Rectum? I hardly knew 'em: A few obsolete thoughts on Celebrity Big Brother

Working nights is always odd. Having a tea break at 4am isn't something that man was meant to do.

It's even odder if the reason you're having a break is because Carol McGiffin finally packed it in and went to bed, to do a bit of farting.

And so ends a summer of Big Brother, and a mini-summer of Celebrity Big Brother. It's been wonderful, really. I've typed myself stupid as celebrity and non-celebrity housemates talked themselves into oblivion. I've watched Dexter Koh painstakingly plotting and replotting his gameplan after each eviction. I've watched Louie Spence, in a matter of days, go from human lightning bolt to dead-eyed prisoner of war. I've watched Abz from 5ive stack a load of cushions.

I've also heard some things. I've heard some things no one should ever hear. Who knew the world of Brit-celebs was so poo-focused? A very faeces-orientated people, these celebrities. It, surely, takes normal humanoids in a normal humanoid relationship a fairly long time before that particular level is reached. For the celebrity-inclined, it takes roughly one post-dinner chat before the subject comes up. The arse in general seems a pivotal part of the celebrity conversation package. On the very first night, the bedroom was a chorus of chirruping farts. A few days later the girls joined in with their slightly higher range, giving us the full piano roll, a symphony of arse-music cheerily parped into my ears.

I'm not saying celebrities aren't allowed to fart, or shit, or even talk about their farting and shitting in such great detail that you wonder if you'll ever dream in colour ever again. All I'm saying is I watched a house full of regular humdrum flesh-bods for 9 weeks, and it took them 'til at least week 7 before they would even acknowledge to one another the impressive regularity of their 9am sharp shit every morning. God only knows what a pair of celebrities would talk about 7 weeks down the line.

So: I've come to the conclusion that due to the world of fad colonics, wheatgrass, anti-grav enemas, and whatever else, the celeb arsehole leads a very different life to the man-in-the-street's arsehole. One's probably dusted with glitter for a start. Essentially, as early adopters of every diet craze known to man (and therefore, a wide range of stuff involving shitting the weight away), your average celeb is more simply far more inclined and open to discussing precisely what's going on with their rectum than a normal, cheeks-clenched non-celeb.

Big Brother UK: Part 1

Big Brother never made it to NZ. Due to a critical lack of personalities and camera gear, we instead opted for importing the Australian version and found ourselves in love with some of the dullest people that Australia could muster. Ben, the dullest, was crowned the winner and then dropped into a blackhole. That's just how it goes.

But not in Britain.

Unlike Australia, Britain produces characters. Proper eccentrics that, unlike the New Zealand public, the British take to their hearts -- to such an extent that the show is now in its 14th series. So, in an effort to avoid detection as an Antipodean dullard, I've been watching it too. My findings are as follows:

Wolfy

Wolfy claims to not have a TV or the internet, yet somehow has wanted to be on Big Brother since she was a child. How did this obsession begin? Perhaps she got her Shaman to conjure the show? Presumably she was walking in the woods one day when a squirrel suddenly stiffened and began to intone: "Eleven-thirty-four-pee-em. Peter's lost his tweezers." This seems far-fetched, but she does get information from flies, who not only know about the argumentative foibles of humans but also the meta-argumentative foibles of humans trapped in a reality television show. Such is the life of a human without a TV.

Wolfy winds me up the most (ish), but then I find myself suddenly rooting for her when she runs crying to the Diary Room after another interrogative onslaught from Detective Dan. She's clearly not an actor, Dan. The last actor was head housemate with special privileges -- Wolfy barely does more than smoke, spit and perform the occasional Pagan ritual.

Dan

Objectively speaking, Dan's a dick. Well, he's alright -- when he doesn't have a hunch. Except he always has a hunch, and he always sits around frowning about it. He seems to base his entire "Wolfy = Actor" case on the fact he had a hunch about Michael - which turned out to be true. But so did Sallie have a hunch about Michael, and Sallie was partially insane, which puts Detective Dan in some fairly dubious crime-solving company to say the least.

Jack and Joe

While they're an ostensibly cheerful pair, there's something about two fairly identical pink-faced twins with sing-song names speaking in East End accents that makes me weep for my life. They look like they'd tell childish, cutesy rhymes that suddenly explode into "and that's why he's a fucking bloody mess" as a giant, ham-sized ring-laden fist slams onto the table.

