typically reacts by initiating other relationships in which he plays a stereotypically masculine role, and thus reassures himself of his own heterosexuality, and thus invulnerability.

I get the impression that much of Jason's life has been devoted to bolstering his masculinity/heterosexuality/invulnerability - quite literally, in the sense that he's worked to develop flesh armour ('Sparmour'?). As an adopted child who feels little in common with his parents, his sense of personal identity was already less anchored than most - and I reckon the hundreds of apparently unsatisfying one-night-stands have been another, rather futile, attempt at self-definition. He's a rootless, empty creature.

If Dan goes, I envisage him becoming depressed. He might go through the motions with Vanessa, but it's a well-worn behavioural groove which he already knows doesn't fill his, erm, hole. For a while, it looked like Dan might hold the (fleshy) key to unlocking his psychic armour; if Dan stays in, and the Spamster manages to overcome his homosexual anxiety, he still might break through the armour, or at least allow Dan to partially pierce his, ahem, cuirasse.

If I were Vanessa, though, I'd spend the next couple of days tonguing everything in sight. S'what the demographic wants.
 
 
electricinca
18:43 / 15.06.04
I agree, I don't believe that J and V will get it on but I reckon the general public will think there is a possibility.

I love your word 'Sparmour' it does some up the phenomena of men who build their bodies up to counteract some self-esteem and insecurity issues. I think Victor is similar in that he tries the whole "I'm from the streets, me" badboy stuff (moreso in the diary room than outside) when Dan again can see right through the act and see the teddy bear beneath.
 
 
The Natural Way
20:17 / 15.06.04
"You're not the most beautiful woman in the world" to the person he's clearly desperate to cop off with?

Eh? That's just standard, clumsy hard-to-get/boys-hitting-the-girl-they-fancy tactics, innit? Hardly damning.

Yeah, they probably won't get it on, but not because J secretly wants his butt to bloom, but because Van probably isn't hugely interested. Her flirting's a social tactic as much as anything else.

And I know/have known plenty of pretty/cosmetic "popular" girls. Leave it out. Some of my best friends, parents and cousins are popular girls......

I hate when peeps get all barbe-twisted about their experiences at school.
 
 
Ganesh
20:31 / 15.06.04
I think the blooming of the Spambutt is more symbolic than anything else: he does want someone to fight through the flesh, penetrate his soft, tender places and fill his psychic hole.

Let's face it; it ain't gonna be Vanessa.
 
 
Ganesh
20:40 / 15.06.04
What was up with Stuart's Real Live Tiger hijinx? It seemed horribly contrived - and there'll be a lot less of that communal fun business when the Mollusc regains her limpetty grip tomorrow...

I'm finding Marco increasingly vile, for some reason. Not sure whether it's his determined vacuity, his apparent control over the equally vacuous harem (Nadia and... who else, again?) or his utter, sterile sexlessness. Vile, vile, vile screechy queen.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
20:48 / 15.06.04
Stuart=wacky.

Urgh. Housemates discussing transsexuality in their subtly nuanced way? Nadia looking distinctly unimpressed.

Stuart:

"I had a transsexual lecturer at college. I thought she was an ugly woman, my mate thought he was a grungy bloke"

Thank you, Pat Califia.

Shell on jase:

"I want to piss on his face"

Nadia doing withdrawal stuff. yeuch.

the boys' club - ick.
 
 
Ganesh
21:02 / 15.06.04
I don't think the transsexual discussion was consciously evoked. I think it arose because, since she ran out of cigarettes, Nadia's become the 'elephant in the living room', a brooding presence whose volatility they're all attempting to ignore, and Stuart unconsciously made the connection with transsexualism.

Alternatively, the more knowing individuals might've been trying to a) reassure Nadia, in admittedly cack-handed fashion, that they didn't see her as an "ugly woman", and b) give her tacit permission to 'come out'.

Either way, I don't think they were consciously being nasty. Given that she's suddenly gone from smoking 30 a day (which ain't a great idea, given that she's presumably still taking reasonably high doses of oestrogens) to nothing, they could probably say "Hello, sweets" and she'd tear their noses off.

