With the US' Rihanna operation turning into a bit of a ghost town the UK has decided that it is now their moment in the spotlight. For this the UK has been relying on its favourite topic- child sex abuse. So in the past week we've had a frankly less then earth shattering BBC News investigation that British paedophiles use Internet web-cams to sexually abuse children in specifically the Philippines and by implication Thailand and Cambodia.
This past week has also seen the start of several high-profile celebrity child sex abuse trials stemming from the Jimmy Savile investigation. The most notable of these has been the trial of William Roache. Through a very bizarre interview about child-sex abuse given to New Zealand television Roache was of course used to lay out the UK's objectives for Rihanna's concerts in Australia and New Zealand.
The problem is that the UK seems to be constantly going on about child sex abuse as if it were one of its favourite hobbies. Therefore all these trials and news investigations have somewhat faded into the general background noise. So in an effort to add an element of interest stirring drama to the issue we've had the search for Mikaeel Kular a three year old boy who was reported missing from his bed in Scotland by his mother at around 07:15 on Thursday (16/1/14). As it has always seemed unlikely that a three year old would be able to get dressed and leave the family apartment building on his own the suspicion has always been that he was kidnapped by paedophiles.
With no evidence to prove otherwise though the police began by treating this as a missing persons case and appealed to the local and national media for help. This led to the case getting almost wall to wall coverage with Sky News in particular seeming to cover no other news story. The police search operation seems to have been pretty standard with the police setting up a cordoned off search area and then bringing lots of extra officers to methodically search this large cordoned area. On Friday (17/1/14) the police set up search teams made up of members of the public supervised by the police. This was extremely similar to the scenes that followed the disappearance of April Jones in October 2012.
Despite all these well intentioned search efforts the thing that has been at the back of everybody's mind is that Mikaeel mother's claim that she put him to bed at around 21:00 on Wednesday (15/1/14) and then overnight he either voluntarily left or was kidnapped from the family home without her noticing is a little difficult to believe. That draws comparisons between this case and the Madeline McCann case whose parents claim was abducted by Saudi Arabian, paedophile, gypsy people smugglers from their holiday villa in Portugal in 2007. Everyone else though thinks that the McCanns simply killed their daughter and were then forced to make up increasingly elaborate lies to cover up that fact.
Since then the McCann case has become a device for the UK to discuss a whole range of things will a whole range of people but has always been focused on the UK's difficult relationship with the European Union (EU). For example there is currently a UK led police investigation into the McCann case going on in Portugal which is rumoured to be on the brink of yielding fresh breakthroughs and the Portuguese detective originally in charge of the case is currently on trial for liable over a book in which he claimed Madeline McCann was killed by her parents.
At around 00:00 today (when I'm normally looking at porn) the police announced that they had discovered a body in a house far outside the search area. Pending formal identification the police believe the body to be that of Mikaeel Kular. It has since emerged that the house in which the body was found belongs to Mikaeel's aunt, used to be his family home and his mother has been detained by the police. Due to a small foible with the Scottish legal system "detained" in Scotland means basically the same as "arrested" does in the rest of the UK and in Scotland "arrested" means basically the same as "charged" does in the rest of the UK. This is actually quite similar to the aguido system used in Portugal.
So while I think the primary purpose is to cause confusion within the EU and beyond the UK's position does seem to have shifted from criticising Portugal for claiming that Madeline McCann was killed by her parents to criticising Portugal for conducting too sloppy an investigation to prove that Madeline McCann was killed by her parents.
Finally along with the Glasgow helicopter crash this seems intended to give the impression of stoking up anti-UK feeling within Scotland ahead of the 2014 referendum on independence which at the moment is pretty much a done deal for the "No" campaign.
11:35 on 18/1/14 (UK date).
Saturday, 18 January 2014
Friday, 17 January 2014
CBB - More Addictive Than Codeine
If you've been following my Twitter feed you'd know that I recently sprained my ankle and have been moaning about it ever since. On Wednesday (15/1/14) as I was starting to get bored of Celebrity Big Brother (CBB) I finally relented and took some codeine for the pain. Coming from the same family as morphine and heroin codeine is mildly addictive. That means once one dose has started to wear off it is really tempting to reach for another one. However on Thursday (16/1/14) I managed to stay strong and stuck to ibuprofen despite limping up to the barbers for a haircut. Sadly though it was much harder to steer clear of CBB.
This was perhaps fortunate because Thursday's episode which showed events from Wednesday through to early on Thursday morning focused on a massive argument between Jim Davidson and Linda Nolan. As Jim and Linda have known each other for a long time this has always been bubbling along in the background. However what brought it to the surface has been the tension created by the resumption of the relationship between Lee Ryan and Jasmine Waltz at the expense of Casey Batchelor.
The argument began in the early evening when Linda, Liz Jones and Luisa Zissman were discussing Luisa's experience as a single mother. In what seemed like a clumsy but genuine attempt to join in the conversation Jim asked if Luisa missed having a husband in her life. This prompted Linda to blow up at Jim accusing him of being a misogynist, sexist and general women hater. Jim responded by walking away and complaining about it to a group who were outside smoking in the garden. Linda overheard this and called Jim back into the kitchen to have a further go at him. Having had a drink by this point Jim responded by telling Linda that she should grow up and go to bed to get some sleep before walking away again.
After Linda had gone to bed Jim was discussing the argument with Luisa and others when he suggested that Linda's hatred of him stemmed from a mysterious incident that happened in fellow comedian Frank Carson's dressing room many years ago. Jim said this in the hope that Luisa would then go and ask Linda about the incident. Perhaps being slow on the uptake or not that easy to manipulate Luisa waited until Jim specifically told her to go and ask Linda about the incident in Frank Carson's dressing room. Still not being Jim Davidson's biggest fan Luisa immediately then went off to wake Linda up to tell Linda that Jim had told her to ask Linda about the incident in Frank Carson's dressing room nod doubt in the hope it would cause trouble for Jim.
Although neither Jim nor Linda told the story so none of the other housemates know about it the "incident in Frank Carson's dressing room" refers to a theatre in Blackpool, UK which had been experiencing a spate of thefts from performers dressing rooms and was just down the road from a theatre where Linda Nolan was performing during the mid-1990's. In response to the thefts the theatre installed surveillance cameras in the dressing rooms and one - in Frank Carson's dressing room - caught Linda Nolan's husband and manager, Brian Hudson stealing GBP20 from a wallet. Although the other thefts were never solved Hudson plead guilty to this petty theft in Court and was fined. This incident occurred at a time of extreme financial hardship for Linda and her husband which led to Nolan being declared bankrupt a few months later. Brian Hudson died in 2007 so although everything he was saying is true this was a particularly heavy blow for Jim to land on Linda.
Linda obviously reacted to this by leaping out of bed and confronting Jim in the garden calling him all sorts of names but generally accusing him of being a small and cowardly man for sending Luisa to bring up the incident rather then saying it to her face. Linda then went back off to bed in floods of tears to be comforted by other housemates. This tension between Linda and Jim is leading to the formation of two distinct camps with the girls - Luisa, Casey and Sam Faiers - rallying around Linda and the boys - Dappy and Lee - rallying around Jim.
