In my previous post on the subject I mentioned that the atmosphere in the Celebrity Big Brother house had become quite poisonous following a brutal argument between Jim Davidson and Linda Nolan on Wednesday (15/1/14) night through to Thursday (16/1/14) morning. Since then Big Brother has been using a series of special tasks to lighten the mood.
The first of these which had probably already been scheduled took place and centred around Liz Jones. A career journalist and columnist Liz Jones is highly neurotic and slightly deaf which makes it difficult for her to keep up with the goings on in the house. As a result rather then being a participant in the show Liz has acted more as a ghostly apparition hovering in the back ground. So on Thursday (broadcast Friday - 17/1/14) Big Brother set Liz the task of formally interview some of the other housemates in order to write an article about the show which was then presented to the group. This obviously put Liz into her comfort zone in an effort to bring her out of her shell. This seems to have had some success with Liz now showing an interest in what is going on around her and is occasionally joining in with group discussions. The task also had the effect of bringing the group together by allowing Liz to tell everybody what everybody else has been saying about the two big sources of tension - the fight between Jim and Liz and the saga between Lee Ryan, Jasmine Waltz, Casey Batchelor and Luisa Zissman. Although it wasn't mentioned as part of the task Linda did separately tell Lee a version of what the "Frank Carson's dressing room" incident was all about so that mystery is slowly being solved throughout the group.
Next to come up for the attentions of a special task was Luisa. You may remember she had her confidence badly knocked by the resumption of Lee and Jasmine's relationship and a big argument with Dappy which seemed to focus on who was the most intelligent. So Big Brother called both Luisa and Dappy into the diary room for a special intelligence test/general knowledge quiz. The average score amongst people (in the production office) who'd taken this test was 65%. Luisa scored 69% whilst Dappy scored just 6% labelling him not only as stupid but actually mentally retarded in the medical sense of the term. This obviously boosted Luisa's confidence by declaring her the winner of the argument with Dappy in the eyes of the group. It did though make Dappy very angry with him threatening to walk out of the show if the test task was broadcast. As the task was broadcast and with Dappy not leaving the show it goes with out saying that he ended up backing. That has probably got something to do with the fact that if he'd quit Dappy wouldn't have got paid and he is currently so poor that last week bailiffs threatened to force entry into the house to serve him with repossession notices.
On Friday (17/1/13) which was broadcast on Saturday (18/1/13) Lee was told that one of his superfans had won a competition so would get to spend some asking him questions. This was all fake with the superfan being an actress and her questions being set by other housemates who were watching the whole thing live via videofeed. This task of course got the group to agree with each other that Lee is in fact an idiot and have a good laugh at his expense. As Lee didn't realise the who task was fake the housemates were all rewarded with a morale boosting takeaway dinner and lots and lots of alcohol. This led to a very riotous party in which the female housemates divulged secrets about their sex lives (Liz apparently lost her virginity at 30 whilst Casey has apparently never experienced an orgasm with a man) to each other and multiple renditions of a very rude song about Lionel Blair. Later Luisa and Dappy ended up in the shower together but the relationship between the two was rather summed up when Dappy said; "I don't want to be the first to have sex in the house" to which Luisa curtly replied; "We're not going to have sex" highlighting that Dappy really isn't bright enough to work out when Luisa's mucking about and playing things for laughs.
With all this going on it is quite hard to assess how the argument with Jim has affected Linda. However the upside of them having a showbiz feud that has been going on for the best part of 40 years is that it means they've both been in show business for 40 years. That gives them the experience and professionalism to know that sometimes they've got to put their personal differences aside for the good of the show and that seems to be largely what is happening. Plus after 40 years of arguing I doubt there's much new they can say to offend each other. This putting a brave face on things does come at an emotional cost though and I am somewhat worried that Linda will have to pay a higher price by being forced to re-live the grief at the death of her husband and on Thursday and Friday in her quieter moments Linda did appear to be visibly depressed. However in Friday night's drinking session Linda had cheered up noticeably cracking dirty jokes and laughing loudly.
The big winner from the twin arguments has been Luisa who has shot from being a whipped dog to being the house's alpha female in the space of a few days. Obviously with Jasmine's eviction on Wednesday the competition between Luisa and Lee for Jasmine's affections ended. Also successfully setting Jim up to get wiped out by Linda has helped to boost Luisa's confidence. The main difference though seems to be the way in which Lee and Dappy have both made fools of themselves to the extent that Luisa no longer sees them as potential suitors or rivals but as young children who need mothering. As the mother of - I believe a 5 year old daughter - this is obviously a role in Luisa is extremely comfortable with. So great is the extent of the mothering that Lee and Dappy require Luisa's breasts have once again started lactating milk preparing her to breast-feed a baby once again. This is a fact that Luisa happily shared with Lee and Dappy on Friday and will no doubt provide an interesting talking point for bio-psychologists.
Lionel Blair was of course evicted on Friday. Rather then being a sign of disapproval this seems more a case of Lionel's fans choosing not to vote to support him so he could leave a show which must have been a sort of nightmare for the 82 year old. Being a consummate professional and something of a national treasure Lionel did seem to set this in motion himself when during the week he had a long, late night conversation with Jim. In that conversation Lionel confessed that he had been alive for more years then he had left to live and pointed out that he wanted to spend those remaining years in the company of friends he'd already made rather then meeting new people. Also if you want a good laugh try and track down a copy of a live panel discussion Lionel did with Jasmine on Saturday's companion show "Big Brother's Bit on the Psych." Basically Jasmine challenged Lionel to tell her exactly what he though of her to her face. So he did and the phrase; "I can't stand the f'cking sight of you" might have been used. This was not the reaction Jasmine had been expecting.
16:30 on 19/1/14 (UK date).
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