Jack and Joe resemble giant babies. They laugh like babies -- that kind of brainless, instinctive hollering that infants do at peekaboo or a funny noise. When it's a child, it's fairly cute. When it's two 18 year old men, it's creepy. What unnerves me most is the way it comes and goes so sharply, like an on-off switch, a happy round open face that suddenly snaps back to a heavy-browed nothingness, staring blankly while the pigs tuck into their old mate Mickey who had to die because he grassed up their dodgy gear to the old bill and put a right spanner in it.

Realistically, they're probably just the new Jedward, except without the singing or the hairdressing or whatever. Hopefully, Jack and Joe's bickering is harnessed correctly and they're sent round the world like Karl Pilkington, to places neither wants to be and to do things neither wants to do, with a full English forever just out of reach.

Callum

Callum is (for the time being) the fence-sitter of the bunch. Which is admirable -- why is it always the way with these people to "tell it like it is" and have enormous bust-ups? Us norms don't go through life instinctively barking at every ugly person we see. Therefore, Callum, for all his snooze-inducing dullard tendencies, represents the regular person in the house. The humanoid of the bunch, perhaps.

Jackie

All satisfied murmuring and indigestion, Jackie's at that age where she loves nothing more than to put her feet up (oh, bliss. Yes. Just, mm, bliss) -- but not before sprinting about doing her exercises, washing the dishes and cooking tea. A reminder of the fate that awaits all of us.

Daley

The most reasonable person in the house. So reasonable in fact that the only thing counting against him is that he decided to go in the house in the first place. Clearly doesn't want to be there, and is clearly bored stiff by his companions. May he remain trapped forever.

a giant pile of shame

"I used to write it and hide it in a shoebox under my bed. Even back then, I knew it was a giant pile of shame." - Someone, whose name I cannot remember, posting on SomethingAwful's forums.

And it's true. It is a giant pile of shame that must stay hidden under the bed. Except now, you can make a small amount of cash out of it, too.

My first experience with fan fiction dates back to about 1996. The internet, at least in New Zealand, barely existed and the world was probably better for it. At the time I was a big fan of Sonic the hedgehog in all his money-spinning guises, and regularly bought the comics.

At some point the comic started featuring a dubious "Tales From Cyberspace" section. This would usually involve some guy writing about the month's Sonic-related "events" on the "web", or something, and I would read it, and could do nothing but sit and wonder.

And then one month it mentioned "extra" Sonic stories that could be found on the internet. So I fired up this internet, and had a look. Or rather, my parents had a look with me -- this being 1996, and the internet being an expensive, long-winded affair that required hours of dialling up and navigating vast empty stretches of cyberspace with nary a Jeeves to assist you.

This was also back when website addresses featured loads of ~'s and always had an .edu domain name, because only the universities could host websites (or, apparently, reams of fan fiction). I had to ask, and then watch, as they tapped in the address into the address bar and waited patiently while a giant pile of shame loaded up on the screen.

It was dutifully printed out and I found myself with 10 double-sided pages of what appeared to be some kind of Sonic the hedgehog novella. It was very boring. The thing opened with a lengthy description of some character named Bookshire, who I'd never heard of. He turned out to be a mole; a mole who was also a wizard, all shambling, stuttering urgency and enormous spectacles slipping down his face as he consulted the runes and talked mystical bollocks while I stared aghast at the page.

Sonic turned up a few paragraphs in, and I was elated, until he almost immediately fucked off and left me stranded with this Bookshire thing again.

Even then, as a 9 year old, I couldn't understand it. Why would someone write this? Why would someone think the only thing missing from Sonic the Hedgehog's comic book is a fucking magical mole-creature who shuffles around boring everybody to death? And why was I holding ten flippin' pages of this stuff in my hands?

"Tales From Cyberspace" couldn't explain it to me -- because you can't explain fan fiction. It's a giant pile of shame that should be kept hidden under the bed, and never shown to anyone, ever -- never mind selling the fucking stuff on Amazon.

So my adventures with fan fiction began and ended in 1996. I was told that, after I finish the first one, we could print another story out. Another ten pages of Bookshire. Faffing about in his hobbithole. Unspooling his tales of incomprehensible tedium. With Sonic only popping up near the start to write himself out the story altogether and abandon me to this madman.

I didn't go near the internet again until 1999.

a hideous, gnarled-up goblin of stress.

Being a penniless bastard has it's drawbacks. Aside from the obvious, it also involves a tremendous amount of stressing out.