Obviously the ferocity of the argument has created a very nasty atmosphere in the house with the mystery of what it is all about only making things worse. The obvious solution to this would be to further goad Jim and Linda into a big, air-clearing argument. However the history between Jim and Linda seems so long and acrimonious I'm worried about how big that big argument will be how long it will last for. An alternative could be force Jim and Linda into a room together for an extended period as part of a task. Perhaps a better alternative would be to let the secret slip so other housemates know what the argument is about and let the group self-regulate. However the issue is not exactly clear cut so this could lead to the deepening of factional divisions. Therefore it might be an idea to guide the group by having it be seen that Jim was in the wrong by issuing him with a formal warning about bringing up Court cases involving people who are dead.
Although it has been dwarfed by this argument the Lee/Jasmine/Casey/Luisa saga is still causing tension. Realising that there is now no way on earth Casey will take him back Lee has moved on to Luisa. Basically this involved Lee telling Luisa that Casey had told him that that if they pretended to be in a relationship that would help them win the show in order to tempt Luisa into a relationship. Casey has said nothing of the sort and this idea had been implanted in Lee's mind by Jasmine. Unfortunately for Lee the idea was only in Jasmine's mind because Luisa had planted it there. Needless to say this left Luisa staring at Lee as if he was mentally disabled meaning that he is now the house's least eligible bachelor behind Dappy which is one hell of an achievement.
So with all the housemates - except for Linda and Casey - up for eviction tonight it is quite clear that Lee has to go because he's just in the way like a bit of furniture the other housemates keeping bumping into.
17:25 on 17/1/14 (UK date).
This was perhaps fortunate because Thursday's episode which showed events from Wednesday through to early on Thursday morning focused on a massive argument between Jim Davidson and Linda Nolan. As Jim and Linda have known each other for a long time this has always been bubbling along in the background. However what brought it to the surface has been the tension created by the resumption of the relationship between Lee Ryan and Jasmine Waltz at the expense of Casey Batchelor.
The argument began in the early evening when Linda, Liz Jones and Luisa Zissman were discussing Luisa's experience as a single mother. In what seemed like a clumsy but genuine attempt to join in the conversation Jim asked if Luisa missed having a husband in her life. This prompted Linda to blow up at Jim accusing him of being a misogynist, sexist and general women hater. Jim responded by walking away and complaining about it to a group who were outside smoking in the garden. Linda overheard this and called Jim back into the kitchen to have a further go at him. Having had a drink by this point Jim responded by telling Linda that she should grow up and go to bed to get some sleep before walking away again.
After Linda had gone to bed Jim was discussing the argument with Luisa and others when he suggested that Linda's hatred of him stemmed from a mysterious incident that happened in fellow comedian Frank Carson's dressing room many years ago. Jim said this in the hope that Luisa would then go and ask Linda about the incident. Perhaps being slow on the uptake or not that easy to manipulate Luisa waited until Jim specifically told her to go and ask Linda about the incident in Frank Carson's dressing room. Still not being Jim Davidson's biggest fan Luisa immediately then went off to wake Linda up to tell Linda that Jim had told her to ask Linda about the incident in Frank Carson's dressing room nod doubt in the hope it would cause trouble for Jim.
Although neither Jim nor Linda told the story so none of the other housemates know about it the "incident in Frank Carson's dressing room" refers to a theatre in Blackpool, UK which had been experiencing a spate of thefts from performers dressing rooms and was just down the road from a theatre where Linda Nolan was performing during the mid-1990's. In response to the thefts the theatre installed surveillance cameras in the dressing rooms and one - in Frank Carson's dressing room - caught Linda Nolan's husband and manager, Brian Hudson stealing GBP20 from a wallet. Although the other thefts were never solved Hudson plead guilty to this petty theft in Court and was fined. This incident occurred at a time of extreme financial hardship for Linda and her husband which led to Nolan being declared bankrupt a few months later. Brian Hudson died in 2007 so although everything he was saying is true this was a particularly heavy blow for Jim to land on Linda.
Linda obviously reacted to this by leaping out of bed and confronting Jim in the garden calling him all sorts of names but generally accusing him of being a small and cowardly man for sending Luisa to bring up the incident rather then saying it to her face. Linda then went back off to bed in floods of tears to be comforted by other housemates. This tension between Linda and Jim is leading to the formation of two distinct camps with the girls - Luisa, Casey and Sam Faiers - rallying around Linda and the boys - Dappy and Lee - rallying around Jim.
Obviously the ferocity of the argument has created a very nasty atmosphere in the house with the mystery of what it is all about only making things worse. The obvious solution to this would be to further goad Jim and Linda into a big, air-clearing argument. However the history between Jim and Linda seems so long and acrimonious I'm worried about how big that big argument will be how long it will last for. An alternative could be force Jim and Linda into a room together for an extended period as part of a task. Perhaps a better alternative would be to let the secret slip so other housemates know what the argument is about and let the group self-regulate. However the issue is not exactly clear cut so this could lead to the deepening of factional divisions. Therefore it might be an idea to guide the group by having it be seen that Jim was in the wrong by issuing him with a formal warning about bringing up Court cases involving people who are dead.
Although it has been dwarfed by this argument the Lee/Jasmine/Casey/Luisa saga is still causing tension. Realising that there is now no way on earth Casey will take him back Lee has moved on to Luisa. Basically this involved Lee telling Luisa that Casey had told him that that if they pretended to be in a relationship that would help them win the show in order to tempt Luisa into a relationship. Casey has said nothing of the sort and this idea had been implanted in Lee's mind by Jasmine. Unfortunately for Lee the idea was only in Jasmine's mind because Luisa had planted it there. Needless to say this left Luisa staring at Lee as if he was mentally disabled meaning that he is now the house's least eligible bachelor behind Dappy which is one hell of an achievement.
So with all the housemates - except for Linda and Casey - up for eviction tonight it is quite clear that Lee has to go because he's just in the way like a bit of furniture the other housemates keeping bumping into.
17:25 on 17/1/14 (UK date).
Thursday, 16 January 2014
Egypt's Continuing [sic] Revolution: Month 19, Week 4, Day 5.
On Tuesday (14/1/14) and Wednesday (15/1/14) Egyptians went to the polls for a referendum on the 2013 draft of a new constitution. Although counting began as soon as the polls had closed official, verified results are not yet available. However the preliminary results indicate that support for the constitution was shockingly high at around 97%.
The voter turn-out though seems to tell a very different story. Although it varied wildly across the country from a high of 98% in South Sinai to a low of just 17% in North Sinai the national average was around 30%. When you factor in the number of "No" votes cast this means that 70-75% of Egyptian voters did not vote "Yes" to this constitutional draft.