She's not laughing. She's not laughing. She's not laughing any more. She's not la-a-aughing a-ny more.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
21:10 / 15.06.04
Oh, I didn't think they were being pointed, just cack-handed.

And cig-deprivation is proving to be C4's new ratings winner.

Shell's 'meltdown' was soppy and irritating, Nadias promises Travis Bickle happenings...
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
21:13 / 15.06.04
And yr coinage of Sparmour, which is joy, makes me wonder:

'Who is Jason's true Sparamour?'

Oh, and footage of Emma and Michelle painting bras on each other with an icing bag and cackling is the kind of thing that should never be shown at a time when viewers might be conscious.
 
 
Ganesh
21:18 / 15.06.04
I was wondering whether Sp'amour would blossom (in Jason's flowery sphincter or elsewhere) in the brave new post-eviction house...
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
07:58 / 16.06.04
footage of Emma and Michelle painting bras on each other with an icing bag and cackling is the kind of thing that should never be shown at a time when viewers might be conscious.

Funny, I thought they were trying to recreate the cover of Cut. Kinda.

The thing I really love about Vanessa being nominated is that she believes she's figured out how it happened, but she's added 2 + 2 to make 5 - no, sorry mate, it's the people in the house who don't like you, though some of them have done a good job of hiding it - and is now looking doing a very good job of looking vindictive ("I will make sure she is the most hated woman ever in the UK!") but not too bright. I'm not so sure that the British public will keep her in on the basis of possible shagging - I think the fact that she never stops whining and yet has clearly had a rather easy time of it in life and even on the show so far will count against her (I believe she claimed to have been oppressed for being blonde again last night).

What's interesting about the housemates' trans conversation is that the edited footage made it appear to start with Chicken Stu telling the story about his anecdote... BUT something about the way he said it suggested to me that he was contributing to a conversation which had already begun - the emphasis was "I had a lecturer who was transexual..." - which raises the question "who started it, and was it just 'elephant in the room' syndrome, or something more deliberate?". Well, according to the BB website, it was Dan who brought up the subject. Dan, who so far has seemed one of the more likely housemates to have figured out Nadia's 'secret', and who had just a moment ago been bitchy in a very 'plausible deniability' way to Nadia about cigarettes. Dan, who must know that if he brought the topic up, the combination of people who don't know about Nadia and will thus make insensitive remarks, and people who know about Nadia and will still make insensitive or deliberately bitchy remarks, will be enough to make her feel bad while he can sound quite reasonable and wise and 'tolerant' about the issue. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you that DAN is in fact the dirtiest player in the game.

Basically Dan & Vanessa have established a nice little unit with Jason & Not The Real Michelle as their foot-soldiers, and I think it's to the credit of the rest of the house that they figured this out. Now if Vanessa goes, I think Dan will probably re-establish himself pretty quickly, since he hasn't done anything to directly offend the Bedsit Mash-Up Posse. But if Dan goes, Vanessa is soooo unbelievably fucked, it's going to be brilliant.

(Just to add more disagreement, Shell's "ought to piss on his fucking face!" fit endeared me more to her than anything else she's dione - it doesn't, however, make up for her two-faced Ahmed smearing. "Shell, I apologise if I have offended you." "That's okay Ahmed, I don't have a problem with you, it was all the boys who made me uncomfortable." "I would like to nominate Ahmed as he is a creepy stalker." And the fact she's convinced her Clik that Ahmed is a creepy stalker when he seems to spend most of his time asleep... lameor.)

Anyway, tonight the chickens come home to roost.



FIX UP, LOOK SHARP!
 
 
Ganesh
08:35 / 16.06.04
Nah, I think the 'Dan is pulling the wings off Nadia' thing is another example of the tendency to attribute complex psychological 'gameplans' to everyone in the house ("he's got a gameplan" being, bizarrely, the term of vilification du jour, every jour) - whereas I'm not sure they're necessarily subtle enough to play situations that well. So far, it's been Fagbangle, Spambot and Prictor who've most notably indulged in trans speculation, with Dan keeping out of it. It's certainly plausible that he'd intentionally marshall the house against Nadia, but I can't really see what he'd stand to gain by this, even if he were such a skilled manipulator.