Stressing out is probably not that good for one's health, especially since, even though I've managed to divert near-doom for another few months, I still occasionally like to have a bit of a mid-afternoon panic attack. Possibly just for old time's sake, but more likely because my body has become accustomed to a near constant state of stomach-churning fear. I tend to walk around with a perpetual half-grimace, ready at a moments notice to slip into a full-on scowl, just in case I remember some debt or payment that's still looming over my head. I figure it's only a matter of time (and worry) before I eventually morph into a hideous gnarled-up stress-goblin.

Being a bottom-rung scumbag who is (vaguely) on the climb has also shown me how quickly I am able to graduate from one worry zone to another. Got no job? Freaking out about no money. Find a job? Freaking out about having a small amount of money. I can only assume that by the time I'm a billionaire (not long now) I'll be worried about owning only one Greek island instead of two.

I've also become almost hysterically jealous of anyone I come across who looks likely to be richer than me. Due to being quite definitely Un-Rich, I cast a wide net; essentially anyone who isn't wearing readily identifiable Primark trousers, or has a pair of water-tight looking shoes is fair game for some scowling and muttering.

All of this has brought me to one final conclusion: should've studied economics. Oh well.

earning more than a fart in a sack

You're in London. You're talking to someone with a vaguely antipodean accent. You decide to start jabbering about Flight of the Conchords, when you're suddenly hit with a problem. Or maybe you just want to talk about how Paul Hogan's turn in "Flipper" redefined what it means to play support to a fish -- regardless, the moment has arrived: you've no idea if you're talking to an Australian or a New Zealander. 

Fortunately, there's a really easy way to find out, without causing offence:

"Are you making more money in London than you were at home?"

If the answer is yes, you've got a New Zealander on your hands. A grateful, begging, bottom-feeding New Zealander, clinging for dear life onto the big wide world of earning more than a fart in a sack.

If no, you've got an Australian, here for travel, here for the experience, but also dying to get back home to the land of $20 an hour at the most lowly retail jobs, of $25 an hour putting crap on shelves at Countdown.

Yesterday while temping I discovered I was alone in thinking that 8 pounds an hour for some filing and standing about was pretty good. Very good, in fact. So good that it was actually the most I've ever been paid (during a day-shift) in my life, and it was just as much as my partner's job as a reporter back in NZ.

The Australians thought we were mad. Their earning power back home is so high that all of them were planning to bugger off back long before their visas even ran out. Compare this attitude to the posts on the Facebook group Kiwis In London: every few weeks someone pops up asking how they can overstay, or how can they get back in as a tourist after their visa expires, or how can they get married to a British-born roll of carpet so they can stay in this wonderful little country for just a few years longer. 

When registering at a recruitment agency, they asked me what my salary expectations were. I suggested the "London Living Wage", expecting it to be about £6.83 -- a rough equivalent of the NZ minimum wage..

"Do you actually know how much that is?" 

"Er, well, no."

They then told me it was £8.50, and I fell off my chair.

A high-powered slicked-back pony-tailed bastard power-lunching through life like an Armani-clad bullet-train

I bought a suit the other day. If you've read the other posts, you'll know where I got it from. Normally, I'd proudly bellow about its origins, price tag and relative sturdiness, but in this case I'm overcome with shame.

There's so much psychic baggage associated with wearing a suit, and the price of the thing is just the start.

Yesterday, I went out in my suit to an interview. Afterwards, I strolled around central London for a bit. And I noticed something. Suddenly the other suit-guys, the presumed City traders, were looking at me. Sizing me up. Who's this guy? Do I know this guy? Doesn't he manage the Peterson account? Is that a BHS suit? I'd left the realm of lowly faux-hipster and, for a thrilling half-hour, I was a suit-guy.

I've always wanted to be a suit-wearing yuppie, even though the dodgy ethics of the whole thing clash head-on with my own half-arsed socialist values. A high-powered slicked-back pony-tailed bastard power-lunching through life like an Armani-clad bullet-train, helping to water the ticking time-bomb planted by Regean's market deregulation, and then pissing off scot-free to run for Prime Minister while pulling "Who, me?" faces as the economy burns. This secret desire likely started when I saw American Pyscho, and instead of nodding wisely at the 80s-materialism-taken-to-extremes motif (probably), I went and downloaded some Phil Collins and tracked down Wall Street. So despite being in London instead of New York, and being unemployed instead of having any kind of income whatsoever, I entered the world of the City trader.