The picture gets even worse when you consider the reasons given by people interviewed at polling stations to explain why they were voting the way they did. Very few of these people offered any discussion about the constitutional draft or its impacts. Instead they spoke of voting "Yes" in order to show their support for the militarys overthrow of Mohamed Morsi or their opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood. Others indicated that they thought that by voting for the constitution they were taking a stand against the violence and instability that has plagued the nation since the downfall of Mubarak and intensified since the ouster of Morsi. That suggests that those who had read and understood the constitution had stayed away from the referendum in droves whilst those who did vote simply had not understood the question.
This is very bad news for Egypt because rather then marking an important step on the road to a stable and successful democracy it instead seems to place the nation on the brink of either returning to a Mubarak-style military dictatorship or more violence and instability at the hands of a growing number of opponents to the military. Sadly it seems most likely to be a combination of the worst parts of both.
Therefore I think that revolutionary groups within Egypt should now think very hard about lodging legal challenges to the result of the referendum and the arrest of campaigners for a "No" vote would certainly give them cause. Egypt's interim leaders and the Supreme Court should then think very hard about upholding those challenges and overturning the result of this referendum. That way the constitutional draft can go back to committee for essential improvement and another referendum can be held in a few months time.
In the meantime Egypt might like to consider holding a referendum on the ouster of Morsi itself. That will certainly help Egyptians learn about the democratic process enabling them to make a better informed choice at the next constitutional referendum and all subsequent elections.
20:30 on 16/1/14 (UK date).
The voter turn-out though seems to tell a very different story. Although it varied wildly across the country from a high of 98% in South Sinai to a low of just 17% in North Sinai the national average was around 30%. When you factor in the number of "No" votes cast this means that 70-75% of Egyptian voters did not vote "Yes" to this constitutional draft.
The picture gets even worse when you consider the reasons given by people interviewed at polling stations to explain why they were voting the way they did. Very few of these people offered any discussion about the constitutional draft or its impacts. Instead they spoke of voting "Yes" in order to show their support for the militarys overthrow of Mohamed Morsi or their opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood. Others indicated that they thought that by voting for the constitution they were taking a stand against the violence and instability that has plagued the nation since the downfall of Mubarak and intensified since the ouster of Morsi. That suggests that those who had read and understood the constitution had stayed away from the referendum in droves whilst those who did vote simply had not understood the question.
This is very bad news for Egypt because rather then marking an important step on the road to a stable and successful democracy it instead seems to place the nation on the brink of either returning to a Mubarak-style military dictatorship or more violence and instability at the hands of a growing number of opponents to the military. Sadly it seems most likely to be a combination of the worst parts of both.
Therefore I think that revolutionary groups within Egypt should now think very hard about lodging legal challenges to the result of the referendum and the arrest of campaigners for a "No" vote would certainly give them cause. Egypt's interim leaders and the Supreme Court should then think very hard about upholding those challenges and overturning the result of this referendum. That way the constitutional draft can go back to committee for essential improvement and another referendum can be held in a few months time.
In the meantime Egypt might like to consider holding a referendum on the ouster of Morsi itself. That will certainly help Egyptians learn about the democratic process enabling them to make a better informed choice at the next constitutional referendum and all subsequent elections.
20:30 on 16/1/14 (UK date).
I'm Getting a Bit Bored of CBB Now.
You may have noticed that it's been a couple of days since I last did a post on the UK's Celebrity Big Big Brother (CBB). In part that's because I saw it as a bit of an unnecessary distraction during Egypt's constitutional referendum. It is also in part though because things seem to have gone a bit flat.
Take for example Sunday's (12/1/14) task that was broadcast on Monday (13/1/14). This involved the housemates taking part in a medieval inspired tournament that seemed influenced by the primarily British TV show "Game of Thrones." Although it did feature Lee Ryan and Casey Batchelor in a sort of joust it seemed more of an effort to fill time rather then serve some great strategic purpose such as the UFO task and the two rooms challenge.
One housemate who has been consistently interesting though is Luisa Zissman. Although it seems to be being treated as it was a closely guarded secret Luisa Zissman is as ethnically Jewish as her married name would suggest. Born in Heartfordshire this means that she is a British Jew although she's not coming across as particularly observant. However if Luisa were to trace her family tree it seems likely that she would find a lot of middle-eastern Jewish heritage particularly from places such as Lebanon and Syria. This of course explains her success in BBC1's "The Apprentice" show in the summer of 2013 with the UK trying to energise the virulently anti-Semitic insurgency in Syria by linking the Syria government with Jews and by extension Israel.
However in CBB Luisa's ethnic or religious background is entirely secondary to her sex addiction and the emotional causes thereof. This came to the surface quite quickly when Lee and Casey were starting to form a romantic relationship. This prompted Luisa to try to an encourage Jasmine Waltz into a homosexual relationship with her by trying out the moves that predatory lesbians has used on Luisa herself. This quickly blew up in Luisa's face when Jasmine quickly stole Lee out from under Casey's nose and the two formed a sexual relationship. Being wise to most of her tricks after forming the relationship with Lee Jasmine couldn't resist sticking the knife into Luisa.
Therefore following Thursday's (9/1/14) big fight with Dappy and the shock return of Lee and Casey on Friday (10/1/14) Luisa was pretty much broken and left obediently following Jasmine around the house like a whipped dog. However the return of Lee also placed extra pressure on Jasmine. On one hand she seemed to be under orders from her US management to play up the Jessie J/predatory lesbian thing. On the other driven by a mix of genuine lust and a mistaken belief that a 'romance' with Lee would help her win the show Jasmine seemed very keen to re-start her relationship with Lee. However the warnings about having sex on TV issued through the two rooms challenge left her hesitant to do what is needed to keep Lee's attention.
This pressure on Jasmine was making her just about vulnerable enough for Luisa to start to get back in the game. For example on Monday (13/1/14) Luisa got Lee to tell her all about his homosexual relationship with Blue band mate Duncan James in full view of Jasmine. Luisa did this on purpose knowing that despite all the lesbian flirting homosexuality is a major turn-off for Jasmine. This deep seated and aggressive homophobia from Jasmine suggests that her story about having a little b*tch girl whilst in prison might not be the true story.
Therefore I think that if Big Brother had been able to keep this pressure on Jasmine up by keeping her from having sex with Lee - perhaps by giving them both a stern talking or through more subtle means - the balance of power between Luisa and Jasmine would have shifted making for a much more interesting show. As it happens Big Brother was unable to prevent Lee and Jasmine having sex again on Monday (13/1/14) night. This obviously had an extremely negative impact on Luisa who by Tuesday (14/1/14) had resorted to flirting heavily with Dappy which is surely a sign that a woman has hit rock bottom. Therefore whilst there isn't a problem or even an issue at the moment Luisa seems to me the housemate most likely to have to be pulled from the show on mental health grounds.