And the cigarettes thing? I don't think "do you want a drag?" is particularly bitchy (although "drag" is, I think, unintentionally ironic). I think he's being pilloried as a smug 'grown-up' (oh, the horror!) because he's actually been attempting to make his cigarettes last, by leaving a time-gap between finishing one and starting another. He's a cunning devil, that one.

YouShell's drippy outburst in the Pamper Room was like Mary Poppins coming off methadone.

Not that convinced by the Dan/Jason/Vanessa unit - seems inherently unstable a la Brian/Maximilian/Sally Bowles (and that's probably the Best Outcome scenario for the Spamster) - but I do think it's interesting that there are so many perceived factions and sub-units. The most powerful one at present seems to be the aforementioned 'adults' versus the 'kids', with mucho angst being expressed over the defend-it-with-your-life right to have food fights without criticism.

And yeah, the screechy fowl are definitely home to roost tonight. I think it'll be slightly anticlimactic, but will up the 'kid' faction again - which, with Dan or Vanessa going, will mean asexual, high-pitched trifle fights for all. Yay, etc.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
09:19 / 16.06.04
I don't think "do you want a drag?" is particularly bitchy.

It was what followed that was bitchy - again, in a very disingenous, plausibly deniable way.

N: "Are you sure?"
D: [as if it's no trouble at all] "Of course, don't be silly!"
[finely timed pause]
D: "I could feel your eyes burning into the back of my neck."

I don't really think 'adults v. kids' is the best way to describe the current set-up, because God help the world if Jason, Vanessa and Shell are 'adults'. I find Jason & Vanessa's weirdly disengaged slurpy macking much more childish than any food fight - or maybe teenage is the more accurate description, as they remind me of nothing so much as small town kids who engage in long, passionless snogging sessions with people they don't really find sexy at all, just because they're there and it's the done thing...
 
 
Ganesh
09:39 / 16.06.04
N: "Are you sure?"
D: [as if it's no trouble at all] "Of course, don't be silly!"
[finely timed pause]
D: "I could feel your eyes burning into the back of my neck."


You think that's bitchy? I think it's more wry. I suspect when Dan does bitchy, he really does bitchy. And, let's face it, 'Nads' has been a grumpy cow for the last 48 hours; at least he gave her a puff of his bloody ciggie. Let's just hope she keeps moving, so the clots don't gather in her leg-veins, hmm?

And yeah, I think 'adults' vs 'kids' is reasonably apposite - bearing in mind that anyone truly psychologically mature wouldn't touch the Big Brother house with a shitty bargepole.
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
10:06 / 16.06.04
Very annoyed with Shel – a nasssty fucker. You canny complain that Ahmed’s no fun and doesn’t join in with any fun and games and the moment he does accuse him of being a rapist etc. Also, if you’re going to run around naked every so often and scream and yelp for attention then don’t be surprised if you get any. And you’re a part-time smoker, so less of the drama. You are a dangerous, vindictive person who unfortunately tends to succeed in society despite offering very little.
You’re also a bit fuckin obvious. Okay – you’re upset at your blond boer straying with Jason – actually you’re fuckin furious – jealous in the way a toddler gets in the sandpit – cringe – do you realise? Hence your pathetic outburst regarding fags and Jason’s insensitivity.

Also the fact she hasn’t been nominated once highlights the success of people such as her (and there’s a lot of them) within societal groupings.

This girl has really, really angered me – I think she represents a lot of what’s shit about this country: narrow-minded selfishness tinged with fear, ignorance, petulance and mild racism wrapped up in an apparently sophisticated skinbag.

Other words:

Sheer middle-classlessness.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:25 / 16.06.04
Yes, unless they're editing it all out - which is possible 'cos he's in bed by the time of the live feed, but why they've showed everyone else's worst side, so why not his? - this idea that Ahmed has really dodgy attitudes towards women seems to have been invented in Shell's head and successfully spread to a few others... I'm sure if he'd been a white atheist called Andrew they'd treat him exactly the same way, f'sure, (Nadia's) chinny-reckon...
 