It's a fast-paced world, for sure. We suit guys like to force ourselves onto the tube regardless of whether or not there's any physical room left on the train. We also like to run screaming towards the train from the other end of the station as the doors slowly shut, and then almost lose half our face forcing them apart. It's either that, or wait 3 minutes for the next one. It's no co-incidence that the 'Mind The Gap' signs portray a tie-wearing suit-dude tumbling to his death.

Sometimes we like to get together in a big group and collectively blank a Big Issue vendor. Bootstraps, buddy! Other times we like to stare at female office workers until it becomes not just creepy but really rather scary. When caught out, we widen our eyes and menacingly chew (cocaine-flavoured?) gum at them in slack-jawed defiance.

We've also become accustomed to berating fast-food workers. One particular gent entered a closet-sized Subway and demanded to know why there was nowhere to wash his hands. This is discrimination, he said. The soap's good enough for the staff, but not for us. "Are you nervous? Are you scared?" he asked, as he advanced on the manager. I stood agape at this profoundly ridiculous man, and then at the woman behind him, in a "Can you believe this guy?" fashion, until I realised she was his partner and trying her best to turn invisible. How his hands came to be so caked in filth, he didn't say, but in the end he ordered a sandwich and ate the thing, muck-encrusted hands and all. Presumably he picked it up with the napkins. 

Sadly, I completely blew my cover by being unable to stop myself taking photos of famous landmarks, and then posing for photos in front of famous landmarks, and then running around giggling and shouting the theme song from City Guys. I also passed on an overstuffed train, bought a Big Issue, forgot to creep anyone out, and successfully ate at a Subway restaurant without ruining my partner's day.

12 months of winter

I've gotten used to winter. It's become the norm. My natural setting. Bundling up in my coat before heading out, sloshing through half-melted snow, watching bright red blood streak across white grass as the wolves vanish back into the fog, etc etc. 

This is partially due to the power of central heating -- I don't think I've ever had a warmer, balmier winter. Combine the genius of the wall-mounted radiator with double-glazed windows and you've got the kind of temperatures normally associated with tropical islands. Sat around barefoot in a T-shirt, eating ice-cream; I'm surprised they're not growing hideous child-sized insects in the homes over here.

Compare this to my winter experience in NZ: even in my parent's house there was the mad dash down the arctic tundra of the hallway, that unheated space between the lounge and the bedrooms, so cold that it somehow smelt faintly of a freezer full of meat. And then there were the flats -- sitting up writing essays by the heater, clad in three to four layers, two pairs of socks, shoes, and a hood, with my hands clasped around a mug of scalding black coffee. And still freezing. 

Which is partially why I'm always baffled by the "So, how're you finding the winter over here, then?" question. I understand people over here think of NZ as a tropical island nation, but I still haven't been as cold here, outside in the snow, with my shoes soaked through, as I've been in one of the shithole flats I endured back in Hamilton. Zero insulation and a fan heater aren't a winning combo when it comes to keeping warm -- but it has prepared me for what has essentially been 12 months of winter. 

My last day of summer was in February, 2012. I left NZ at the very start of spring, and only had to deal with a few days of hot weather before I plunged myself into the howling winds of the UK's autumn. 

It's got to the point where the onset of summer is actually worrying me. What happens in summer, again? The clocks go back, as they did today, and suddenly the idiots are out in the 7pm daylight, on their way to drinks and barbecues, shouting and hollering at each other in the supermarket. In winter, it was just one rugged-up duvet-man after the next -- and now I have to see people. Half-naked people, in fact -- if my memory of NZ's summer serves. Which it might not. It has been over a year, after all. 

I mean, what do I wear? Sunglasses? Shorts? What about my coat? How will I cope without a coat? Where will I put my wallet and keys?  What do I wear on my feet? Do people wear jandals here? Do I even want to wear jandals? Will I have to spend day after day cooling off in the bathtub, soundtracked by the screams of pedestrians sinking into the melting footpaths outside?

Judging by the recent, snow-capped weather, no. And long may it continue. 

A giant fox head bellowing from the coach of the damned

It turns out gambling yourself into a whimpering pile of debt via your smartphone is a national pastime over here. Got a spare few minutes at work? Hit the bingo. Just sitting at home with two friends? Time for bingo. Playing bingo? Play more bingo. With your feet.