The resumption of the relationship between Lee and Jasmine obviously also had a negative impact on Casey who sort of having made peace with Lee whilst in the annex was forced to watch Jasmine steal Lee from her all over again. Seeing the impact this had on Casey also of course had a negative impact on the entire house which wasn't help by Jasmine's attempts to rub the relationship in Casey's face by tricking Lee into lots of public displays of affection and, well, dry-humping. This is obviously very bad news for the show because if all the housemates are on edge it makes for very bad television. Sure it might have led to plenty of arguments but those arguments would be boring and bad-tempered driven largely by a general sense of frustration rather then theatric and manipulative and therefore interesting such as Jasmine's repeated attempts to antagonise Jim Davidson.
Therefore it became vitally important that Lee and Jasmine's relationship was brought to a swift end with the eviction of Lee being the obvious solution. Unfortunately the housemates didn't play ball nominating Jim Davidson and Liz Jones to face the public vote. Liz Jones was nominated because she's so dull the only thing she's really said since entering the house is; "I want to go home." Jim Davidson was nominated because, well, he may not be homophobic, sexist or racist but one thing's for sure - Jim Davidson is a mean drunk. Again as Liz and Jim are two housemates Big Brother wants to get its money's worth from the eviction pool was extended to include Jasmine and Luisa who were the next two with the highest number of nominations although they're probably even more valuable to the show.
On Tuesday (14/1/14) Big Brother had a chance to get itself out of trouble when Lee was voted the most annoying housemate and put up for eviction. However because that occurred as part of a task that would take to long to explain Big Brother decided to cancel Lee's nomination. This could prove to be a mistake because on Wednesday (15/1/14) Jasmine was evicted from the show.
Whilst this breaks up the relationship between Lee and Jasmine and Lee has been part of the Jasmine/Luisa/Lee/Casey saga far from being a player I don't think he's really understands the game that's going on. Therefore I struggling to imagine a way in which the show hasn't just begun a slow decline before ending with a whimper. That's unfortunate because prior to the eviction of Jasmine this very strong season of CBB had been extended by four days until January 28th (28/1/14) due to high ratings.
15:50 on 16/1/14 (UK date).
Take for example Sunday's (12/1/14) task that was broadcast on Monday (13/1/14). This involved the housemates taking part in a medieval inspired tournament that seemed influenced by the primarily British TV show "Game of Thrones." Although it did feature Lee Ryan and Casey Batchelor in a sort of joust it seemed more of an effort to fill time rather then serve some great strategic purpose such as the UFO task and the two rooms challenge.
One housemate who has been consistently interesting though is Luisa Zissman. Although it seems to be being treated as it was a closely guarded secret Luisa Zissman is as ethnically Jewish as her married name would suggest. Born in Heartfordshire this means that she is a British Jew although she's not coming across as particularly observant. However if Luisa were to trace her family tree it seems likely that she would find a lot of middle-eastern Jewish heritage particularly from places such as Lebanon and Syria. This of course explains her success in BBC1's "The Apprentice" show in the summer of 2013 with the UK trying to energise the virulently anti-Semitic insurgency in Syria by linking the Syria government with Jews and by extension Israel.
However in CBB Luisa's ethnic or religious background is entirely secondary to her sex addiction and the emotional causes thereof. This came to the surface quite quickly when Lee and Casey were starting to form a romantic relationship. This prompted Luisa to try to an encourage Jasmine Waltz into a homosexual relationship with her by trying out the moves that predatory lesbians has used on Luisa herself. This quickly blew up in Luisa's face when Jasmine quickly stole Lee out from under Casey's nose and the two formed a sexual relationship. Being wise to most of her tricks after forming the relationship with Lee Jasmine couldn't resist sticking the knife into Luisa.
Therefore following Thursday's (9/1/14) big fight with Dappy and the shock return of Lee and Casey on Friday (10/1/14) Luisa was pretty much broken and left obediently following Jasmine around the house like a whipped dog. However the return of Lee also placed extra pressure on Jasmine. On one hand she seemed to be under orders from her US management to play up the Jessie J/predatory lesbian thing. On the other driven by a mix of genuine lust and a mistaken belief that a 'romance' with Lee would help her win the show Jasmine seemed very keen to re-start her relationship with Lee. However the warnings about having sex on TV issued through the two rooms challenge left her hesitant to do what is needed to keep Lee's attention.
This pressure on Jasmine was making her just about vulnerable enough for Luisa to start to get back in the game. For example on Monday (13/1/14) Luisa got Lee to tell her all about his homosexual relationship with Blue band mate Duncan James in full view of Jasmine. Luisa did this on purpose knowing that despite all the lesbian flirting homosexuality is a major turn-off for Jasmine. This deep seated and aggressive homophobia from Jasmine suggests that her story about having a little b*tch girl whilst in prison might not be the true story.
Therefore I think that if Big Brother had been able to keep this pressure on Jasmine up by keeping her from having sex with Lee - perhaps by giving them both a stern talking or through more subtle means - the balance of power between Luisa and Jasmine would have shifted making for a much more interesting show. As it happens Big Brother was unable to prevent Lee and Jasmine having sex again on Monday (13/1/14) night. This obviously had an extremely negative impact on Luisa who by Tuesday (14/1/14) had resorted to flirting heavily with Dappy which is surely a sign that a woman has hit rock bottom. Therefore whilst there isn't a problem or even an issue at the moment Luisa seems to me the housemate most likely to have to be pulled from the show on mental health grounds.
The resumption of the relationship between Lee and Jasmine obviously also had a negative impact on Casey who sort of having made peace with Lee whilst in the annex was forced to watch Jasmine steal Lee from her all over again. Seeing the impact this had on Casey also of course had a negative impact on the entire house which wasn't help by Jasmine's attempts to rub the relationship in Casey's face by tricking Lee into lots of public displays of affection and, well, dry-humping. This is obviously very bad news for the show because if all the housemates are on edge it makes for very bad television. Sure it might have led to plenty of arguments but those arguments would be boring and bad-tempered driven largely by a general sense of frustration rather then theatric and manipulative and therefore interesting such as Jasmine's repeated attempts to antagonise Jim Davidson.
Therefore it became vitally important that Lee and Jasmine's relationship was brought to a swift end with the eviction of Lee being the obvious solution. Unfortunately the housemates didn't play ball nominating Jim Davidson and Liz Jones to face the public vote. Liz Jones was nominated because she's so dull the only thing she's really said since entering the house is; "I want to go home." Jim Davidson was nominated because, well, he may not be homophobic, sexist or racist but one thing's for sure - Jim Davidson is a mean drunk. Again as Liz and Jim are two housemates Big Brother wants to get its money's worth from the eviction pool was extended to include Jasmine and Luisa who were the next two with the highest number of nominations although they're probably even more valuable to the show.
On Tuesday (14/1/14) Big Brother had a chance to get itself out of trouble when Lee was voted the most annoying housemate and put up for eviction. However because that occurred as part of a task that would take to long to explain Big Brother decided to cancel Lee's nomination. This could prove to be a mistake because on Wednesday (15/1/14) Jasmine was evicted from the show.