 
The Puck
10:30 / 16.06.04
I don't think "do you want a drag?" is particularly bitchy.

maybe wasnt bitchy but there was a definate edge to it, like he was addressing a issue, by confronting it.

god i hope he doesnt go, he deserves to stay for the "armani wooden horse" comment on saturday
 
 
Ganesh
10:34 / 16.06.04
Yeah, I must admit that, generally benign as I am toward Dan (as the least appalling Poof Option), his comment about Ahmed was irritatingly ageist - and seemed cribbed straight from YouShell's xenophobic gossip-whipping.
 
 
Ganesh
10:36 / 16.06.04
maybe wasnt bitchy but there was a definate edge to it, like he was addressing a issue, by confronting it.

Addressing an issue by confronting it?!

*gasp*

The bastard...
 
 
The Puck
10:37 / 16.06.04
in dans defence if a girl tells you she feels uncofortable when someone does something, wouldnt you naturally fall in her favour?

plus we dont know shells complete history maybe she was attacked by a snaggletooth as a child and now has "issues"
 
 
Ganesh
10:47 / 16.06.04
in dans defence if a girl tells you she feels uncofortable when someone does something, wouldnt you naturally fall in her favour?

No, but then I don't suffer from White Knight Syndrome. I wouldn't automatically equate her perceived 'feeling uncomfortable when X does something' with X necessarily doing anything wrong. Perception is funny that way.

plus we dont know shells complete history maybe she was attacked by a snaggletooth as a child and now has "issues"

And perhaps Ahmed was, as a child, repeatedly buggered by translucent-cheeked blonde women bearing sticks of rhubarb. 'Issues' can work in all directions.
 
 
The Puck
11:02 / 16.06.04
point taken

(is there really such a thing as white knight syndrome?)

i just wished i watched during the day, and saw the whole situation now and not just the mediated "storys" presented to us on the nights
 
 
Ganesh
11:11 / 16.06.04
(is there really such a thing as white knight syndrome?)

(Not an 'official' medical/psychiatric syndrome, but yeah. Google it, and you get a fair overview, usually from people saying, "I call it the White Knight Syndrome" like they've just invented the concept.)
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:37 / 16.06.04
You may also find various Conversation threads of use.
 
 
DaveBCooper
12:40 / 16.06.04
Interesting to see Victor appearing to be two different people much of the time – despite there seeming to be little evidence of his oh-so-masterful playing of the game, we see him confiding in the diary room about his plans for how he’s going to play to win (oh, though we did see him talking to himself about it the other night, too), and then he goes back to being a fundamentally normal member of the house, not the Nick Bateman-type he seems to feel he is. Are they editing out loads of stuff or something ? I was intrigued about his comment that Emma had used the n-word repeatedly when talking to him, as he reported the other night; I know Emma, watching the unwary, took offence, but can anyone corroborate/deny his version of events ?

I’d guess Vanessa will go this weekend; I seem to recall that female viewers are more likely to vote than male viewers, and a quick poll of the women I know seems to suggest they don’t like Vanessa. And possibilities-of-sauciness aside, I suspect most people vote on who they’d most like to see ousted. Not a very scientific approach, granted, but it’s all guesswork, innit ?

“…everything was all right, the struggle was finished. [he] had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
 
 
Whisky Priestess
15:36 / 16.06.04
Your quote-fu is mighty, DaveBCooper ...
 
 
■
20:23 / 16.06.04
"What happens when you use itching powder? Does it make you proper itch?"
Bless.
Now if only someone would switch the powder for anthrax...
 
 
Ganesh
21:09 / 16.06.04
Surprise surprise, Emma and MyShell weren't quite as confontational as they reckoned they'd be (from the other side of the monitor). Interesting to see all the sickly smiles on the faces of the Jungle Twats - and was it just me, or did Stuart hang back majorly from contact, hugging Emma but avoiding the Mollusc?

Shriek Factor 11 again, though, especially now Nadia's got her sodding fags. Wonnnderful.
 
 
■
21:27 / 16.06.04
That was great. Victor's expression (even under all the makeup) spoke volumes. [Thinks] "You have your day, my time will come!".
No-one was happy to see them. Oh, the wondrous variety of deceit!
 
 
Warewullf
21:54 / 16.06.04
That was damn funny. Loved the way Victor instantly withdrew from the crowd and started prowling up and down like a...twat.
Jason just froze solid. That was classic.
 
  

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