All this life-changing bingo playing is then followed up with an instant payday loan to smooth over any gaping holes you've just smashed into your bank statement, and then rounded off with a quick trip down to the local Cash4Gold (with whatever old mobiles, gold teeth and treasured family heirlooms you can scrape together) to pay off that loan before it multiplies by 1700%, leaving you back in the black, but now with slightly less stuff. It's a vicious cycle, with each revolution costing you one teapot each time you go around. Unless you manage to hurl yourself down some stairs, which will handily net you a cool £11,000. Well. Probably.

Of course, this is all just an assumption based on the sheer volume of bingo, payday loan, pawnbroker and injury lawyer ads.

An apparently hands-off approach to online-casino adverts has resulted in nearly every ad break containing at least 60 of them. Foxy Bingo. Mecca Bingo. Bung A Random Word In Front Bingo.

The ads themselves aren't much better. Foxy Bingo, for some reason or another, features a terrifying man-fox grooving and jiving aboard some kind of purgatory bus that hurtles round the country, filled with British stereotypes from eras gone by. Doomed to wander the earth and endlessly repeat catchphrases at one another for all time -- they can't cross over to the light until you play some bingo.

There're other, slightly saner, ads. Mr Green sits in a chair and pulls a lever -- where will you be whisked off to today? Athens? Monaco? Your front room? It's more likely your front room. You'll still be sat in the same old house pissing your life up the wall, but you'll have a fancy little backdrop of pyramids and hieroglyphics to entertain you in between the bouts of sobbing. If you're lucky, Mr Green might turn up every now and then and dip his bowler hat at you and say something cryptic at you, you devilish card. Wink Bingo refreshingly (for an ad) features topless men jigging about -- but then you realise this is because they're probably trying to target stay-at-home mums.

The worst might be Paddy Power's ad for their bingo app. A woman attending a yoga class opts to sneak out and do a bit of gambling in the car instead. A bit like, oh, a gambling addict. It's only a matter of time before some lad's mag has an ad where they replace 'yoga' with 'work', and 'gambling' with, er, 'reading'. 

Ten brooms (and other obligatory purchases):

The other week at a Poundshop, I bought an optical mouse. For a pound! Sure, it clicks like a 90’s r&b rimshot, and glows a sickly blue when you use it – that’s not really the point. The point is, it cost a pound. One pound.

Britain. Land of bargains.

For 10 pounds, I could get a pair of jeans at Primark. Admittedly, these jeans won’t fit my (apparently) massively overlong legs, but if they did, I could buy a pair for the pleasingly tidy sum of 10 pounds. The arse might violently tear out of them within a week or two (or less, depending on how much lunging needs to be done), but that’s at least as long as a NZ$35 pair from Jay-Jays.  

Or, instead, that 10 pounds could go elsewhere, and I’ll come home with 10 brooms. Ten of the bastards! Or 10 “vocal microphones” that are probably more likely to pick up big-bang static and passing ghosts than actual vocals. Or 10 2-in-1 pregnancy tests! Or 10 precision screwdriver kits! Or 10 dubious hair-dye kits! Or any combination of these, and more!

Based on the exchange rate, the equivalent to a Poundshop back in NZ should be the 2 Dollar Shop. The 2 Dollar Shop, however, almost exclusively deals in worthless crap. Kaleidoscopes, mood rings, bags of army men. You won’t find yourself walking out of the there with an armful of TV cabling anytime soon, I can tell you that.   

What I’ve learnt since arriving in the UK is that NZ is a rip-off. I was dimly aware of this already, what with Peter Bills causing an uproar a few years ago with an inflammatory column about NZ’s ridiculous prices, but it’s really struck me now that I’m actually here.

You can pick up 2 litres of milk here for a pound, or roughly NZ$2. Back home, it’s more like $3.50. A smaller country, sells less milk, prices are higher. Makes sense. But milk is a huge industry for NZ, a huge part of the economy. It goes all over the world – it probably produces as much milk as the UK. And yet the domestic market gets a higher price. It’s likely down to the monopoly Fonterra has over the NZ dairy industry. They’re the only one in the game, they set the prices, and there’s only two supermarket chain to barter with.

Britain, on the other hand, has at least 7 supermarket chains, all ready to claw each other’s eyes out in a desperate, blood-soaked grapple for my cash.

Which is why such a thing exists as 17p own-brand cola. Sure, it tastes like severely watered down imitation vanilla essence with an aftertaste of chewed paracetamol – but that’s not really the point. The point is, it cost 17p. At this price, it costs more not to buy it.