Whilst this breaks up the relationship between Lee and Jasmine and Lee has been part of the Jasmine/Luisa/Lee/Casey saga far from being a player I don't think he's really understands the game that's going on. Therefore I struggling to imagine a way in which the show hasn't just begun a slow decline before ending with a whimper. That's unfortunate because prior to the eviction of Jasmine this very strong season of CBB had been extended by four days until January 28th (28/1/14) due to high ratings.
15:50 on 16/1/14 (UK date).
Monday, 13 January 2014
Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 19, Week 4, Day 2.
On Tuesday (14/1/14) and Wednesday (15/1/14) people in Egypt will be voting whether to adopt or reject the 2013 Constitutional draft. I have already discussed this issue in great detail here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/egypts-draft-constitution-part-1.html
And here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/egypts-draft-constitution-part-2.html
And here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/egypts-draft-constitution-part-3.html
Therefore I don't think there is much need to me to restate why I think the Egyptian people have no option other then to reject this constitution in order to send it back to committee so some critical errors can be corrected.
I should point out though that this re-writing shouldn't take to long because the current draft is 90-95% complete. It is just that the 5-10% that still needs work covers the most important areas such as the role of the military, the structure of the government and the House of Representatives ability to pass budgets.
However the solutions to these problems are actually quite straight forward.
For example to solve the budget problem you simply need to remove the single line of text that says the budget cannot impose new burdens on citizens (Article 124/2013). Similarly to solve the problem of the government bearing no connection to the will of the people you merely need to remove the paragraph that says the Prime Minister cannot be a member of the House of Representatives and replace it with one that says that any nominee for the post of Prime Minister must be an elected member of the House of Representatives (Article 164/2013).
Therefore I don't see any reason why the drafting committee would have to delay the transition roadmap by any more then a maximum of three months in order to produce a constitution that is 100% perfect.
Sadly though I think the biggest delay in producing a re-drafted constitution that I can endorse will come from the military who seem to be using it to grab too much power away from the people.
For example Article 204/2013 which outlines the circumstances in which civilians can be tried by military Courts is far too expansive and should be replaced by a system by which the cases of civilians accused of most crimes against the military are first reviewed by a civilian Judge who then has the option of referring the most serious cases to military Courts.
Also the way the military have sent this draft to referendum whilst it still includes the glaring conflict over whether the President (Article 152/2013) or the Minister of Defence (Article 201/2013) is the ultimate commander of the armed forces suggests to me that the military cannot imagine of a day where the Minister of Defence who must be a member of the armed forces would ever disagree with the President who may be a civilian but also may be a member of the military.
This suspicion that the military intend to turn the overthrow of Morsi into a full blown coup in order to reassert their control of Egypt has only been made worse by recent events. Take for example the bombing of the Police HQ in Mansoura on December 24th (24/12/13). Despite the fact that this attack was almost immediately claimed by the Salafi group Ansar Bait al-Maqdis and everybody in intelligence circles believed that claim Egypt's military dominated interim government blamed the attack on the Muslim Brotherhood and used it to designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist group with no evidence to support that claim. This obviously infuriated the Brotherhood whose supporters took to the streets with renewed vigour and violence.
Then there was the strange - but thankfully now cancelled - plan to put Mohamed Morsi on trial on January 8th (8/1/14) just a week before the constitutional referendum. This would have no doubt made the Brotherhood supporters even more angry and even more violent.
Therefore I think that there has been a deliberate plot on the part of Egypt's military to increase violence and unrest ahead of the constitutional referendum. That way the military could trick the Egyptian people into voting to support any constitution simply because they were so sick of all the violence and unrest. That would clear the way for General el-Sisi's campaign for President which although he's still playing coy most people have accepted has already begun.
I should point out though that I would actually be happy to endorse el-Sisi as Egypt's President for one or even two terms. It's just that before that can happen the constitution that would protect Egypt from el-Sisi turning into another Mubarak-style dictator needs to be perfect. Sadly in this draft the constitution simply isn't there yet so Egyptians must vote no to reject it.
21:00 on 13/1/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 10:30 on 15/1/14 (UK date) to add;
Egypt has obviously entered the second day of voting in the constitutional referendum. During informal interviews with people queueing to cast their ballots everybody says they're voting yes. As the military have been arresting people for campaigning for a no vote this hardly surprising. However there is a lot of genuine support for the constitution. Unfortunately though that is largely because most Egyptians have failed to understand that they are voting simply on the constitution not on whether they support the ouster of Mohamed Morsi or are opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood.
This strikes me as extremely short-sighted because if the constitution is adopted the Brotherhood and their more violent counter-parts are not suddenly going to stop their campaign to destabilise Egypt. This constitution is going to make matters worse because it is fatally flawed and when it goes into force those flaws will become ever more apparent. With every failure of the constitution such as an unelected man being crowned Prime Minister, the economic paralysis that will follow an inevitable failure to pass a budget and every civilian tried and jailed by military Courts for throwing stones at tanks the Brotherhood's argument that the ouster of Morsi was a military coup will be strengthened and they'll be rewarded with more support meaning that the violence and instability will just go on and on.
For example people are already starting to point out that the decision to include a picture of General el-Sisi looks a lot like an attempt to intimidate people into voting in favour of the constitution.
And here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/egypts-draft-constitution-part-2.html
And here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/egypts-draft-constitution-part-3.html
Therefore I don't think there is much need to me to restate why I think the Egyptian people have no option other then to reject this constitution in order to send it back to committee so some critical errors can be corrected.
I should point out though that this re-writing shouldn't take to long because the current draft is 90-95% complete. It is just that the 5-10% that still needs work covers the most important areas such as the role of the military, the structure of the government and the House of Representatives ability to pass budgets.
However the solutions to these problems are actually quite straight forward.
For example to solve the budget problem you simply need to remove the single line of text that says the budget cannot impose new burdens on citizens (Article 124/2013). Similarly to solve the problem of the government bearing no connection to the will of the people you merely need to remove the paragraph that says the Prime Minister cannot be a member of the House of Representatives and replace it with one that says that any nominee for the post of Prime Minister must be an elected member of the House of Representatives (Article 164/2013).
Therefore I don't see any reason why the drafting committee would have to delay the transition roadmap by any more then a maximum of three months in order to produce a constitution that is 100% perfect.
Sadly though I think the biggest delay in producing a re-drafted constitution that I can endorse will come from the military who seem to be using it to grab too much power away from the people.
For example Article 204/2013 which outlines the circumstances in which civilians can be tried by military Courts is far too expansive and should be replaced by a system by which the cases of civilians accused of most crimes against the military are first reviewed by a civilian Judge who then has the option of referring the most serious cases to military Courts.
Also the way the military have sent this draft to referendum whilst it still includes the glaring conflict over whether the President (Article 152/2013) or the Minister of Defence (Article 201/2013) is the ultimate commander of the armed forces suggests to me that the military cannot imagine of a day where the Minister of Defence who must be a member of the armed forces would ever disagree with the President who may be a civilian but also may be a member of the military.
