What he should have been doing (and what I'd have expected him to be doing) was reiterating that it was a task, and that nobody's voting is really likely to be affected by the way a random HM delivers a speech about them (especially considering, though to be fair he wouldn't actually know this) that we didn't even get to see all of them. I'd have expected Richard to have had the common sense to realise this, and, if he had to, to explain it to people.
a) He did say this (to Pete if not Aisleyne, suggesting that he possesses "the common sense to realise this"),
and
b) it's not really the point - at least, not the point he was making.
Dickie's point was not OMG PETE MIGHT LOSE VOTES1!! but rather that it looked like she hadn't put a great deal of effort in - and, compared to other Housemates, that's how it did look. Now, I'm loath to get into Evil Manipulatress konspiracising along the lines of Aisleyne consciously attempting to lose Pete votes, but her speech certainly looked fatuous and half-assed compared to everyone else's. How difficult is it to stand up in front of half a dozen people you've lived with for weeks and mouth thirty seconds of platitudes about one of them with an approximation of sincerity? The giggly shrinking down behind the lectern stuff just looked peculiar, really.
I don't think anyone - in the House or in this thread - is claiming the 'speech' task carries any sort of grand significance, in terms of voting or anything else. It's a daft task, but hardly an enormously difficult one: if my friend were charged with standing up and saying a few pleasant things about me, I think I'd be mildly pissed off if they couldn't manage it. It'd look like they didn't give enough of a shit about me to pull themselves together even for that.
I think that's what Richard was articulating, and I don't think he did it in a nasty way. |
