Blogland,  Media

Little Sister Rejects Big Brother

Less elevated readers of Harry’s Place may have heard of the television programme Big Brother. It’s been hard to ignore for the last decade. The idea is that a dozen or so people all live together in a big house and slowly drive each other insane on camera until only one of them is left. That person scoops a cash prize.

I am disappointed to report that we won’t have the pleasure of watching Laurie ‘voice of a generation’ Penny on the new series of Celebrity Big Brother due to start soon.

Penny said:

It took me a whole twelve hours to decide…partly because – coming clean for a moment – I’ve always loved that mad bloody show, and I’ve wondered for at least ten years what it would be like to be on it.

Sadly her inner prig said no:

There is a banality at play in the British press – and I mean the entire glorious sweep of it, from the Observer Review to Big Brother – that makes me more uncomfortable the more of it I discover. It’s a banality that’s inimical to the sort of reasoned, sensible debate we desperately need in these nervous times. It’s not about celebrity culture, and it’s not about 24-hour news cycles, though it has something to do with both, and it infects everything. It’s about speed of turnover, a dull hunger for comment, the privileging of celebrity above content when it comes to argument, a culture that would rather watch people unravel than listen to their ideas, a culture that would rather bitch and carp spitefully amongst itself than actually try to change the world.

Whatever.

I would have paid good money to see her trapped in a dorm with Melanie Phillips.