This suspicion that the military intend to turn the overthrow of Morsi into a full blown coup in order to reassert their control of Egypt has only been made worse by recent events. Take for example the bombing of the Police HQ in Mansoura on December 24th (24/12/13). Despite the fact that this attack was almost immediately claimed by the Salafi group Ansar Bait al-Maqdis and everybody in intelligence circles believed that claim Egypt's military dominated interim government blamed the attack on the Muslim Brotherhood and used it to designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist group with no evidence to support that claim. This obviously infuriated the Brotherhood whose supporters took to the streets with renewed vigour and violence.
Then there was the strange - but thankfully now cancelled - plan to put Mohamed Morsi on trial on January 8th (8/1/14) just a week before the constitutional referendum. This would have no doubt made the Brotherhood supporters even more angry and even more violent.
Therefore I think that there has been a deliberate plot on the part of Egypt's military to increase violence and unrest ahead of the constitutional referendum. That way the military could trick the Egyptian people into voting to support any constitution simply because they were so sick of all the violence and unrest. That would clear the way for General el-Sisi's campaign for President which although he's still playing coy most people have accepted has already begun.
I should point out though that I would actually be happy to endorse el-Sisi as Egypt's President for one or even two terms. It's just that before that can happen the constitution that would protect Egypt from el-Sisi turning into another Mubarak-style dictator needs to be perfect. Sadly in this draft the constitution simply isn't there yet so Egyptians must vote no to reject it.
21:00 on 13/1/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 10:30 on 15/1/14 (UK date) to add;
Egypt has obviously entered the second day of voting in the constitutional referendum. During informal interviews with people queueing to cast their ballots everybody says they're voting yes. As the military have been arresting people for campaigning for a no vote this hardly surprising. However there is a lot of genuine support for the constitution. Unfortunately though that is largely because most Egyptians have failed to understand that they are voting simply on the constitution not on whether they support the ouster of Mohamed Morsi or are opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood.
This strikes me as extremely short-sighted because if the constitution is adopted the Brotherhood and their more violent counter-parts are not suddenly going to stop their campaign to destabilise Egypt. This constitution is going to make matters worse because it is fatally flawed and when it goes into force those flaws will become ever more apparent. With every failure of the constitution such as an unelected man being crowned Prime Minister, the economic paralysis that will follow an inevitable failure to pass a budget and every civilian tried and jailed by military Courts for throwing stones at tanks the Brotherhood's argument that the ouster of Morsi was a military coup will be strengthened and they'll be rewarded with more support meaning that the violence and instability will just go on and on.
For example people are already starting to point out that the decision to include a picture of General el-Sisi looks a lot like an attempt to intimidate people into voting in favour of the constitution.
Oh What Was Her Name Again.
You know stroppy cow. Used to date what's-his-face. Looked a bit like Whitney Houston.
That's right, Shakira's new song "Can't Remember to Forget You" featuring Rihanna has today been released online; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3VMyHr1gIg&feature=youtu.be and is a relatively strong and heavily ska-infused track. Ska music of course started out in the 1940/50's in Jamaica and formed the basis for reggae music. It was probably made most famous though by the British Skinhead/2 Tone scene of the early-1980's that was born out of punk and featured bands like The Selector and The Specials with their song "Hey Little Rich Girl." The downtuned rock guitars are an obvious but not entirely correct reference to UK Ska's punk roots.
Although I've only given it a couple of quick listens Can't Remember to Forget You is certainly much stronger then I was expecting. If you remember towards the autumn of 2013 Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) were trying to get her to record the track "Timber" with US artist Pittbull. Unfortunately for them Rihanna was already busy working on this song so the Timber track was eventually released with Ke$ha performing the female role at around the time of the COP19/CMP9 Summit.
Rihanna's tour which was going on at the same time was titled "Diamonds" as a little joke about the damage that Rihanna was going to do to resource rich, sub-Saharan African nations such as the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) along with their neighbours such as South Africa. The most important natural resource in these nations and the one that was most relevant to the COP19/CMP9 through the REDD+ program is wood or timber. So if Rihanna had released a track called Timber at around that time it is hard to imagine a way for her to come back from that politically. As such I was expecting Can't Remember to Forget You to be a bit of a rush job drawn up on the back of an envelope in order to keep Rihanna busy and out of trouble.
Shakira of course represents pretty much everything Rihanna isn't. For a start Shakira writes almost all of her own material and manages her own career. Although she's been out of the spotlight in recent years that's because Shakira's been concentrating on her, by all accounts, healthy and fulfilling relationship with Spanish footballer Gerard Pique. In January 2013 the couple celebrated the birth of their first child. Most importantly though Shakira is widely respected within the international development community through her work with the Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) Foundation that she set up and has been running since the age of around 17.
In that we get into the management's reasons for allowing Rihanna to work on the track because Rihanna is never going to come off well from a direct comparison to Shakira. Beyond the immediate damage to Rihanna's reputation there is no doubt some hope that people will believe that in singing the lyrics that Shakira wrote for her the boy that Rihanna can't remember to forget is Chris Brown creating speculation of yet another reunion. However I think that the lyrics about doing anything for that boy is more of a reference about the great efforts we've all had to go to keep Rihanna out of trouble this past year. After all Shakira and I have a little bit of a history even if she's not fully aware of it.
Also there seem to be little attempts to cause a bit of controversy in South America in order to resurrect the Diamonds tour with a South American leg. For example in the second verse the way Rihanna sings the lyric "Laying in his bed" sounds a bit like she's singing "Lenin is dead." Along with Karl Marx Vladimir Lenin is considered one of the father's of Communism which is apparently still popular in parts of South America. Therefore some of the more paranoid leaders in nations such as Venezuela and Bolivia could get the impression that by announcing that "Lenin is Dead" Rihanna is trying to energise an anti-Communist movement which is a huge historical issue on the continent due to the CIA's School of the Americas program.
The main message though is an attempt to continue the discussion about what happens now to Rihanna. With it pretty much accepted that there won't be a South American leg of the Diamonds World Tour the management's plan was that Rihanna would now be back in a hugely damaging relationship with Chris Brown and in the absence of a career in the music industry would be instead be focusing on shoddy charity projects such as VivaGlam and the hideous UNICEF(US) campaign against the Philippines. By getting Rihanna to appear alongside Shakira who is very successful in her charity work on a song about remembering to forget people the management were trying to promote discussion about whether anyone in the business would remember Rihanna's name long enough to give a sh*t what charity work she did.
16:30 on 13/1/14 (UK date).
11/2/3.
That's right, Shakira's new song "Can't Remember to Forget You" featuring Rihanna has today been released online; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3VMyHr1gIg&feature=youtu.be and is a relatively strong and heavily ska-infused track. Ska music of course started out in the 1940/50's in Jamaica and formed the basis for reggae music. It was probably made most famous though by the British Skinhead/2 Tone scene of the early-1980's that was born out of punk and featured bands like The Selector and The Specials with their song "Hey Little Rich Girl." The downtuned rock guitars are an obvious but not entirely correct reference to UK Ska's punk roots.
Although I've only given it a couple of quick listens Can't Remember to Forget You is certainly much stronger then I was expecting. If you remember towards the autumn of 2013 Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) were trying to get her to record the track "Timber" with US artist Pittbull. Unfortunately for them Rihanna was already busy working on this song so the Timber track was eventually released with Ke$ha performing the female role at around the time of the COP19/CMP9 Summit.
Rihanna's tour which was going on at the same time was titled "Diamonds" as a little joke about the damage that Rihanna was going to do to resource rich, sub-Saharan African nations such as the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) along with their neighbours such as South Africa. The most important natural resource in these nations and the one that was most relevant to the COP19/CMP9 through the REDD+ program is wood or timber. So if Rihanna had released a track called Timber at around that time it is hard to imagine a way for her to come back from that politically. As such I was expecting Can't Remember to Forget You to be a bit of a rush job drawn up on the back of an envelope in order to keep Rihanna busy and out of trouble.
Shakira of course represents pretty much everything Rihanna isn't. For a start Shakira writes almost all of her own material and manages her own career. Although she's been out of the spotlight in recent years that's because Shakira's been concentrating on her, by all accounts, healthy and fulfilling relationship with Spanish footballer Gerard Pique. In January 2013 the couple celebrated the birth of their first child. Most importantly though Shakira is widely respected within the international development community through her work with the Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) Foundation that she set up and has been running since the age of around 17.
In that we get into the management's reasons for allowing Rihanna to work on the track because Rihanna is never going to come off well from a direct comparison to Shakira. Beyond the immediate damage to Rihanna's reputation there is no doubt some hope that people will believe that in singing the lyrics that Shakira wrote for her the boy that Rihanna can't remember to forget is Chris Brown creating speculation of yet another reunion. However I think that the lyrics about doing anything for that boy is more of a reference about the great efforts we've all had to go to keep Rihanna out of trouble this past year. After all Shakira and I have a little bit of a history even if she's not fully aware of it.
Also there seem to be little attempts to cause a bit of controversy in South America in order to resurrect the Diamonds tour with a South American leg. For example in the second verse the way Rihanna sings the lyric "Laying in his bed" sounds a bit like she's singing "Lenin is dead." Along with Karl Marx Vladimir Lenin is considered one of the father's of Communism which is apparently still popular in parts of South America. Therefore some of the more paranoid leaders in nations such as Venezuela and Bolivia could get the impression that by announcing that "Lenin is Dead" Rihanna is trying to energise an anti-Communist movement which is a huge historical issue on the continent due to the CIA's School of the Americas program.
The main message though is an attempt to continue the discussion about what happens now to Rihanna. With it pretty much accepted that there won't be a South American leg of the Diamonds World Tour the management's plan was that Rihanna would now be back in a hugely damaging relationship with Chris Brown and in the absence of a career in the music industry would be instead be focusing on shoddy charity projects such as VivaGlam and the hideous UNICEF(US) campaign against the Philippines. By getting Rihanna to appear alongside Shakira who is very successful in her charity work on a song about remembering to forget people the management were trying to promote discussion about whether anyone in the business would remember Rihanna's name long enough to give a sh*t what charity work she did.
16:30 on 13/1/14 (UK date).
11/2/3.
CBB's Not So Saucy Sunday.
I didn't bother write up Saturday's (11/1/14) episode of Celebrity Big Brother because it was entirely dominated by the row between Dappy and Luisa Zissman. If there is any doubt that Dappy lost this argument he ended up bringing up his GCSE results. GCSE's are compulsory exams that all British school children take when they're 16 years old. For most people they are quickly replaced by more meaningful achievements. So even at 17 bringing up your GCSE results in an argument about anything other then your GCSE results just makes you look like a fool.
As for the argument itself rather then being a short shouting match it actually went on for hours with Luisa frequently walking away only for Dappy to effectively stalk her around the house constantly starting up with a new stream of abuse. This has promoted some discussion about whether Dappy should have been given a formal warning about his behaviour. After all unlike Evander Holyfield's comments on homosexuality Dappy was having a direct and negative impact on at least one and possibly all housemates. For example Luisa's subsequent argument with Lionel Blair was simply a result of everybody in the house being stressed out and just really enjoying shouting.
In the end though the group seemed to effectively self-regulate so by Saturday (broadcast Sunday) Dappy had clearly got the message that he'd gone too far. For example when the housemates were rewarded for a task with pictures of their loved ones from home Dappy made a big effort to be seen admiring pictures of Luisa's daughter and apologising for his behaviour. Apart from the TV camera's Dappy also made sure that this apology took place in full view of Jasmine Waltz. That's because - revealing his true motivations - when he was attacking Luisa on Friday Dappy kept cornering Jasmine in a effort to force her to agree with what he was saying about Luisa. Jasmine basically responded to him by staring at him as if he were an idiotic child - a consensus that continued throughout his apology.
The special task that won the housemates the pictures of their loved ones centred around Sam Faiers who has a large reality TV fan base from her appearances in the ITV2 "structured reality" show "The Only Way is Essex" (TOWIE). Although Sam is playing an important role in the house quietly connecting different warring parties and helping keeping everyone's stress levels down this is largely a silent, background role that doesn't get a lot of airtime. Therefore the special task was an effort to give Sam reason to appear in the highlights show. First Sam had to take one housemate aside and tell them that she is attracted to them. Unfortunately she chose Ollie Locke who seems to really have a little bit of a crush on Sam.
Next Sam had to accuse another housemate of gossipping about her behind her back. Sam chose Jasmine and Luisa. This immediately led to Luisa revealing that the only thing the two had said about Sam is that she and Ollie would make a good couple. Falling for it Jasmine immediately responded by accusing her rival Casey Batchelor of telling Sam that she and Luisa had been gossipping in an effort to stir up trouble. As this was completely untrue and perhaps an example of Jasmine projecting aspects her own personality onto other whilst Sam had been called away to speak to Big Brother Jasmine and Casey got into a short but intense shouting match. Needless to say when Sam returned to announce that it had all been made up the atmosphere in the house was awkward to say the least.
The big news from Saturday's events (Sunday's show) was the two rooms task. If you've been reading this in another country and have been shocked by what has been going on in the show don't worry - all the bed hopping means that the show has been getting very close to breaking the rules of what can be broadcast on TV. However I would say that the production staff have been doing a very good job of staying on the right side of the rules. For example it is all broadcast after the watershed when impressionable young viewers are supposed to be in bed asleep. Also rather then showing housemates engaging in sex acts producers have instead only shown enough so that viewers who are already familiar with the subject matter can fill in the blanks for themselves. I'll agree that some of the housemates conversations about what has been going on have been rather descriptive but sexuality is one of the most powerful and important elements of the human condition so it seems a bit childish that we're not allowed to at least discuss it.
The show's lawyers and compliance officers are clearly starting to have had enough of being woken from their beds at 3AM though. So on Saturday (Sunday broadcast) the housemates were split into two groups and sent to two, separate mini-houses (rooms). One room was designated as the "children's house" and involved housemates singing nursery rhymes and playing children's party games and generally acting as if they were presenting a children's TV show. The other room was designated as the "adult house" and involved housemates dressed in BDSM (PVC & leather) style outfits engaging in activities such as pole dancing, toe-sucking and what can only be described as free-form spanking. Try and guess which mini-house Dappy was sent to.
The purpose of this task was of course to remind the housemates that they are on a TV show and that TV show has to appeal to a range of viewers in an effort to get them to moderate their behaviour. What was interesting though is that while Lee Ryan, Jasmine and Luisa were sent to the adult house Jasmine's main rival for Lee's affections Casey was sent to the children's house. This seemed to be an effort to reunite Jasmine with Lee in order to get her to drop the Jessie J/Luisa thing which is coming across as homophobic and could end up testing the bounds of the rules regarding the use of vulnerable people in TV shows. However at the same time being reminded that she can't do the one thing needed to control Lee Jasmine seems to be holding back. She is though seeming to begin to calculate that due to it's large homosexual fan-base homophobia is not the way to win in Celebrity Big Brother.
Probably the most stunning element of the adult room was the way the 85 year Lionel Blair performed his role of S&M policeman with all the gusto that has earned him a reputation as a consummate professional. After the task had ended Lionel went off to take a few minutes to get out of character leaving Jim Davidson to explain that rather then the filth and depravity Lionel was probably most offended by the way the other housemates weren't prepared to take his direction during the task. Jasmine immediately took offence to this rather innocuous comment and spent the rest of the evening trying to wind Jim Davidson up. As I've mentioned Jim Davidson has a reputation for being homophobic so Jasmine seemed to be attempting to temper her own homophobia (which comes from a really deep place) by being seen to give the homophobe a tough time.
11:35 on 13/1/14.
As for the argument itself rather then being a short shouting match it actually went on for hours with Luisa frequently walking away only for Dappy to effectively stalk her around the house constantly starting up with a new stream of abuse. This has promoted some discussion about whether Dappy should have been given a formal warning about his behaviour. After all unlike Evander Holyfield's comments on homosexuality Dappy was having a direct and negative impact on at least one and possibly all housemates. For example Luisa's subsequent argument with Lionel Blair was simply a result of everybody in the house being stressed out and just really enjoying shouting.
In the end though the group seemed to effectively self-regulate so by Saturday (broadcast Sunday) Dappy had clearly got the message that he'd gone too far. For example when the housemates were rewarded for a task with pictures of their loved ones from home Dappy made a big effort to be seen admiring pictures of Luisa's daughter and apologising for his behaviour. Apart from the TV camera's Dappy also made sure that this apology took place in full view of Jasmine Waltz. That's because - revealing his true motivations - when he was attacking Luisa on Friday Dappy kept cornering Jasmine in a effort to force her to agree with what he was saying about Luisa. Jasmine basically responded to him by staring at him as if he were an idiotic child - a consensus that continued throughout his apology.
The special task that won the housemates the pictures of their loved ones centred around Sam Faiers who has a large reality TV fan base from her appearances in the ITV2 "structured reality" show "The Only Way is Essex" (TOWIE). Although Sam is playing an important role in the house quietly connecting different warring parties and helping keeping everyone's stress levels down this is largely a silent, background role that doesn't get a lot of airtime. Therefore the special task was an effort to give Sam reason to appear in the highlights show. First Sam had to take one housemate aside and tell them that she is attracted to them. Unfortunately she chose Ollie Locke who seems to really have a little bit of a crush on Sam.
Next Sam had to accuse another housemate of gossipping about her behind her back. Sam chose Jasmine and Luisa. This immediately led to Luisa revealing that the only thing the two had said about Sam is that she and Ollie would make a good couple. Falling for it Jasmine immediately responded by accusing her rival Casey Batchelor of telling Sam that she and Luisa had been gossipping in an effort to stir up trouble. As this was completely untrue and perhaps an example of Jasmine projecting aspects her own personality onto other whilst Sam had been called away to speak to Big Brother Jasmine and Casey got into a short but intense shouting match. Needless to say when Sam returned to announce that it had all been made up the atmosphere in the house was awkward to say the least.
The big news from Saturday's events (Sunday's show) was the two rooms task. If you've been reading this in another country and have been shocked by what has been going on in the show don't worry - all the bed hopping means that the show has been getting very close to breaking the rules of what can be broadcast on TV. However I would say that the production staff have been doing a very good job of staying on the right side of the rules. For example it is all broadcast after the watershed when impressionable young viewers are supposed to be in bed asleep. Also rather then showing housemates engaging in sex acts producers have instead only shown enough so that viewers who are already familiar with the subject matter can fill in the blanks for themselves. I'll agree that some of the housemates conversations about what has been going on have been rather descriptive but sexuality is one of the most powerful and important elements of the human condition so it seems a bit childish that we're not allowed to at least discuss it.
The show's lawyers and compliance officers are clearly starting to have had enough of being woken from their beds at 3AM though. So on Saturday (Sunday broadcast) the housemates were split into two groups and sent to two, separate mini-houses (rooms). One room was designated as the "children's house" and involved housemates singing nursery rhymes and playing children's party games and generally acting as if they were presenting a children's TV show. The other room was designated as the "adult house" and involved housemates dressed in BDSM (PVC & leather) style outfits engaging in activities such as pole dancing, toe-sucking and what can only be described as free-form spanking. Try and guess which mini-house Dappy was sent to.
The purpose of this task was of course to remind the housemates that they are on a TV show and that TV show has to appeal to a range of viewers in an effort to get them to moderate their behaviour. What was interesting though is that while Lee Ryan, Jasmine and Luisa were sent to the adult house Jasmine's main rival for Lee's affections Casey was sent to the children's house. This seemed to be an effort to reunite Jasmine with Lee in order to get her to drop the Jessie J/Luisa thing which is coming across as homophobic and could end up testing the bounds of the rules regarding the use of vulnerable people in TV shows. However at the same time being reminded that she can't do the one thing needed to control Lee Jasmine seems to be holding back. She is though seeming to begin to calculate that due to it's large homosexual fan-base homophobia is not the way to win in Celebrity Big Brother.
Probably the most stunning element of the adult room was the way the 85 year Lionel Blair performed his role of S&M policeman with all the gusto that has earned him a reputation as a consummate professional. After the task had ended Lionel went off to take a few minutes to get out of character leaving Jim Davidson to explain that rather then the filth and depravity Lionel was probably most offended by the way the other housemates weren't prepared to take his direction during the task. Jasmine immediately took offence to this rather innocuous comment and spent the rest of the evening trying to wind Jim Davidson up. As I've mentioned Jim Davidson has a reputation for being homophobic so Jasmine seemed to be attempting to temper her own homophobia (which comes from a really deep place) by being seen to give the homophobe a tough time.
11:35 on 13/1/14.
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